Pop tarts

The second best thing about tabloids is that they don't pretend to be useful (the first best thing are the photos of celebrity fat, cellulite, and surgeries gone awry). Tabloids don't pretend to make a difference. They aren't speaking to or in behalf of the people. They don't pull at any of us to try to be better than we are. They are explicitly and avowedly elements of commercial entertainment culture, devoted simply to greasing media/celebrity wheels and making them spin faster and faster.

Since Donna Rice, the msm has increasingly emulated the tabs, but it isn't proud of this fact. So, it continues to question itself, to report on its own process, to lament its own status as a commodity as it blames the need to make a profit, the demands of the market, and the 'concerns of publishers' on its failure to function as a fourth estate. But the tabs, my god, they exhibit no such self-doubt. They know who they are and what they do. No apologies necessary.

And none expected. A reflective tabloid would be like a diet snickers, completely unsatisfying and all too moralistic and self-righteous (like getting a low fat latte and a reduced fat muffin--just eat the damn cupcake already).

Academics like me are likely worse than the msm. We are driven to reflect on tabloids, to interpret Britney's appeal, to outline the narratives of love, engagement, marriage, infidelity, and divorce that provide the storylines that accompany the photos of Brad, Jen, and Angelina. We look for meaning in rehab and even when we try not to adopt an attitude of condescension, the very way we position tabloids and celebrities as objects of our gaze supports a supposition of superiority. Even when we are supportive, embedded, immersed, we have a distance that produces condescension: we argue against the elitism of high culture and in favor of the practices of the masses; we historicize opera and the theater, pointing out how they were previously popular rather than elite forms of entertainment. Bla bla blah. It's still justification within the context of a sense of what is a healthy or worthwhile endeavor.

But the tabloids--they don't justify themselves. They are selling ads and selling celebrities and selling movies, television shows, and music. They are connecting us to the stars and the stars to us. They create and destroy our sense that stars are different and special and that they are just like us.

Do we care about Britney? Is care the right word? Are we interested in her life? Neither care nor interest seems quite right. Interest is too abstract--oh yes, we are interested in the unfolding events in Pakistan. Care suggests a feeling associated with generosity, perhaps even with a sense that one should intervene, that one should do something. But the specific delight of tabloids is that they require absolutely nothing. They provide no direction. They ask nothing and expect nothing. There is nothing at all to do. It's like they provide a real of freedom from injunctions to think or act or do something (anything). We can feel connected by not obliged. We can care without consequence or responsibility. 

But what kind of caring is this?

Comments

[marcell]

i noticed that almost all media tend to be quite dialectic in trying to say that jet set which they cover is not *real* jet set, that perfect celebs are not really *perfect* (they are fat and when not in front of camera ordinary common people), that world of media is false, manipulated and basically false in providing the *real* facts, that 'the truth' in media is biased by different interests...

they rarely say that they are lying and manipulating in that particular moment... the real bad ones are the others from the same field...

the same goes for (little) backward towns, marketing industry, art world, academia... people from these worlds tend to be critical about they origin fields saying that all the others in the field are stupid and conservative.. whatever that means in particular context....

i usually say that i never met someone from their field which don't really say the same and that from my perspective they are all quite aware of the common critique... they usually reply that i'm surrounded with smart people and that i don't actually know The Real World with The Real People...

this probably put me into some other particular field but that would be too much to say for one blog's comment ;)

[patrick j. mullins]

If you look at various histories of tabloids, you find that they have long whetted appetites. a look at either of Kenneth Anger's books 'Hollywood Babylon' or the sequel has all the dirt that was thrilling people about Fatty Arbuckle and Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino even before the talkies.

Things have changed in gossip rags and they have stayed the same. Seeing the change is what is necessary in the same sense as the rags and the msm find that part necessary, and thence the media studies finds it necessary--because there is no audience in 'things are the same', nevermind that it is often true.

I don't 'care' about the trio (or quartet) of bimbo types as people I have feelings for because they do not put forth works of much interest--although Spears is not untalented, and Lohan might have been of some use as an actress if her condition had not reached the (most likely) irreversible stage.

I don't read more than a headline of actual tabloids, but do usually by now read the few paragraphs devoted to them by the Associated Press that I see on the Verizon page. They are all interesting to me by now in 2 ways, neither of which I bothered with even a year ago: The differences between the individual behaviour of the ones who get the most coverage and the most TMZ pulp; and the differences in degrees of mob response to each one, which have settled into patterns.

