Tiger's Big, Nasty, Clumsy Mess
Golden Child No More
P.R. Mess, that is.
As anyone reading this blog is aware, Tiger Woods was involved in what was termed “a serious accident” on Thanksgiving night. He had driven his SUV into a tree at some point in the early morning and sustained injuries to the face — and that was all that was known, or at least all that was released.
When I first read the news bit, I knew something was fishy. First of all, there was no denial of intoxication. Perhaps even more importantly, there was no discussion of intoxication whatsoever — they didn’t even say “it is not known whether or not Mr. Woods was intoxicated.”
The timing was poor. Some would argue that the release of scandal on the eve of a holiday is a way to cushion the landing — see, for example, Sarah Palin’s announcement of resignation as Alaska governor…on the eve of the Fourth of July. You miss the newscycle — or at least miss a critical mass of people watching the newscycle.
But Thanksgiving is far different from Fourth of July. On Fourth of July, people aren’t watching the news because they’re out stuffing themselves on hamburgers, getting suburnt, and blowing off appendages. On Thanksgiving, the vast majority of America has been pushed off into TV rooms and dens to watch television while they wait for dinner, digest dinner, or lazy through the day after. And this wasn’t just any scandal — this was a sports-related scandal. On one of the biggest single sports-watching four-day weekends of the year. It wasn’t a blessing that the incident occurred on a national holiday; it was a P.R. curse.
Which is part of the reason the situation wouldn’t go away, as Tiger Woods no doubt wished it would. Woods is notoriously private — about his training regimes and golf-related activities especially, but also about his family and personal matters. His approach to the incident, then, was to say very little at all. No spin — and relative silence — was the best spin. Or so he apparently thought.
So let’s break it down. How did Tiger end up with this big mess?
1.) HE SUCCESSFULLY KEPT HIS PRIVATE LIFE UNDER WRAPS.
When you release so little information about yourself — outside of your very controlled statements concerning your sports skill — you become an enigma. Woods is ridiculously wealthy, but we don’t get to see him spend it. He’s married to a gorgeous Swede and they have a gorgeous child, but we rarely get to see them — and he rarely talks about them. So the built up curiosity was there — even if subconsciously — and waiting to explode. In theoretical terms, he was attempting to assert that the ‘real Tiger Woods’ (his ‘authentic’ self) was what you saw on the fairway, in highly controlled interviews, and in his dozens of advertising deals.
2.) THUS, WHEN AN ADDITIONAL LAYER OF ‘SELF’ WAS REVEALED, THE MEDIA WENT CRAZY.
As if blood into a shark tank. Richard DeCordova has convincingly argued that the emergence of stars in early Hollywood was a multi-tiered process — as each new ‘layer’ of the people on the screen were revealed, each became the new site of truth. At first, a star’s extratextual activities provided that source of truth. But with the eruption of the Fatty Arbuckle and Wallace Reid scandals in the 1920s, scandal (or the disclosure of scandal) became the only true means of arriving at the ‘authentic’ identity of the self. DeCordova is following the work of Foucault, who has long asserted that knowledge of sex (illicit or transgressive sex in particular) has come to be regarded as the most true and authentic avenue to the self. Put differently, knowing a person in bed (or knowing about how a person is in bed) is tantamount to knowing the ‘real him’ or ‘real her.’ Of course, this has everything to do with the construction of sexual activity through discourse — and the particularly American practice of shadowing sex with shame. Woods not only revealed that there was a deeper level to excavate — he wasn’t always cool and under control! — but, as the day went on, that that deeper level was somehow ‘off,’ potentially in a sexual way.
