Fug Madness

We started with a field of 64 celebrities -- or rather, 65 if you count Brown Peldon, and it's more accurately a field of "65 personages of great interest to themselves and, in a few cases, to others."

Either way, over the past few days your mouse-clicks whittled the group down to 16 contenders, most of whom are frighteningly formidable and a few of whom will be summarily booted without so much as a brow furrow. We've got what we pray are some tense-making matchups between stalwarts of fug, seeds both low and high, and a pair of people who have coasted through two rounds on the strength of people deeming them "fugly on the inside." Quite a cast; if we could put them all in a movie together, it would win an Oscar... for cinematography.

If you haven't downloaded the bracket and you'd like to fill it in and see what's in store, here it is (and, yes, I totally published this post the first time without remembering to upload the file... awesome): Download Fug_Madness_2008_bracket.pdf

And now, the reveal of where all that voting has gotten us.

(2) SHARON STONE vs. (11) JULIETTE LEWIS - Friday, March 28

As expected, Sharon put a 77-percent hurt on Scarlett Johansson, and next takes on a renowned nutbar in Juliette Lewis -- who inspired 82 percent of you to vote for her and not for the fug of Keira Knightley.

(5) FERGIE vs. (16) COURTNEY PELDON - Thursday, March 27

Fergie got here by offing Brad Pitt and Rihanna; Peldon may well be the first No. 16 seed to knock off a No. 1 seed in the history of bracketology (let's just pretend that's true, without bothering with stuff like "research"), beating Lindsay Lohan in Round One and then disposing of Paula Abdul in Round Two.

And there's more!

(1) VICTORIA "POSH SPICE" BECKHAM vs. (9) JOSS STONE

These two people are very, very different. One of them is famous for having singing talent, loves wearing loose, floaty clothing, often looks sort of dirty and sticky, and would rather go barefoot and contract any NUMBER of foot fungi than stick a toe in a pair of shoes.

The other is famous for having very little singing talent, loves being squeezed into things that crack her ribs and push the air out of her lungs as much as humanly possible, often looks orange, and -- as witnessed on her fabulous reality special, in which she got pulled over by the cops for speeding while wearing driving flats and quickly changed into stilettos before the police officer asked her to step out of the car -- would rather die than be seen in anything but four-inch heels:

(2) BAI LING vs. (7) KELLY CLARKSON

Ah, yes. Some would call this the battle of the unquestionably talented (K. Cla) versus the questionably talented (you know who). But doesn't the indomitable spirit that Bai Ling puts into her outfits count as a talent? We like to think so. It takes skill to accessorize a two-piece dress with William H. Macy. It takes moxie to go out in the snow practically naked. It takes balls to go out in a homemade crop-top with your own face on it.  All that, AND she can dance.

She can not, as far as we know, sing, unlike her rival here:

(1) MISCHA BARTON vs. (9) KEVIN FEDERLINE

Call us crazy, but it almost seems like the two of these could potentially start dating. Can't you just see it? 2008 K-Fed feels like exactly the kind of quasi-rocker that  Misha would go for. Though whether or not he'd be into Princess Floaty Tunic here is hard to say:

Oh, Mischa. That would be so cute for your high school drama club's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but in the outside world, it just seems likely to get caught in your car door and cut off the circulation to your neck, kind of like what this seems to have done to your ribs. On the other hand, at least you're not wearing THIS anymore. Or dating him, btw. In fact, one could argue this fine man is a total upgrade from Old Firecrotch-Hater Davis (who, we must remind you, sat next to one of us at the movies once and smelled so bad we had to breathe through our mouth. Also, he kept lifting up his hoodie to grab and inspect his belly fat. Also, he consumed: a bag of popcorn, a bag of chips, a bag of Skittles, a carton of Dibs, a Coke, a Slurpee and a lemonade. We just need to continue to tell people that story, that's all):

(3) KEIRA KNIGHTLEY vs. (11) JULIETTE LEWIS

You guys, Juliette is REALLY EXCITED to have made it this far.

Give her an H (for the hideous headband)! Give her a B (for the blue bag she's wearing)! Give her a T (for thinking to wear tights with that). What does that spell? HBT! Which, when you try and pronounce it, sounds as fugly as her outfit. But I don't know why she always has to look so cranky. The clothes didn't force themselves on her. She might want to start considering that as an excuse, though -- it's about all that justifies some of her rocker costumes.