At this point, it's not important to 'feel superior' to any of these 'chosen ones' for the pulp. Britney suggests the singers who are better than she is, like the Dixie Chicks, and who are not tabloid queens. She is currently the most 'alive' in terms of interest and has finally even interested me by way of frequency of auto misdemeanours still occurring, when there was talk as recently as August of serious legal time to be served as a result of her 'hit-and-run'. There was something yesterday, and last week there was the hospitalization, the gurney, the 'unnamed substance'. Lohan had served 84 minutes in jail for a car chase which terrorized her ex-trainer's mother--or for something else. Car-chasing sounds serious, and yet recently these two have been getting off relatively lightly. I don't think it's necessarily orchestrated, or that there's any pattern in this, except that people are not, except for hardcore tabloid types who follow TMZ's every post and are addicted to all of the little stories.

Contrast the extreme interest that Paris Hilton can generate, though. For a much lesser offense, she was actually jailed for the full sentence given--and even though she at first managed to get out after a couple of days and was put back in, people were so furious even AFTER she was put back in, that Al Sharpton, in the pre-dog days of summer, 2007, felt the need to fill in some time by saying her early release (by then already thoroughly remedied by re-incarcerating her)was racially motivated. This IS of interest because her DUI violation was sleazy but in itself not nearly as serious as the continued license (no pun) allowed the others whose offenses are far more violent and who are obviously ADDICTS.

So, what I am saying is that interest in whatever celeb happens to catch the public's eye and ear is nothing new, allowing for the latest in silly styles derived from Reality TV to have their glorious Day in the Sun; but also, that part of American Celeb Legend is that the favourite is easily the one most hated. And that is clearly Paris Hilton, she of the haughty silly attitude, but born into the milieu of Hollywood so that she has a personal advantage of not reacting to it as anything bigger-than-life, and if she has a few drinks, she's clearly NOT AN ADDICT--or it's not at all clear she is in any heavy way. The mob would LOVE her if she would just be more pitiful. She does not seem 'troubled', but rather hateful. So that Mob Rule rules.

Someone of these bimbos' age group and also involved in the fashion industry recently said to me that 'Britney thinks she has so much money that no matter what she does she can get off....', proving no memory of Hilton's actual full incarceration (money couldn't get her off, and money couldn't buy her big TV interviews, phone calls to Barbara Walters from the hospital notwithstanding) of Lohan's mere 84 minutes and Nicole Richie's 82 minutes (for the same repeat offense plus perhaps something else added to what Hilton had done), which either one could have brought up racial issues had anyone cared. But memory plays no part in this, and that's the main thing we need to add to this: If you add memory, an emormous amount of the business off all kinds of reporting, whether high or low, is lost. To be profitable, it has to based on more of itself, not better of itself.

So I would say that I do have an actual interest in these cases, because they are all treated so differently--and finally find Britney's case interesting because of the way she seems to inhabit some sort of time-frame which is way out of the norm of functioning life and still be 'at large'. And interesting because the public decides these cases based on hatred and pity. Paris Hilton merely seems spoiled and enjoying herself too much: THIS is worthy of punishment and people even though 23 days was 'ridiculously short'. Nobody cares that the others, with many more and far more serious offenses have been 'too little punished' because THEY INSPIRE PITY. If Hilton would only be an obvious addict, instead of a mere crass sort of party girl who tells merchants she 'really shouldn't be charged for expensive shoes because she'll be a walking ad for them', in short, if she was not basically a shrewd, if obviously overwhelmingly vulgar, businesswoman already, who forgot to pay attention in Los Angeles (where this seems to happen on the freeways every few days, as though there is a definite 'celeb patrol' as well as the well-known 'fag patrols' of Central Park at night and LAPD in certain areas--Kiefer Sutherland went to jail for 30 days for DUI and nobody was screaming), she would have gotten the public sympathy. But she is assessed as odious because she is the purveyor of an especially contemporary kind of snobbism--America's least permitted crime--that is based on even less actual talent than such a crime was in the past. She can't be forgiven and the public wants to see her found guilty again.

I realize your main thrust was about the junk-food in-your-faceness of the tabloids themselves, and that's always been that way. I do think that things like the Reality TV shows have become popular so that a kind of change has taken place in which people with only rudimentary talents in a field are now allowed to be fully operational, and it just becomes a quick 'who's nice?' and 'who's cute 'n' sweet?' just like in a high school yearbook's 'Who's Who'. But since I think much of it is the same, the cycle is not broken until you look at the particular individuals; they probably do differ from the past in that they seem such fragments by comparison that it is very difficult to see them as individuals. But the public's reaction does prove that they definitely are seen as individuals with subjectivities and real lives: The public does love to hate Paris Hilton, but also really DOES hate her; they 'feel sorry' for Britney because there are children involved, she does have a real if minor talent, and also because she is an addict; and they feel sorry for Lohan because she is very young and an addict; for Nicole Richie a bit more than Hilton because she does not flaunt her silliness so loudly.