(To approach the issue somewhat differently, I’d argue that Woods’ image was too ‘univocal’ to absorb the shock of a scandal. Adrienne McLean has argued that the reason that Ingrid Bergman’s star image was unable to absorb the hit of her scandal with Rossellini was that her star image was so wholly (and unflexibly) that of the virginal, righteous, pure girl from the North. (She contrasts the ramifications of Bergman’s scandal with a similar ‘transgression’ associated with Rita Hayworth — because Hayworth had created a complex, nuanced star image that included a ‘desire to be loved,’ her marriage to Aly Kahn was naturalized and accepted, even celebrated. In contrast, Bergman was denounced *on the senate floor.* Crucially, like Woods, Bergman had refused to cooperate with Selznick and others who hoped to craft her image into something more nuanced; as a result, it was near-wholly based on her film roles, just as Woods’ was near-wholly based on his appearances on the golf course.
3.) NOT SAYING ANYTHING = SAYING EVERYTHING
By late Friday night, everyone knew something was up. The stories began to shift. Things didn’t add up. Some people made the connection between The National Enquirer story revealing a Woods affair, published Wednesday, and the Thursday blow-up. Over the course of the weekend, speculation exploded: his wife was attacking him with a golf club. (Which, as someone pointed out to me, is rather hilarious: like Kobe Bryant being pummeled with sneakers). She scratched up his face. She chased his car. He was passing in and out of consciousness. He had cheated. The situation was likened to that of Chris Brown and Rihanna.
By not shutting down or guiding discourse though his own P.R., statements, or any other type of damage control, Woods allowed the discourse to go in all directions.
4.) DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE (INVESTIGATIVE) GOSSIP PRESS
As I’ve asserted several times on this blog, some of the best investigative journalism comes from the gossip press. This was true during the time of Confidential; this was especially true for The National Enquirer, especially following the tightening of libel laws in the 1980s; it’s even more true today, when TMZ routinely scoops traditional news outlets. And they do it with more accuracy, detail, and speed. It’s difficult for us to think of ‘tabloids’ as journalistic, simply because what they cover is oftentimes not regarded as ‘newsworthy.’ But to get to the truth of what happens in an event — using interviews, surveillance tapes, 911 calls, cell phone messages, even bribes — that’s certainly investigative journalism, even if you might not call it entirely ethical.
TNE had the first story of the mistress — one that might have been easily forgotten, if not for the explosive aftermath. TMZ has posted dozens of updates, challenging the stories of Tiger Woods, his wife, and even the official statements of the police with actual footage, eye-witness testimony, etc. And US Weekly entered the fray yesterday, dropping a bombshell of past and current philanderering on the part of Woods. The gossip press got the goods — and if the speed of publication, as well as the amount of dirt they obtained, is any evidence, they got them easily.
5.) TIGER IS A GREAT GOLFER. BUT HE’S A SHITTY CELEBRITY.
He didn’t cover his tracks. He didn’t have a password on his cell phone. He left messages on his mistresses voicemails. He had relationships with several women — many of them young (21!) and ready to brag. One alleged mistress still has over 300 text messages from him. He didn’t cover his tracks. He had no defense plan. And he somehow expected none of this to effect his public image.
Just look to his first real attempt at P.R., released today:
…Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives. The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious. Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.
But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy. I realize there are some who don’t share my view on that. But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one’s own family. Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions. (Statement available in full here).
I understand his argument. A person’s private — sexual — actions are, for most people, indeed just that: private. If Tiger Woods chose to remain a sports figure alone — winning The Masters, winning everything, but staying a golfer and no more — perhaps he would have isolated himself from public scrutiny of his private life. But part of what makes Tiger Woods Tiger Woods is his public visibility: not only due to the color of his skin (over which he obviously has no control) and his resultant uniqueness, but, more importantly, through his endorsement deals. Over $1 billion worth. The reason he is a celebrity — and not just a golfer — is that his face is EVERYWHERE. In the pages of The New Yorker selling watches, all over Sports Illustrated and ESPN selling golf gear, in newspapers, billboards, car commercials, The Wall Street Journal, credit card ads, Gilette Razors, all that is Nike, you name it.
