On the air during her Larry King interview, Paris Hilton told the world that she’d never done drugs, but within hours people were pointing to video clips and photographs that tell a different story. Paris also said she read the Bible everyday while in jail, but when asked, she could not come up with one passage that she liked the most. Now we have a third incident, although this one apparently happened off-air.
While off camera, King asked Paris Hilton if she votes, according to a source. Oh yes, Hilton responded. When did you last vote, King asked according to the insider, who says that Hilton replied, “Last year.†When King wanted to know which election she voted in, Hilton explained, “Presidential.†“I guess she forgot there was no presidential election last year,†quipped one amused source. “She was too busy reading the Bible.â€
Here’s the thing, Paris. People don’t really care what you do; it’s when you lie about it that you’re name gets splashed all over. And this leads me to believe that you don’t care what people say, as long as they’re talking about you. Just a theory.
Now, here’s a headline you weren’t expecting: GAYS WANT AXED ISAIAH BACK. Page 6 has it, though.
ISAIAH Washington is getting some unexpected support in his bid to return to "Grey's Anatomy" – a petition drive spearheaded by a prominent lesbian and gay activist who insists he shouldn't have been axed for his homophobic remarks against co-star T.R. Knight.
Jasmyne Cannick, who worked with Washington on the Pan African Arts Festival, said she's infuriated ABC booted Washington from the show's upcoming fourth season for calling Knight a "faggot" during a scuffle on the set and believes it smacks of racism. So she's launched a petition – which had 1,233 signatures as of last night – to get the actor his job back.
The petition says Washington's firing "further adds to a disturbing new trend at ABC wherein minority actors have been dismissed at an alarming rate over the past two years. Blacks, including . . . Star Jones ('The View'), Harold Perrineau ('Lost'), Alfre Woodard, Mehcad Brooks and Page Kennedy ('Desperate Housewives') have been let go . . . One must ask themselves, what is going on? . . . While we don't approve of [Washington's] use of the F-word at the Golden Globes, Washington has since apologized and gone on to perform community service by way of a public service announcement for the very organizations that have been orchestrating his dismissal. But it seems it wasn't enough."
The actor came under fire last fall after getting into an altercation with Patrick Dempsey, during which he slurred Knight. He later repeated the word at the Golden Globes. Washington later apologized, checked into rehab and met with gay leaders.
Cannick told us: "Isaiah has done more for the gay and lesbian community than T.R. Knight did in or out of the closet. He did what they asked him to do, and now they want to make sure he will never work again. At what point is enough enough?"
A rep for Washington denied the actor was behind the petition but added, "We appreciate [Cannick's] support."
Last week, Washington, 43, said he was "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" regarding his dismissal. "I did everything that the producers and the network asked me to do," he told Entertainment Weekly.
Washington’s actions certainly don’t merit his firing from the show in and of themselves. Now, if he has become such a pariah among his castmates that they are having trouble producing the show, that’s a different issue. But you’d think they’d have known that before forcing him to undergo the humiliation of counseling for something that isn’t a disease.
Aside from the politics, Washington’s character is arguably the most interesting on the show. Frankly, I find not only Knight’s character (the wussified George) but Ellen Pompeo’s title character (Meredith Grey) much less compelling than that of Preston Burke. It’d be a shame to lose him from the cast.
Constance Rice,* a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles, has the smartest take I’ve yet seen on the Don Imus “nappy headed hos” controversy.
More to the point, Imus should only be fired when the black artists who make millions of dollars rapping about black bitches and hos lose their recording contracts. Black leaders should denounce Imus and boycott him and call for his head only after they do the same for the misogynist artists with whom they have shared stages, magazine covers and awards shows.
The truth is, Imus’ remarks mimic those of the original gurus of black female denigration: black men with no class. He is only repeating what he’s heard and being honest about the way many men — of all races — judge women.
Just as black comedians who make mean jokes about Asians and Latinos don’t see themselves as racists, I’m sure that Imus doesn’t see himself as a racist either. He reveres blues artists such as B.B. King and Ray Charles. He praises American icons such as Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. He clearly likes former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford and has interviewed Sharpton a few times. He treated Lani Guinier with uncharacteristic respect during her guest appearance to discuss her latest book.
