What is with Hollywood's newest obsession of peddling out a memoir of every celebutant, hopeful megastar, and fauxlebrity?
I mean, don't get me wrong. I do indulge in the guilty plessure of flipping through a copy of People Magazine while in line at the grocery store, and I gotta say, I do keep up with the Kardashians (shameful, but truthful). But enough is enough.
Things have gotten to a point that I feel, as a professional writer and as a human with a decently working brain, it's insulting to me that books have now been another PR point to jumpstart or reactivate somebody's career. Or even worse, someone who never had a career but has boatloads of money and suddenly wants to be immortalized with a copyright number, somewhere in the halls of the Library of Congress.
Take the ever on-going mother-daughter feud between Tori Spelling and her mother Candy Spelling. Both put out books, with the expectation that the public has been jumping at the chance to read the nitty-gritty details of their oh-so fascinating lives. Yeah. Like the tabloids, E!, and Access Hollywood haven't satiated our curiosity enough. (You know you've got your copy of Stories from Candyland in your Amazon shopping cart, right along side the edge-of-your seat thrill ride put out by former Carmen Electra main squeeze Don't Try this at Home: A Year in the Life of Dave Navarro. Drug, sex, rock and roll, washed-up has been. . .something tells me I've heard that plot-line before. . .)
But these almost seem Pulitzer worthy compared to Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale. Cautionary? Like, side-effects from reading may include STDs, gag-reflex inducement, and a significant lowering of self-esteem? Honestly, if you want to make love like a porn star, well, reading a book isn't going to get the job done. Not that I have any experience, but I am assuming this is one of those things where hands-on instruction and tutorial is key. Beyond that, I just have one major thing to say: Eeeeeeeeewwwwww! We killed trees for this?!
Why do publishing houses insist on throwing this garbage at us? Have we become so shallow, so nosey, so hungry (picture the starving, nervous weasel from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons) for the festering tragedy of these people's lives that we actually have created a demand for this sort of drivel?
Of course the answer is yes. Because though there is probably more worthwhile TV out there, I'll happily watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians on Monday ( Khloe is rockstar) and just as Chekov, Faulkner, and Angelou are by far more fulfilling than whatever LiLo might ever pen, the fact remains, we all love a good trainwreck. And if it involves glitz, glammor, and a DUI with a night in the county jail, all the industry has to say is "All aboard!" and we are so there.
Choo-chooo!
By Sarah
(Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:23 PM)
This is hilarious! And so true... people obviously support this - as you so aptly said - drivel by watching it on TV and subscribing to US Weekly. I think that Americans want to esape the reality of their own lives to read or watch something that they themselves would never do. Secretly, I think it makes them feel more adventurous! :)