Mindfully holding back on all the potential snark that could be unleashed using the rhetoric of above advertisements
The significance, of course, is that a celebrity is chosen to endorse a deal BECAUSE of their public image. If not, why not choose another good looking man to say they use a particular product? Wood’s image is of excellence — but also of the absence of scandal. Of dedication and drive. Not extra-marital affairs. When a company pays Woods to appear in association with their products, they are hitching their good name to his. When scandal erupts, that scandal extends to those companies, even if only by association.
My contention, though, is not necessarily that the press has the right to know everything about every celebrity. Rather, if a celebrity — and Woods is a celebrity and a public figure, no matter how much he bemoans the fact — chooses to do things that read as scandalous, he must protect himself against the ramifications, either ahead of time or in the aftermath.
Tiger Woods refused to do either of these things, instead passing blame to the press and its audience. He may admit to ‘sins,’ but his insinuation — that WE are the ones who are, in truth, at fault — is as elitist as it is absurd. Each of us certainly contributes to celebrity journalism and scandal mongering through readership. But the idea that a man who has willingly and mindfully made himself into a public figure should have a right to privacy is absurd. Would he also like us to give him his privacy while he plays golf? Leave him alone when he tells us to buy watches? Not tune in to watch him put on the Master’s jacket?
I realize that he is attempting to make a distinction between his public image — which he wishes to be available for consumption — and a private one. As evidenced by the case of Robert De Niro, whose anti-stardom I profiled a few weeks back, this is certainly not impossible. But you have to play by the rules — a maxim that Woods, of all people, should know by heart.
Does Maybe Gaybe Matter?
(Note: The following post is another ‘co-production’ with my friend Alaina Smith,with whom I have debated the subject of many a blind item.)
“If every closeted actor in Hollywood came out, now, that would be something…
since I can count all the straight leading men on one hand.”
-Commentor BugMeNot on Deadline Hollywood Daily
Gay rumors in Hollywood are as old as the proverbial hills - from Cary Grant’s roommate to John Travolta’s apparent disregard for the conventions of the man hug. Any given week, Gawker’s blind item roundup includes at least one item about a closeted gay actor, and many of Lainey Gossip’s blind items address gay rumors (check out Cuba and Chocolate, Trailer Visits, and Two Boys in the City. And then there’s the one about the Flying Star.)
In light of this recent article in in the LA Weekly, and Nikke Finke’s response, we thought we’d take another look at gay rumors in Hollywood, some notable comings-out, and ask the questions: Do the rumors really matter? Is coming out career suicide? Or is America finally ready for its girls-next-door, action heroes, and/or certain well-known Scientologists to come out of the closet? (Hint: the lawyers don’t think so.)
Before we begin, we might take a step back and consider how rumor plays into the formation of star image. A few years back, I (Annie) published a piece in Jump Cut on Perez Hilton and celebrity gossip blogging. In addition to exploring the role of gossip blogging in the “new” game of star production, I considered how Hilton’s dissemination of rumor (especially concerning homosexuality) functioned: does speculating something about a star have the same weight as asserting it? Put differently, how do certain rumors potentially alter what that star signifies or “means”? A star may not, in fact, be gay - but how does hinting at homosexuality damage (or elevate) his/her image?
Cruise’s “accuser” Kyle Bradford
If gossip and rumors weren’t powerful, they wouldn’t be prosecutable. As multiple defamation and libel suits have claimed, associating someone’s “good name” with “bad behavior” may damage his/her potential as an earner. This argument was most forcefully articulated in Tom Cruise’s 2001 defamation suit against Chad Taylor, aka Kyle Bradford, who sold his story of a homosexual encounter with Cruise to a Spanish tabloid. Cruise’s lawyers claimed the following:
“Bradford’s defamatory remarks are of the kind calculated to cause Cruise harm in his profession and his ability to earn [...] Losing the respect and enthusiasm of a substantial segment of the movie-going public would cause Cruise very substantial sums. While the plaintiff believes in the right of others to follow their own sexual preference, vast numbers of public throughout the world do not share that view and believing that he had a homosexual affair and did so during his marriage, they will be less inclined to patronize Cruise’s films…” (Complaint is available in full at The Smoking Gun.)