His sympathy for the Katrina victims came through. And after the James Byrd dragging-lynching in Texas in 1998, Imus did not joke. In serious tones that couldn’t hide his sorrow or disgust, he quietly remarked that it was unwise for black people to ever trust whites.
After listening to him for 10 years, I’ve concluded that Imus is not a malevolent racist. He is a good-natured racist. And the streak of decency running down his self-centered, mean persona is sometimes pretty wide.
That captures Imus perfectly, I think.
I used to listen to the show a quite a bit during my morning commute and have seen the MSNBC simulcast a handful of times. My general take is that he’s a weird dude. He’s simultaneously a self-centered jerk who berates his staff and will ramble on for weeks on end about some perceived slight and a guy who devotes considerable time, energy, and money in trying to ease the suffering of kids with cancer and other debilitating diseases. He’s both a Neanderthal and a patron of the arts. He’s a naive rube and an incurable cynic. Most bright, talented folks are a bundle of contradictions, I guess, but Imus is much more so than most.
Some of the show’s humor, especially that by executive producer Bernard McGuirk, is undeniably racial but probably no more “racist” than that of Lenny Bruce or Red Foxx or Richard Pryor or Chris Rock or Dave Chapelle or Carlos Mencia. No doubt, we’ve learned time and again, it’s different when a member of an ethnic group makes a joke about his own kind than when an outsider does. Yet Rock, Chapelle, Mencia, and others make plenty of jokes about other races without getting nearly the condemnation of Imus.
And, unlike Imus, their material is all pre-scripted. With the exception of some recorded bits, Imus does four hours of off-the-cuff talk every morning.
Duncan Black, taking exception to similar comparisons made by Howard Kurtz on CNN, is dubious of the logic that, because “other people have used the word ho in other contexts” Imus shouldn’t be condemned for it. But Kevin Drum is right:
A slur aimed at specific people is obviously different than a generic slur in a rap song, but it’s not that different. If one is offensive, so is the other, and it’s hard to argue that the cesspool of misogyny in contemporary rap has no effect on the wider culture. It’s not that this excuses what Imus did. It’s just the opposite. If we’re justifiably outraged by what Imus said, shouldn’t we be just as outraged with anybody else who says the same thing, regardless of their skin color?
You’d think.
Imus has been, rightly so, condemned for using racial and gender slurs to describe some decent women whose only sin, apparently, was being less physically appealing to the Imus staff than their counterparts on the Lady Vols. But I don’t see why that’s much worse than rappers and comedians–who are much more influential with our young people than the geezerly Imus–constantly using that language to apply to women generally.
At the same time, though, effective humor is often edgy. Bruce, Pryor, Rock, and others used humor to positively impact the discussion of the incredibly sensitive issue of race. We don’t want to outlaw words that make people angry, nor put topics that make them uncomfortable off the table.
It’s perfectly reasonable for the corporation that pays Imus’ check to want to protect its image and avoid alienating its advertisers and audience. At the same time, it’s been clear for a quarter century or more that this is who Imus is. Firing him for something Rice correctly notes “doesn’t even come close to one of his meaner riffs” would be much more egregious than his remarks.
UPDATE: Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr., perhaps better known by his nom-de-rap “Snoop Dogg,” has weighed in on the controversy.
Snoop frequently refers to women as “b**ches” and “hos” in his music, but he insists Imus’ use of the term was unacceptable and the 66-year-old DJ should be taken off the air.
The Doggystyle star says, “It’s a completely different scenario.”
“(Rappers) are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about hos that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing s**t, that’s trying to get a n**ga for his money. These are two separate things.”
“First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthaf**kas say we are in the same league as him.
Kick him off the air forever.”
Via Steven Taylor, who observes, “To be honest, Snoop’s right–he and Imus aren’t in the same league. Snoop and his ilk are worse in terms of propagating racist and sexist stereotypes and attitudes in our culture.” As if to prove this, the AP provides “Snoop Dogg Hit With Gun and Drug Charges.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
_________
*As an aside, Drum reports that Constance Rice is a second cousin to Condoleeza Rice, who she admires personally even though she doesn’t share her politics. I suspect they’d agree on this particular issue, though.
When his tenure does eventually end, Larry King said his first choice to succeed him would be Ryan Seacrest, the “American Idol†host and disc jockey, presuming he is interested.