So I think one creates a sensation out of these seemingly 'low creatures' by trying to see them as extremely different from celeb-scandal types of the past; and also, since their profiles are so vapid, it is very difficult to look beneath the surface, and almost embarassing to do so. But not doing so keeps the endless cycle going--so that the currently most interesting active one is Spears, who seems to avoid incarceration against all odds but gets court orders, etc., and who also seems to be headed toward some kind of extreme collision of almost any sort that could even cause death. Bear in mind that several of these gals were already big headliners of the tabs 4 years ago, and they haven't been upstaged by Tom Sizemore's getting off relatively easy from many, many drug-related offenses.

Leona Helmsley probably got her stiff sentence made permanent more because of her statement about 'the little people' than anything else. She was involved with suing people and being sued by other real estate people (including some she worked with) until she died.

[patrick j. mullins]

Jodi--I also noticed that the 'brilliant' critics of your 'interest' in Britney Spears 'instead' of Sibel Edmonds don't seem to notice that there is little reason why their own purported interests would not be thrilled at selling nuclear technology to rogue states. After all, everybody has a right to them, not just super-most-terrorist hated-in-every-way-by-Chomsky Yew Ess Ay--so they should be happy if some State Dept. official 'corruptly' sold nuclear weapons to small states. Don't they need a way to protect themselves from certain nuclear bombardment by the Yew Ess Ay?

Furthermore, Edmonds, as shown in the timeline given by the London TimesOnLine uses terms like Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, and Atta without quotes around them, as if some of the corruption by U.S. officials might actually prove how Bin Laden not only existed, but how he was 'interested in nuclear materials.' Why would he be, since he was behind all the Al Qaeda attacks except the 9/11 one? And the only reason the FBI 'doesn't think he's guilty' is because he already has enough charges against him from the other terrorist attacks. Of course, it doesn't follow that 9/11 troofies will talk about the USS Cole, but it does make you wonder why they want to champion Ms. Edmonds, who is talking about facts, not supporting their 'inside 9/11 case' one whit.

What vermin they are.

[patrick j. mullins]

Here are some excerpts that make me wonder what their idiotic point is. Can it ONLY be that Britney got more hits than Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, and Denzel Washington (who did real work) combined? After all, Ms. Edmonds has the gall to talk about 'FBI incompetence' when the Qlipoth Consortium's essential creed is the 'competence' that is behind all branches of the U.S. Government which conspired to use the 'CIA database' known as 'Al Qaida' to 'blow up with explosives' the World Trade Center. The article also has the gall to imagine that Bin Laden was almost FORCED to accept a $100,000 gift for which he had no idea for what he might use it? And it refers to Mohammad Atta as one of the 9/11 hijackers? Isn't this extraordinary? Especially that they think they have a leg to stand on. I'd suggest they start at least getting their fucking facts straight about Britney Spears, since that's a little easier for such morons to master than Sibil Edmonds, who "approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey."

What on earth good does Ms. Edmonds do except prove some 'corruptions' that don't serve THEIR purposes? In fact, the nuclear technology 'sold to Iran'? Is that sold to Iran so that the Yew Ess Ay down the line can have a reason to 'hegemone instead of survive.' God, I'm so sick of Chomsky's smarmy crap I could shit.

"She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.
*
However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”
*
Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.
*
The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.
Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.
*
The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.
*
Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan’s nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.
*
Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. “We were aware of contact between A Q Khan’s people and Al-Qaeda,” a former CIA officer said last week. “There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end.”
*
It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.
Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.
Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.
*
1989-91 Khan’s network sells Iran nuclear weapons information and technology
*
2001 Weeks before 9/11, Khan’s aides meet Osama Bin Laden to discuss an Al-Qaeda nuclear device
2001 After 9/11 proliferation crisis becomes secondary as Pakistan is seen as important ally in war on terror
*
2007 Renewed fears that bomb may fall into hands of Islamic extremists as killing of Benazir Bhutto throws country into turmoil

[Jodi]

Patrick--thanks for your comments. I also appreciate the history of tabloids, although I don't know it well. Isn't it the case that there was at one time a blurring of movie star magazines, true crime, and soft-porn? I think I read that somewhere and it certainly makes genealogical sense. I also like your discussion of Paris Hilton (a couple of weeks ago Paul and I watched a 2 hour 'true hollywood stories' on the Hilton sisters. It was fascinating, primarily because of the way that situation/context/opportunity made rather boring people into celebrities; we also like the fact that every time there was a new sex tape, Paris's relatives were 'shocked and saddened'--how could they be shocked?). You use the expression Mob Rules--that is so great. I want to think about that and use it sometime. Makes me think of Rules Girls--what are the rules of the Mob, really?