Cruise and his lawyers thus construct rumor - and rumor of homosexuality in particular - as economically damaging. Cruise sued Bradford not only because Bradford’s story, according to Cruise, was not true - but also because even the implication that it might be true could damage Cruise’s career.
Perez Hilton and others have attacked this standpoint, arguing that it represents an antiquated and anachronistic understanding of society and its growing tolerance of homosexuality. Indeed, some celebrities are arguably more famous and successful after they come out of the closet than before: Ellen DeGeneres, Neil Patrick Harris. Additionally, some celebrities seem to be unaffected by admission or rumors of homosexuality - see the examples of Cynthia Nixon and Jake Gyllenhall.
Cynthia Nixon, most famous for her role as Miranda Hobbes on Sex and the City, was married to a man and raising children during the early part of the series (while her character, a ball-busting lawyer with short hair and tailored suits, was commonly mistaken for a lesbian).
Miranda before Nixon entered a homosexual relationship … and after
Nixon began a relationship with a woman in 2003, which became public in 2004, shortly before the end of the series. Arguably, Nixon’s personal relationship has had no major impact on her career; Sex and the City: The Movie (2008) had the biggest recorded opening for a film starring all women, and Nixon has played both homosexual and heterosexual characters since the series ended. Nixon has said she felt more stigma revealing her battle with breast cancer than her homosexual relationship.
Jake Gyllenhaal made his name in the early part of this decade play brooding, sensitive (heterosexual) types in films like October Sky, Donnie Darko, The Good Girl, Moonlight Mile and Proof. In 2005, he won popular and critical acclaim playing a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. He has been in serious relationships with actresses Kirsten Dunst and, recently, Reese Witherspoon.
At the same time, he is most famous for a role where he played a gay man, and he is strongly associated with E! Online columnist Ted Casablanca’s four-year-old blind item Toothy Tile, about a young, up-and-coming actor who pretends to be straight by maintaining high-profile relationships with women, but is secretly dating a man/men. There are entire blogs devoted to guessing the subject of this blind item - and Gyllenhaal is often the only, repeated guess. Yet, his star is also undoubtedly on the rise - he is up next in the eagerly-anticipated Brothers and the big-budget Prince of Persia, and appears weekly in tabloids with Reese Witherspoon and her children.
So why don’t revelations like Nixon’s, and the rumors like those surrounding Gyllenhaal, matter? Let’s look again at the underlying assumption of Cruise’s lawyers’ claims, namely, that insinuating gayness = defamation. That such an argument stood in court - and would most likely continue to stand - speaks loudly as to how far we haven’t come in terms of tolerance and acceptance. But it also implies that what’s really scandalous about ‘maybe gaybe’ rumors is not only the implication of homosexual sexual activity, but the revelation that a star has duped his/her public.
There’s an interesting tension here: the stars most fearful of gay rumors or scared to come out may be those with traditional (read: hetero) sex-symbol status, like male action stars or women who star in romantic comedies. This tension seems to have everything to do with the implicit contract negotiated between stars and fans, e.g., “I am what my image says I am.” When that contract is based on sex appeal (rather than talent or identification) and it is broken — usually through some sort of scandal, generally sexual — fans rebel, renege their fandom, or become generally disillusioned.
What’s at stake with ‘maybe gaybe,’ then, is not only the suggestion of “non-traditional” sexuality, but whether a star has duped or defrauded his/her public. Thus the reluctance of the anonymous celebrities and stars cited in the LA Weekly article: they’re scared not only of the massive task of renegotiating their images (even with the help of coming-out facilitator Howard Bragment), but of how such a renegotiation would compromise their relation to fans.