“He’s the classic generalist,†Mr. King said, his eyes peering through rectangular lenses that evoke flat-panel televisions. “The only thing I don’t know, and I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, is how versed he is in politics, world affairs. Does he read the paper? Is he interested in Iraq? Because if he is, he’s going to be very good.â€
Told of Mr. King’s comments, Mr. Seacrest, a sometime guest host on “Larry King Live,†said through a publicist that he was flattered. When Mr. Klein was asked about Mr. Seacrest, he was complimentary, though diplomatically noncommittal.
I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure, Seacrest wouldn’t know Barack Obama from Sanjaya Malakar.
I absolutely loved Steve Carell in “The 40 Year Old Virgin“, he’s no doubt going to be hilarious in this movie as well.
The last time we saw Evan Baxter (Steve Carell), he was being tormented by rival Bruce Nolan onscreen, live from their Buffalo TV station. But as time passed and Evan has made up with Bruce, he’s gone onto bigger and better things. Newly elected to Washington D.C. as a congressman, Evan has left Buffalo, New York in pursuit of a greater calling.
But that calling isn’t serving in the illustrious ranks of America’s politics, but being summoned by the Almighty himself (Morgan Freeman), who has handed Evan the task of building a new ark, much as Noah did before.
With time passing by and his family belittled by Evan’s newfound realization, Evan will have to do the work that God has given him in what promises to be an unusual adventure for a man who just wanted to serve his country, might actually be serving humanity.
Vanessa Grigoriadis looks at Comedy Central’s “South Park” as it enters its tenth season for the cover story of this month’s Rolling Stone. The subhead says it all: “For ten years, ‘South Park’ has been the crudest, stupidest, most offensive show on television. And the funniest.”
Some excerpts:
It’s also the most ideologically opaque political show on television, fostering an open-ended dialogue on difficult questions like whether one has a duty to obey unfair laws or if there is a God in an evil world. Unlike The Simpsons, which is intellectual and pleasantly dumb in its portrayal of American life, using both to further a leftist agenda, South Park offers simple parables — often with an optimistic message — to take aim at all issues without ever showing its hand. “If Matt and Trey came out and said what they were about, all of a sudden people would watch the show with a map,” says Penn Jillette, a close friend. “But you shouldn’t have a map to look at during the ride. You must trust the art and not the artist. They’ll never say what they’re about.”
[...]
Most of South Park’s humor either advocates radical individualism (everyone is stupid, so don’t listen to anyone but yourself) and/or a conservative agenda (this is a great country, and you’re a pussy if you’re down in the mouth about President Bush). Neither Stone nor Parker will delineate his political views, and both contend that the libertarian label, which has been applied to them in recent years, is not entirely appropriate. (As far as the “South Park Republicans” tag that was affixed to their fans a few years ago to define the “cool” part of the conservative movement, they say it’s a dumb notion.) They won’t talk about the war, even to voice an opinion on President Bush’s new troop-deployment plan. “I wouldn’t even begin to say I know enough to say if it’s right or wrong, because whomever is telling you it’s wrong is full of shit too,” says Parker. Neither votes — “like, ever,” says Stone. Parker waves a hand in the air. “Each election is a choice with a douche or a turd, so who cares,” he says. “If Gore had beaten Bush, things wouldn’t be much different.”
While Stone is in fact deeply immersed in politics and a serious reader of nonfiction books about the Middle East, I practically have to wrestle him to hear a smidge of his politics: He’s against the War on Drugs, pro-gay marriage, against socialized medicine and basically in favor of free markets, except in cases like dropping public funding for roads or education. As for Parker, who owns a couple of guns, the closest I can come is his paraphrase of Team America‘s climactic monologue: “There’s a difference between dicks and assholes. Because there are terrorists — assholes — you’ve got to have dicks, people who hunt down terrorists. Dicks are bad, and it sucks to be a dick, but it’s way worse to be an asshole, and because there are assholes, we need dicks. So shut the fuck up, all you pussies!”