Actually, she'd probably love borrowing this little number from Keira for one of her performances:

The Sweet 16 starts on Thursday, and we have half the field in place, with a one-, two-, three-, and five-seed in action against formidable opponents -- all of whom have achieved some impressive upsets on the road to the next round.

After the jump, you may commence salivating at the prospect of Chloe Sevigny doing battle with one of the toughest, most scantily clad ladies in the field. Both will enter, only one will leave...

(2) JENNIFER LOPEZ vs. (10) LUCY LIU

We realize that Lucy Liu is not to be held directly accountable for anything Pat Field threw at her on Cashmere Mafia, and in fact, one of the reasons we watch that show -- although we can't think what the others are, off the top of our heads -- is that Liu seems to be enjoying herself immensely in that wackadoo clothing (after all, when else will experience doing cardio in a fur hoodie?).

But Lucy does get to make her own decisions sometimes, and her personal tastes seem to run all over the place as well.

Behold, the rare and exotic Silver Taffetaback, almost never spied out in the wild. Do not attempt to pet it, or a venom-crusted stiletto will be inserted rather rudely into your navel. Lucy also recently chose to wear a distracting array of bows on her stomach, and, of course, there's the time she wore a cape that resembles the bastard offspring of an overexcited cotton-candy machine and a collapsible paper lantern. Good GOD, woman. Stop it. And yet, don't.

But can she compete with this magnificent creature?

(1) CHLOE SEVIGNY vs. (9) MARY-KATE OLSEN

This ought to get interesting. The queen of quirk versus Princess Derelicte.

We're sure you spent oodles -- OODLES! -- of time in the Chloe Archives before casting your vote last week, but if you can only look at one photo, please make it this one. It bears telling that when one of our fathers caught sight of that particular picture in the GFY book, he required much convincing before he truly believed the person pictured was a woman.

The good news for M-K O is that we're all pretty sure she's a girl. The bad news involves these shorts:

One more reminder and we won't bug you again: The chosen photos are not the only things you're judging here. They're simply examples of a larger fug, so have the body of work in mind when you vote. Now, take it away, Bjork.

(7) RENEE ZELLWEGER vs. (15) BRITTANY MURPHY

Witness Portrait Of A Thoughtful Actress At Work:

Yeah, so the issue with Renee is two-fold as far as we're concerned. We've made it clear that we're not huge fans of the hair. But you know things are going poorly when a dress that is as pretty as this one puts us into a coma, simply because IT'S SO PREDICTABLE ON HER. There's something to be said for finding something that looks good on you and wearing the heck out of it, but could the girl just consider grabbing a gown that ISN'T like all the rest of her dresses just once?  Couldn't we interest her a cap sleeve? Or some straps? Or ONE STRAP?

We sort of wish Crazy Brittany Murphy would get invited to the Oscars, because we think she'd be fun, at least:

Just a reminder as we head into Fug Madness Round Two: Feel free to judge the contestants on whatever criteria you deem best -- but remember, don't vote based solely on the photos we choose with each entry. They're merely there to serve as examples of a larger body of fug. Now, please, commence warming up your voting finger...

(9) PAULA ABDUL vs. (16) COURTNEY PELDON

I am starting to wonder if Paula Adbul is a long-lost Peldon. Think about it: They're both crazy-bad dressers, they are both people we imagine Simon Cowell would rather eat beetle-crusted knives than speak to on a daily basis, and neither appears to be terribly talented at anything other than standing up for a few minutes at a time and smiling while waiting for the flashbulbs to stop.

Yes, Paula has those hit songs of yore, but if we're being honest, they weren't really good because of HER specifically -- J.Lo could've released "Straight Up" and it would've sounded almost the same. Really, P.Ab is just lucky she found someone to pay her at this late and loony stage in her career. If someone would stick Courtney Peldon in a video with an animated cat for three minutes, she'd be equally qualified to be a talent judge -- say, on Randy Jackson's Sweet-Ass Dance Crew That Is Stepping Up And Serving You, or whatever it's called. I think we'd soon see her emerge as a real Paula Jr. Then they could maybe play mother and daughter in some amazing TV movie about how vodka and curling irons don't mix.

There's even common ground in their dress sense: