Obviously nobody wants to use a cliche any more than they want to be a cliche, right? It's not flattering or bragworthy to say that what you do or have been doing can be summed up in a cliche or its sister, the catchphrase.   

But Octavia Spencer did just that. She kept her eye on the prize. And man is she happy about it this morning.  

It takes a lot of forethought to get through awards season with your goals and image and self-satisfaction all intact. A lot of planning. You need to pace yourself so that you don't get bored or run out of good dresses or say something stupid on the carpet. She did this note-perfectly. She could write a book.  

First, you line up a rotating cast of your various charming male friends to escort you, endearingly but never boringly, down each carpet all season. Then, form a lasting friendship with a designer who really, really gets your body (and doesn't it seem like Spencer forms a lot of lasting friendships with a lot of significant people? There's no snark behind that comment, I'm just marveling. It says a lot about her that people like her and want to work with her), and save the best dress, the real bang, for last.

I don't believe we need to compare women just because of their relative size, but it will beg saying other places in this blog - Spencer dressed her body, which I heard euphemistically referred to as "not-sample size", to a T. She looked comfortable every single time, she looked glamorous every single time, and the final dress, last night's triumph, cream in some lights, silver in others, with that great drape and cut, she looked like an Oscar winner before she ever heard her name called. Tadashi Shoji's business will go through the roof, as it should.

So I think she played this as well as she possibly could have and has got to be damn proud of herself. But it's still just a statue. And I know this because of the greatest image of the night, which wasn't seen by enough people.

After the show and before Jimmy Kimmel, there was a post-Oscar show that largely consisted of waving at celebs as they went from the Kodak Theatre to the Governor's ball. When the camera finds our girl? She's carrying her Oscar in one hand - and has a big black bag slung over her shoulder. Lainey thinks it was a shopping bag- I wonder if it was a swag/giveaway tote. Either way it looked HEAVY.  

She hoped she could win the prestigious award. She did everything in her power to give herself the best chance. Nothing else changed. Why wouldn't she carry her own bag?

Keep your eye on the prize. Don't get distracted by what other people are doing.  Sometimes a catchphrase is handy, because it's so true. Let's hear it for the newbie who hung on for the ride.