Try to argue back to this kind of logic, and the joke’s on you, much to the glee of Stone and Parker. “We went to a party in Malibu on the beach recently,” says Stone, “and this woman came up to us, like, ‘Oh, my son is at the University of Colorado, and I can’t get him to go to class, because he snowboards all the time.’ I’m immediately thinking, ‘Fuck you and your kid,’ because I couldn’t afford to snowboard in college. Then I say, ‘Yeah, I still go to Colorado to visit my family.’ She’s like, ‘So they really are just a bunch of gun-toting hicks out there, aren’t they?’ I’m like, ‘I just told you my mom and dad and sister live there.’ Then Trey walks up to her and says, ‘George Bush is a great man.’ She looked like we’d poured acid in her ear. We were laughing our asses off.”
“That’s the most punk-rock thing you can do in L.A.: say ‘George Bush is fucking awesome’ instead of talking about how lame it is that he’s fighting for oil,” says Parker. “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, ‘Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you’re a pierced faggot and whatever.’ ” He looks very pleased with himself. “That’s hardcore.”
At least three major companies want their ads pulled from Ann Coulter‘s Web site, following customer complaints about the right-wing commentator referring to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as a “faggot.”
Verizon, Sallie Mae and Georgia-based NetBank each said they didn’t know their ads were on AnnCoulter.com until they received the complaints.
A diarist at the liberal blog DailyKos.com posted contact information for dozens of companies with ads on Coulter’s site after the commentator made her remarks about Edwards at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Friday.
The Dixie Chicks have been known more for their politics than their music the last four years, so it should have come as no surprise that they won five Grammy awards last night.
After death threats, boycotts and a cold shoulder from the country music establishment, the Dixie Chicks gained sweet vindication Sunday night at the 49th annual Grammy Awards, capturing honors in all five of the categories in which they were nominated.
[...]
The Dixie Chicks took home Grammys for the top three awards: record, song and album of the year. Their “Taking the Long Way†(Open Wide/Columbia) won best country album and “Not Ready to Make Nice†also captured best country performance by a duo or group with vocal. That song is an unapologetic response to the furor set off in 2003 when the band’s lead singer, Natalie Maines, made an off-the-cuff antiwar remark to London concertgoers: “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.â€
But Sunday’s awards were the Recording Academy’s rejoinder to the country music radio establishment, which ignored the album. Accepting the award for song of the year, Ms. Maines joked, “For the first time in my life, I’m speechless.†But she found her voice on later trips to the stage. “I’m very humbled and I think people were using their voice the same way this loudmouth did,†she said, self-referentially, after “Taking the Long Way†was named album of the year. The Dixie Chicks’ sweep of the major Grammy categories served as a sharp counterpoint to their shut-out at the Country Music Association awards in November. The Recording Academy consists of members across the nation who work in all genres of music. The Country Music Association’s membership is concentrated among artists, engineers and executives tied to the Nashville establishment.
The Grammys have a long tradition of giving their country category awards to artists with relatively little appeal to country fans, like k.d. lang, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Lucinda Williams. They also have a history of making political statements with their awards, most notably the bizarre award to Hillary Clinton for her narration of “It Takes a Village.”
Then again, the Grammys have a habit of finding a favorite and sticking with it, especially in the country category. Vince Gill has won the Best Male Country Vocal Performance award nine times and Johnny Cash, Ronnie Milsap, and Willie Nelson–all favorites with the critics and fans alike–have won repeatedly. Similarly, the Chicks won for “Fly” in 2000, before their political activism, and “Home” on February 23, 2003 and didn’t make their big statement in London until March 10. So, while there’s little doubt that politics played a role here, Grammy voters always liked the Chicks.
Still, as Lorie Byrd points out, their nomination and award in the “best country album” category is rather much, “since the Chicks said this was NOT a country album and it got practically no play on country stations.”
Duncan Black uploaded the video of their performance of “I’m Not Ready to Make Nice” at the show to YouTube:
The Chicks still sound great but this song is hardly their “A” material, let alone “Song of the Year.”
The politics of this is all rather odd, generating wild overreaction from both sides. Dissing the president at a concert in the capital of our biggest ally is hardly tantamount to Jane Fonda’s activity in Hanoi. On the other had, we get nonsense like Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead’s remark: “I think people are paranoid. I think that if they speak out, they think they’re gonna get whacked by the government. It’s pretty oppressive now. Look at the Dixie Chicks. They got whacked.” As Betsy Newmark points out, “The government didn’t ‘whack’ the Dixie Chicks. Their fans did. Is the position of the cognoscenti now that fans can’t express their opinions of musical artists by deciding not to buy their music?”
Sean Hackbarth and Dan Riehl both think the Hollywood establishment’s open antagonism to Red State America constitutes a large reason that the music industry is in so much trouble. While I don’t doubt that there’s some minor backlash, it seems far more likely that the wide availability of digital music and the record industry’s clinging to a decades-old album packaging system is the main issue. Red Staters have been making fun of “Hollyweird” for as long as I can remember, yet they continue to go to the movies. And it’s unlikely that people will quit buying Toby Keith and Gretchen Wilson albums to teach the Grammy people a lesson.
Now Anna Nicole Smith is being seen as part of the political discourse. I cannot believe the amount of drama that is surrounding this woman.
Anna Nicole Smith has become an election-season liability for the Bahamian government, which has had to defend its decision to grant her permanent residency while the former reality TV star fights eviction from a secluded waterfront mansion.
Smith’s quick path to Bahamian residency and the high priority given to an investigation into her son’s mysterious death are eclipsing the economy and other issues in political debates as the island chain prepares for general elections next year.
The former Playboy Playmate moved to the Bahamas in July and gave birth to a baby girl in September with little public fanfare. That changed when her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died while visiting Smith at the hospital three days after the baby was born. A private examiner concluded he died from a lethal combination of methadone and two antidepressants.
Smith has since dominated local media and politics in the archipelago southeast of Florida.
Allegations of special treatment surfaced after the head coroner scheduled an inquest three days after Daniel Smith’s death, despite a backlog of requests for inquests into the deaths of ordinary Bahamians. The outcry prompted officials to reassign the head coroner. The formal inquest has not been held.
Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, have called for the resignation of Immigration Minister Shane Gibson, who approved Smith’s residency application based on her claim of ownership of a waterfront mansion. Now it turns out the mansion might not be hers after all.
“She’s had a tremendous impact on our politics, and she’s not going away and the scandal isn’t going away,” said Sir Arthur Foulkes, a newspaper columnist and former Cabinet minister, in an interview.
Gibson personally processed Smith’s residency request but denies opposition claims he went to the mansion to collect the $10,000 application fee.
“No check was ever personally collected by me … in connection with Ms. Anna Nicole Smith,” Gibson said. “Anything to the contrary is a vicious lie conceived in ignorance and spread in wickedness.”
Prime Minister Perry Christie defended Gibson in September, denouncing a claim that Gibson collected the check as “an outrageous lie.” But Christie has not commented publicly on the case since the ownership of the house was called into question.
Smith claimed to own “Horizons,” a gated, waterfront mansion where she has remained largely secluded since her son’s death. But a South Carolina businessman has sued her, alleging she reneged on an deal to make payments on the nearly $1 million mortgage.
Gibson, fending off demands by the main opposition Free National Movement that he resign, spoke before Parliament on Nov. 1 and blamed any inaccuracies on the lawyers who prepared Smith’s residency application.
Smith’s Bahamian attorney, Wayne Munroe, has asked a court to declare his client the rightful owner of the house. He said politics had blown the dispute out of proportion.
Christie is obligated to call elections next year. The ruling Progressive Liberal Party, which dominated Bahamian politics from independence from Britain in 1974 until 1992, will seek its second consecutive five-year term.
Opposition leader Hubert Ingraham says that if elected, he would review the Economic Permanent Residency policy, which encourages investment by allowing a person owning a house worth at least $500,000 and being of good character to qualify for Bahamian residency.
He said the Smith case suggests people who don’t meet either condition take advantage of the law, and the Bahamas should consider abolishing it. source
In his new blockbuster book, “The Way We Were,” Paul Burrell says that Princess Diana had ambitions to become the first lady of the United States.
“She knew a billionaire in America, and she suggested to him that if they were together. … His yearning to run in politics could lead to the White House, that one day she could be the first lady and she’d visit Britain on a state visit,” Diana’s former butler and confidant said to “Good Morning America’s” Kate Snow in an exclusive interview.
Burrell said that in the mid-1990s Diana had dreamed of following in the footsteps of stylish first ladies.
“She’s been a huge fan of Jackie Onassis for years, and a huge admirer, too, of Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton. But Jackie Onassis had the edge. And she fantasized about redecorating the White House,” Burrell said.
“It wasn’t a fantasy. It could have been a reality. It really could. They would have been a golden couple.”
I can’t think of any billionaires, aside from maybe Bill Gates, who could even conceivably get elected president. Still, the idea amuses me. That a woman with nothing more than above average looks and charm could have sequentially been next in line to being Queen of England and then the First Lady of the United States would have been interesting, indeed.
Photos of French Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal in a turquoise bikini have sparked major controversy in a country where politicians are still accustomed to a great deal of privacy.
Paparazzi photographs of Socialist presidential hopeful Segolene Royal in a turquoise bikini have raised eyebrows in Fra22nce and underlined the spread of celebrity culture into France’s traditionally sober political coverage. This week’s edition of celebrity magazine “Closer” included a cover picture of Royal on holiday in bathing suit, cap and sunglasses as part of a survey of “50 stars at the beach.” Its rival VSD followed up with a similar photo of Royal juxtaposed with a picture of Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative she may well face in next year’s presidential election, jogging on the beach over the headline: “Duel in the sun.”
The photos have sparked widespread radio and newspaper comment including a long article in the ultra-serious Le Monde.
Both politicians are shrewd at using the media to push their image as modern politicians ready to breathe life into France’s hidebound political system and both have faced accusations they place style and image over substance.
That has played into the agenda of a celebrity press devoted to the doings of actors, singers and other personalities referred to in France as “les people.” “Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy are the ‘people’ of the vacation season,” VSD deputy editor Marc Dolisi wrote in an editorial. “The public watches their smallest actions and gestures because they have used their private lives as a political weapon with such mastery.”
The comment is undoubtedly true but it may also have been aimed at warding off complaints about intrusion. The French media has traditionally been very discreet about covering politicians’ private lives, steering clear of sensitive issues and sparing them the relentless attention faced by their counterparts in countries like Britain. But the facade has started to crack. Former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin last year threatened legal action against Paris Match for unauthorized pictures of himself on holiday in bathing trunks.
Unmoved by flattering commentary on her figure in Closer (“And to think she’s 53!”), Royal herself initially considered taking legal action but eventually decided against it so as not to whip up even more interest in the issue. Le Monde’s cartoonist Plantu took a more jaundiced view, showing a bikini-clad Royal lying on the beach under a television camera and asking her partner, Socialist Party head Francois Hollande: “Can you rub a bit of cream in?”
The story is sparking tons of media coverage throughout Europe and the Middle East.
Gulf Daily News (Bahrain): “Bikini shots of Segolene Royal, the Socialist favourite for France’s presidential election – printed opposite snaps of her main rival jogging on a beach – have rattled the status quo in a country where politicians’ private lives have long been taboo.” They add that, “the Royal pictures – the first to show a French woman politician in small attire – seem to confirm politicians are now seen as fair quarry for the country’s gossip Press.” The reason it’s so controversial, they explain, is that , “Protected by the law – and a widespread aversion to intrusive tabloid methods – French politicians long managed to keep their extra-marital affairs and illegitimate children tightly under wraps. French communications expert Dominique Wolton said the bikini shots were a ‘dangerous drift’ towards British-style tabloid journalism but that France was ‘still a long way from the gutter Press’ seen across the Channel.”
But recently two processes have gone hand-in-hand. On the one side, the market for “people” magazines in France has sky-rocketed. There are now more than half a dozen major weeklies – with names like VSD, Closer, Voici, Gala, Public – each printing up to half a million copies.
At the same time, with the April 2007 election looming, the two front-runners – Ms Royal and the right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy – have both made the same calculation that wooing the popular media is an unavoidable part of modern-day campaigning. Both have arranged for themselves lavish spreads in Paris Match and other glossies. Mr Sarkozy’s long-running marital problems with his wife Cecilia have become a soap opera, and their recent reconciliation was the occasion for a succession of happy-couple shoots. And Segolene Royal, 53, who underwent a major image change before launching her presidential bid – what the French call un relooking – has also shown every inclination to court coverage. That explains why her apparent anger at the latest paparazzi-pops rings pretty hollow.
