I am really looking forward to the awards ceremony for the Best Awards Ceremonies awards, which will be on every TV channel soon. It will have everything: film, music, twerking, smirking, a red carpet from here to the moon along which everyone who has ever done anything ever in showbusiness will parade in the hope of winning best meltdown, best teleprompter reading, best sobbing. It will be glamorous beyond belief because awards are for people who already have them.

Why should these people not further validate each other for our pleasure? They are the facilitators of fantasy, they fuel our imagination. They are the repertory company of our desires. For that they have received fame and fortune. Why not? I love cinema. I love music. I just don't love these ever more homogenous and formulaic award bashes.

This unquestioning acquiescence to provide circuses while the establishment hoards bread is galling. It is not that there are not brilliant individuals and movies and music, it is that these events, from the Golden Globes to the Baftas and Brits, smooth everything out into a bland mutual appreciation society. Culture pats itself on the back as it assimilates anything vaguely challenging, for in the end who does not want a trophy, the admiration of one's peers and lots of free stuff?

The nexus of branding/product placement/sponsorship deals reaches its apotheosis at awards dos. The reward for creativity and talent is that you become a walking placard for a designer and thus one enters the establishment of celebrity royalty, or indeed actual royalty. The king-to-be sits easily in this world because this world is ever more conservative. And increasingly distanced from life as we know it. How else is it that the fab Emma Thompson taking off her shoes is somehow a shocking statement? How come Angelina Jolie wearing trousers is considered daring?

This is a world that has replaced the debutante balls where women all wear long frocks. Maybe it's just me but I haven't worn a full-length dress since I was a bad, bored, bridesmaid aged 10.

Some of these poor souls "get it right" apparently. Well I should coco. These are women whose job it is to look good, but alas some of them "get it wrong" or have the wrong hair or makeup. Alert the court of human rights! Cate Blanchett had the wrong necklace on. I was going to dial 999 but I presume someone already did. The thing is to conform. Fashion, for all its so-called wildness, rigidly hems women in at these dos. You can be a little experimental if you are Tilda Swinton, otherwise sack the stylist. Now that the red carpet is as important for designers as the catwalk and online fashion sites will pick this stuff up so quickly, this is the focus of these ceremonies. Who won best cinematography? No idea. Who looked good? You will have seen that.

To see this stuff up close is mindblowing. These people take a limo for 50 yards from hotel to carpet, just to stand shivering in chiffon and clearly counting the minutes until they can be among their own. It's a trip. For they are increasingly signed into contracts that include this sort of promotional activity – and that is what awards ceremonies are.

Whatever the intention though, these events increasingly resemble the culture of entitlement that exists at the top of society. We don't tend to see celebrity that way, but it is financially bound up to it. These parties with the expensive goody bags, the borrowed diamonds, the clothes no one pays for, mean that stars enter this arena because it is almost impossible for them to function outside it.

And here at ceremonies with strangely unaccountable voting processes – the Oscars and Baftas have members who apply to these organisations, the Brits has a voting academy made up of a 1,000 people from managers to record labels – commerce trumps art.

The Brits hilariously got its skirt tucked in the back of its knickers in public by asking journalists (in return for tickets) to tweet including the @mastercard sponsors. What a racket. We need much more of this transparency. We also need to be told who has paid for and chosen their own clothes, because it turns out that so many fashion icons outsource their taste, have it manufactured by committee and are dressed by the highest bidder. Those awarded for their great individuality are just brand representatives. Surely some of them could fork out for their own gear?

Remember the 1% versus the 99% slogan of the Occupy movement, which was based on the fact that in the US 1% own nearly 35% of the nation's wealth? We find this out of kilter and yet we make an honorable exception for the stars. Why? It's all a bit Ayn Rand, who believed that the community should actually give back to the "wealth creators." We should be grateful that we can watch a room full of rich, successful, people congratulating each other. Really? Some of them are indeed blessed with genius and have enriched so many lives and I am thankful … and glad they have already been rewarded. With money.

But these mawkish displays of self-congratulation and essentially product placement in this weird "all must have prizes" culture grate. Our job is to gawp, admire and passively applaud on cue. Do we just accept graciously our place in the scheme of things? Fine then I'll show you where it is: behind the barricades on either side of the red carpet. And please don't stand too close to the talent.