On the vermin--they didn't notice that I wrote 'pop tarts' in response to their dissing of left academic bloggers or whatever they call us. The title of my post, in addition to referring to unhealthy wonderful but rather tasteless junk food and to Britney et al, was also a nod in their direction: if their interest is in Edmonds, why mention Britney at all? And, how does that gesture--like other gestures to teevee--in fact implicate them in what they purport to disavow, what they claim to be rejecting. You are of course right in pointing out the fundamental incoherence of their embrace of Edmonds in combination with 9/11 conspiracy theory. They don't get it both ways.

[old]

Another one of the posts that keeps me coming back for more ...

[patrick j. mullins]

"we also like the fact that every time there was a new sex tape, Paris's relatives were 'shocked and saddened'--how could they be shocked?"

Especially since it's the same sex tape that they get newly 'shocked' by; they get re-shocked by a new incident or mention involving 'One Night in Paris', the cinematic achievement. I mean--I think she actually only made the one, didn't she? and complained about how sales of it on the internet 'invaded her privacy', yet collected on it herself. Then went by a newsstand that was selling it, threw 80 cents at the guy, and said 'that's MINE!'

Along the lines of this Mob Justice, it is more along religious lines, therefore, than legal ones that have people watching every single detail of Paris's incarceration, release, and re-incarceration. I normally don't support this at all, and it's very obvious that Lindsey Lohan's car chase, which terrified the woman to such a degree that she's been in heavy therapy ever since as well as losing her $60,000 job, is far worse as a criminal act that Paris driving mildly intoxicated and generally being the floosie she is--but the attitude of the whole Hilton family was so toxically arrogant, that it does seem to have taken this jail sentence, followed by extreme dissing by the networks when Rick Hilton tried to get big money for an 'exclusive interview' with Paris after the sentence was finished, to at least force them into some kind of reality. Paris Hilton is obviously not stupid, even if her talent is only being a party girl, so they've been forced to be more careful. But what makes it so strange that people keep using the 'she's got so much money she thinks she can buy her way out' ought to have really occurred to Hilton as well once someone like Martha Stewart was actually sent to jail for several months; once this occurred, people ought to realize that only if you're Scooter Libby are you going to avoid all punishment because you're powerful. It's interesting that powerful 'civilians' (maybe Scooter Libby or anybody in the BushCo ought not to really be termed 'civilians') are now less able to get away with relatively minor crimes now than they were in the past, and that this is part of the feeding that the public requires.

Yes, the title of the post is most clever, and that show about proximity and opportunity for the formation of stars out of chintzy material does sound good. After all, Paris Hilton is the daughter of one of America's most talented actresses, who was a replacement for somebody in either 'the Brady Bunch' or 'The Partridge Family'. I mean, like, WOW! she's Katharine Cornell or something. One thing that case really showed was what crass parents she comes from, beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is definitely a Beverly Hills sort of syndrome, if you'll remember Monica Lewinsky's hilarious mother, who said something like 'so she lied to somebody and somebody lied to her...what's the big deal?' And the old 70s porn star of mostly gay films, Jack Wrangler, was the son of Robert Stillman, a successful TV producer, was given 'career advice', not moral judgment, when he went into porn (I was actually impressed with this attitude, but it does prove how these nouveau-riche spoiled American attitudes develop.)

[patrick j. mullins]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011802874.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

You may have seen this, but it's good on how the newspapers have evolved, and what seemed the original threat--that all the smaller institutions would be trashed in favour of only the most prestigious ones 'ascendant', as Simon put it, and which idea echoes Orwell's keeping some things around for prestige purposes--seems to have given way to ideas that the most prestigious institutions, newspapers melting into the internet more thoroughly, would obviously undergo their own metamorphoses, and we really should have known that when the original predictons became more popular. Then again, this kind of thing doesn't seem to hold true, then the tabloidism does seem to predominate; but Simon's chronicle of the Baltimore Sun could as easily happen the New York Times.