The Times of London, also noting that “The magazine Closer was the first to break the unwritten rule banning pictures of female politicians in their swimwear,” expands on that aspect to the story:
Like her closest rival for next year’s presidential elections, the centre-right interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, she has skilfully exploited a sudden boom in “la presse peopleâ€, as celebrity magazines are known, even inviting photographers into the maternity ward after she gave birth to one of her children. It had the desired effect. In a poll for the magazine FHM, her countrymen voted Royal the sixth sexiest woman in the world.
Marc Dolisi, VSD’s editor, said Royal and her rival had themselves to blame for the coverage. “Royal and Sarkozy have both been happy to put their private lives on display when it suited them,†he said.
All of this is rather odd from an American context, where the First Amendment has always protected this sort of thing. There is no small bit of irony, either, in the French getting all atwitter over a photo of a politician in a swimsuit given how much they lectured the sexy obsessed Americans for getting upset over Bill Clinton’s peccadilloes.
For the record, the Closer magazine cover in question is thumbnailed at right.
Apparently making zillions of dollars can’t buy high end retail, and the sad thing is, it was only a T-shirt?
JOHNNY Depp, who’s part Cherokee, has upset some of his very own tribe members by wearing what appears to be a cheap knockoff of the popular “Homeland Security” T-shirt created by Cherokee designer Colleen Lloyd, who donates proceeds to Native American charities.
The shirt shows Geronimo and three other braves with the caption: “Fighting terrorism since 1492.”
When Miss Lloyd found out about this she blamed “white red necks” for the bootlegging and swore up and down that Depp didn’t realize it was a fake.
COME ON, of course he knew it was a fake! He saw it and bought it. It’s just like when a girl sees a Kiosk in an Iowa mall that have rip of designer hand bags, they see them and buy them because the real thing isn’t staring them in the eye!
Jonathan Adler cites recent reports that the Dixie Chicks’ new CD has debuted at #1 on the album charts as evidence of political acceptance: “Although some country stations refuse to play their music, the Dixie Chicks seem are doing okay. Their new album hit number one in sales on the Billboard charts this week, and also topped the country album charts. Either their fans don’t care about the trio’s politics — or they do care, and the Chicks are more popular than President Bush.”
Yet, as a recent Reuters report notes, this is far from clear. All emphases added:
Country trio the Dixie Chicks, the darlings of Nashville until their singer criticized President Bush three years ago, opened at No. 1 on the U.S. charts on Wednesday with their first studio album since then, but sales were sharply lower. “Taking The Long Way,” their third chart-topper, sold 525,000 copies in the week ended May 28, according to tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan. The figure ranks as one of the biggest openings of the year, and exceeds industry expectations by more than 100,000 copies. But it paled against the 780,000 copies that their last studio release, “Home,” sold during its first week in August 2002. It spent three weeks at No. 1, and has sold 5.8 million copies to date. In April another country trio, Rascal Flatts, opened at No. 1 with 722,000 copies of its new album.
The lower sales for the new Dixie Chicks album were not unexpected given that country radio is largely ignoring the Texans. The first single, the defiant “Not Ready To Make Nice,” stalled at No. 36 on Billboard magazine’s Hot Country Songs chart.
On the other hand, the trio has garnered plenty of attention in the mainstream media, with a Time magazine cover story, and a segment on CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes.”
All the attention — or lack thereof — stems from a throwaway comment made by singer Natalie Maines during a London concert in March 2003. She told the crowd that the band was embarrassed to come from the same state as Bush. If one critic had not mentioned it in his review, she might have gotten away with it, but it quickly escalated into a major incident.
Radio stations stopped playing their songs and organized public destructions of their discs, sales slumped, death threats ensued, and country stars like Toby Keith bashed them. The women have largely laid low in the past few years to focus on their expanding families, and recording the new album in Los Angeles with rock producer Rick Rubin.
At this stage, it’s possible the Dixie Chicks are abandoning their country music base, rather than the other way around. Rubin is best known for his work with funk-rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who had ruled the charts for the previous two weeks, and with deceased Nashville renegade Johnny Cash.
“I’d rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith,” Dixie Chick Martie Maguire told Time. We don’t want those kinds of fans.”
