Hard News: CELEBRITY DRUG SHOCK NEWS! AGAIN.
36 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 Newer→ Last
-
Chris Waugh, in reply to
Rupe is the problem; or perhaps its the people who buy his products that are the problem.
Chicken and egg. I doubt there'd be much demand for celeb gossip if the media were all high-minded and intellectual, or at least serious about their role in Keeping the Bastards in Power Honest. And yet, all they're doing is feeding the demand for gossip that is there. People have always been voyeuristic and gossipy, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the media, no matter what historical form it may have taken, has always come with an unhealthy dose of celeb gossip. We want it, so they give it to us, and because they gave us some, we want more, like lab rats hitting buttons for doses of cocaine in some experiment on the nature of addiction. And so it all spirals down Rupert's drain...
I didn't much care for either Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston. I found their music insufferably boring and saw no reason to like them as people. But on hearing of their deaths I felt a vague but bonedeep sadness at the waste of lives crushed up and mutilated by this celebrity machine. Fame is a terrible curse.
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Huh? Really? Vanity Fair? Are you quite sure about that? Because that description doesn’t make any sense to at all to me.
Oh, come on – it isn’t just been Annie Lebowitz covers and celebrity hand-jobs profiles that shift Vanity Fair. Plenty of salacious stories about drugging, drinking, screwing and occasionally murdering glitterati have graced that august tome. Several members of Mr. Kennedy Lawford’s family among them.
Hey, I’m not hypocritical enough to pretend I never spent way too much time, back in the day, gobbling Dominick Dunne’s 1% schadenfreude like candy. I just don’t think it was any less troubling because Dunne was a better writer than your average National Enquirer hack and got printed on better stock. Alleged uxoricide Klaus von Bulow and his self-medicating wife may have been tonier subjects that Whitney and Bobby, but IMO it’s part and parcel of the same deeply exploitative, harmful and toxic media culture.
Of course, this may just be one more thing on which we will agree to disagree.
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Rupe is the problem; or perhaps its the people who buy his products that are the problem.
A LOT from both columns there. A shit is a shit is a shit, as Gertrude Stein might put it. At least you can see the upfront and shameless ones coming. It’s the pious ones who pretend their panty-sniffing is a public good you’ve really got to watch out for.
It’s too convenient to say “Kill Rupert Murdoch and all his works, then all things will be well”; and it would be wonderful if it was that simple. Unfortunately, it isn't.
-
Wuxtra! Wuxtra! Readallaboutit!
and then there were the scandal sheets of the 18th century...With its erudite celebrity dish and insider's tone, the Spectator was aimed at middle-class readers who used it as a cheat sheet to ingratiate themselves into high society, as well as upper-class types eager to make sure they knew all the latest dirt on their contemporaries. And like its modern-day counterparts, the publication's most frequent targets were also its most reliable informants: women of power who loved to spread rumors about their enemies and foes. "There was a competition among upper-class women about who had the best gossip," Gee said. "They were fantastically catty and loved to see their contemporaries fall."
At the other end of the spectrum, pamphlets like "Characters of the Present Most Celebrated Courtesans" were intended for a working-class audience - scullery maids and serving wenches who would have picked it up at lending libraries - though the gentry enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure, too.
Printed on much cheaper paper than the Spectator, these pamphlets trafficked exclusively in the tales of highborn women who had disgraced themselves in public, ensnaring readers with lurid titles like "The History of Betty Bolaine, the Canterbury Miser," and crude drawings of dissipated women in various stages of physical ruin - the etched equivalents of a bleary-eyed Lindsay Lohan mug shot. -
Archibald Alexander Leach swears by LSD!
Before the Beatles, Timothy Leary, and Carlos Castaneda, LSD was the drug of choice for a rarefied circle of glamorous elites who ingested it as part of their psychiatric therapy sessions. We’re talking about people as famous and diverse as aquatic actress Esther Williams, Time publisher Henry Luce, director Sidney Lumet, authors Aldous Huxley and Anais Nin, and composer André Previn. Cary Grant never tried to keep his LSD use secret. In fact, he spoke glowingly about it in a 1959 interview with Look magazine, saying that it had brought him close to happiness for the first time in his life. He also said that LSD taught him immense compassion for other people, and had helped him conquer his own shyness and insecurity.
-
Kumara Republic, in reply to
It’s too convenient to say “Kill Rupert Murdoch and all his works, then all things will be well”; and it would be wonderful if it was that simple. Unfortunately, it isn’t.
I'd say Rupert Murdoch is both a symptom and a cause of this state of affairs. He doesn't have a monopoly on the tabloid industry, but in a perverse way he did perfect it. And, perhaps, who needs to train a regulatory mini-gun on Newscorp when it's mini-gunning itself in the foot?
Also, is tabloidism largely unique to English-speaking nations? Or is it just a case of the language barrier preventing us from hearing about non-Anglo tabloidism?
-
makepeace thackeraygun zzzap!
Vanity publishing…Also, is tabloidism largely unique to English-speaking nations?
there was always the adventures of the three pamphleteers…
and other light entertainment from libelles epoch -
Chris Waugh, in reply to
Also, is tabloidism largely unique to English-speaking nations? Or is it just a case of the language barrier preventing us from hearing about non-Anglo tabloidism?
Oh, there's just as much tabloid nonsense in Chinese as in English, even entirely fake newspapers that have announced the death of Andy Lau (whose character dies in most of his films, but who was very much still alive last I heard) several times.
-
Biobbs, in reply to
Also, is tabloidism largely unique to English-speaking nations? Or is it just a case of the language barrier preventing us from hearing about non-Anglo tabloidism?
It's everywhere. Every European country has them, at least, and the style is identical. Immigrant bashing is particularly popular. Maybe not to the same degree, though, compared to the UK. Their particular level of toxic illegal hypocrisy does seem to be exceptional.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Readallaboutit!
Surely, back in the day, (when the printing press was just about to arrive) gossip was relied on. Chinese whispers was the end product of the horsemen bearing news from town to town. Stage coach would have brought news between towns. That mostly must have all been misheard or misinterpreted or personality clashes would have enhanced bad news etc.Therefore, gossip was an inherent part of our psyche. News travelled but maybe not so accurate so I guess no change there then.
Maybe now with our ability to fact checkish, our patience is being stretched if accuracy is preferred and gossip has earned the category of trash, some trash and not so much trash, but bad behaviour earns king of Trash, eg. Murdoch -
nzlemming, in reply to
IMO it’s part and parcel of the same deeply exploitative, harmful and toxic media culture.
I'm with you on that.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.