Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club has selected their Man and Woman of the Year for 2007: Ben Stiller and Scarlett Johansson. According to their website, these awards "are presented annually to performers who have made a 'lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment.'" Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Julia Roberts, and Robert De Niro are among the past winners of this prestigious honor from one of America's oldest theatrical institutions run almost exclusively by privileged young white men in drag. So, okay, fine, I'll bite:

Scarlett Johansson is SO OBVIOUSLY HYPNOTIZING PEOPLE.

Can we all just wake up and admit this? Rub the shiny dust from your eyes, people, and see what is really happening! She is very, very pretty, and her powers of seduction over elderly gentlemen know no bounds, but must she now take the youth, as well? How, exactly, has she made a "lasting" contribution to the world of entertainment already? I mean, Lost in Translation was a great film, I could see it again and again, but what do you think college-aged boys were responding to more there: The subtle and heartwrenching relationship between Scarlett and Bill Murray, or the opening shot of her ass? And was Girl with a Pearl Earring really all that compelling, and did any of that have to do with her—or did she just have to sit there and stare through the screen, hypnotizing people, while Colin Firth did all the heavy lifting? Did anyone even go see The Island? Sure, one could make a case for Ghost World and Match Point, but does two movies a "lasting" contribution make? Not in my book, PopWatchers, not in my book.

Clearly, the nice folks at the Pudding place have just run out of people to confer this award upon and should probably consider making it bi-annual or perhaps a five-year thing lest they find themselves naming Jennifer Love Hewitt their Woman of 2011. But in the meantime—and this is more of a statement to the general populace—SHINY DUST. RUB FROM EYES.

Um... who's with me?

(Side note: according to her biography, Scarlett was in an off-Broadway play called Sophistry when she was 8, an event notable for the fact that my theater school classmates and I went to go see that and, during a talk-back with the cast, this girl Blair got into a huge fight with Ethan Hawke, who had just made the stupid mistake of telling a room full of kids who were spending $40,000 on a theater education that a theater education isn't necessary. That was awesome. The play was not.)