So, while the Chicks are still quite successful by any measure, they’ve become alienated from a large part of their “base” and are now crossing over into pop with the help of tremendous media exposure. That’s fine–and I applaud them standing by their views, even one’s I find insipid, rather than caving to pressure–but hardly evidence that their former fans admire their politics.
That they are more popular than President Bush, though, is quite likely. Then again, who isn’t?
Meanwhile, Chris Lawrence observes, “Things are clearly topsy-turvy when Michelle Branch has gone country while the Dixie Chicks have gone rock-and-roll. Not that the two genres are all that distinct these days, mind you (or, for that matter, historically).”
John Podhoretz has a fascinating piece on the parallel voting dynamics between “American Idol” and U.S. presidential elections. He argues that the surprise loss of Chris Daughtry to the uneven Katharine McPhee is perfectly understandable if one understands how people vote.
If you want to understand “Idol,” you need to understand American politics. And if you want to understand the workings of American politics, “Idol” isn’t a bad introduction to the way political coalitions are formed and elections are won.
After the “American Idol” field narrows to 12 finalists, the show kicks one contestant off every week – the one who gets the lowest number of votes. The number of votes seems to remain remarkably constant (this year, somewhere north of 40 million) week to week. This indicates the same people continue to vote each week. It also means that the people who voted for the contestant who was kicked off go ahead and just choose somebody new to vote for.
This is a direct parallel to the presidential primary process. In the early primaries, candidates who do poorly usually drop out of the race, leaving those who would have supported them in other states high and dry. Those supporters then have to pick somebody else among the surviving candidates to vote for. This winnowing process allows the most appealing candidates to pick up steam by adding new voters to their cadre of supporters. And as they do so, the field continues to be winnowed, until finally there are only one or two candidates left standing. The single-issue candidate, the flash-in-the-pan, the guy who has one fantastic debate – they may all have their moments, but in the end, the candidate with the most broad-based appeal will usually win.
And this is what explains Chris Daughtry’s stunning loss this week on “American Idol.” He has a distinctive voice and distinctive appeal. The problem is that he never broadened his base very much. If you liked him from the start, you stayed with him – which is why he remained solidly among the top contenders through most of the show’s run. But if you didn’t much like his sound when there were still 9 contestants remaining, you weren’t suddenly going to decide you liked his sound when there were only 4 remaining.
The key to winning “American Idol” isn’t being overwhelmingly popular in the early stages. The key is having a sound that makes it possible for you to pick up votes from people whose favorites have gotten booted off the show. Because if you don’t get those votes, somebody else is going to get them.
That is almost certainly what happened on Wednesday night. Chris Daughtry lost out to Katharine McPhee because the young female singer Paris Bennett was sent home the previous week. If you loved Paris, you probably weren’t going to move into Chris’s camp. It’s likely that the Paris voters went both to McPhee and to underdog Elliot Yamin, the sweet-sounding guy with the odd teeth who is a balladeer like Paris.
Elliot has been gaining strength both because his performances have been good, and because he’s clearly picked up support from the fans of eliminated contestants Paris, Kellie Pickler and Ace Young. So where does this leave the final three in “American Idol”? It’s likely that McPhee will be the odd person out next week, leaving front-runner Taylor Hicks and under-the-radar Elliot left to duke it out for the title. Taylor Hicks has a distinctive sound and style that are clearly very pleasing to millions. But I think he’s a little like Daughtry. If he’s your favorite, he’s been your favorite for a long time – and he needs to be the second favorite for McPhee’s fans to win. But McPhee’s sound is probably closer to Elliot Yamin’s. Thus, according to the logic of coalition-building that is at the heart of both American politics and Fox’s pop-culture phenomenon, Elliot Yamin will be the next “American Idol.”
While off camera, King asked Paris Hilton if she votes, according to a source. Oh yes, Hilton responded. When did you last vote, King asked according to the insider, who says that Hilton replied, “Last year.†When King wanted to know which election she voted in, Hilton explained, “Presidential.†“I guess she forgot there was no presidential election last year,†quipped one amused source. “She was too busy reading the Bible.â€
“He’s the classic generalist,†Mr. King said, his eyes peering through rectangular lenses that evoke flat-panel televisions. “The only thing I don’t know, and I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, is how versed he is in politics, world affairs. Does he read the paper? Is he interested in Iraq? Because if he is, he’s going to be very good.â€