Neil Patrick Harris hosts the Emmys, to popular acclaim
But let’s be clear: more than anything, these stars are scared. Scared of losing roles, of the new labor that would be required to establish themselves (and their lifestyles) as the type of ‘gay’ that’s palatable (think Ellen), of losing their livelihood altogether. And that fear is justified, as much as we’d like to believe it isn’t. For Neil Patrick Harris and Ellen are in many ways the exceptions that prove the rule: Americans have not yet demonstrated their willingness to financially endorse a homosexual actor in non-niche, non-television roles.
But who knows? Maybe a star could announce his or her homosexuality and continue to play diverse, entertaining, and profitable roles. Fact is, we don’t know how the public would react if one of our leading heartthrobs announced that he was gay - whether that be Cruise, Travolta, Will Smith, or Zac Efron - because no one ever has.
American Idol winner Adam Lambert’s new album cover
In other words, it’s one thing for a niche star like T.R. Knight or Neil Patrick Harris, or a new star like Adam Lambert, to announce or confirm his homosexuality. It’s quite another, as underlined above, to admit to inveigling your audience for years. Thus, it’s this fear of the unknown - of what could happen when that contract between star and fan is so brashly broken - that reinforces and sustains the culture of silence and secrecy in Hollywood.
So, does ‘maybe gaybe’ matter? Gossip theorists believe that talking about the lifestyles and personal choices of stars and celebrities is a way of talking through our own identities - in other words, we displace issues and anxieties that have bearing on our day-to-day lives onto the lives of those in the magazines, making it easier (and less threatening) to work through sensitive issues. While rumors of homosexuality are by no means novel, they have certainly become more salient, and, to a certain extent, more audible, as the internet facilitates both the proliferation of blind items and potentially incriminating photos and the speculation they generate.
Maybe we talk more now about ‘maybe gaybe’ stars because we talk more about gayness and its place in society in general. And while it’s still somewhat dismaying that public opinion and public action don’t always correlate - as evidenced in Tuesday’s election - we may nevertheless think of how stars, and rumors about them, open up space for discourse and potential, if plodding, social change.
What Makes a Scandal Most? Paul Haggis and the Scientology Letter
Paul Haggis Takes on Big Religion
The facts: Paul Haggis, director of Crash, screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby, and 35-year member of the Church of Scientology, penned a letter of resignation to Tommy Davis, master church spokesman. He released the letter to a number of close friends; one of those friends passed the letter along to ex-Scientologist and blogger Marty Rathbun, who published it on his site.
The letter has thus gone viral over the course of a few hours — since I woke up this morning, dozens of prominent sites have glossed and interpreted the letter. The best overview and analysis can be found here at Gawker; Lainey Gossip provides some warranted caution on her front page.
Here’s the meat of the Gawker post:
The entire letter to—of all people—creepy Church spokescreature Tommy Davis is below, but here are the highlights: Haggis has been asking the church to resign their support of Proposition 8. He registered his distaste for the church’s stances on homosexuality via phone calls and letters. Davis told Haggis that “heads would roll” over this about ten months ago. Davis apparently drew up a press release he showed to Haggis, which eventually got canned. Haggis views the church’s actions as “cowardly,” and thus, after thirty-five years of membership, is resigning.
Furthermore, Haggis saw Davis’ interview on CNN, when Davis denied the existence of a “disconnection” policy in which the church orders members to cut non-members out of their lives, as they pose some kind of negative threat towards the work of the church in members’ lives.
It’s a policy that’s been well documented in the press, but especially by the reporting done by the St. Petersburg Times, who’ve chronicled many members who were once forced to “disconnect” people from their lives. Then comes another bomb: Haggis’ wife cut off contact with her parents when they defected from the church. And then another: Haggis cites the aforementioned reporting by the St. Petersburg Times, which including some of Scientology’s most high-profile defectors in its history, as accurate and astonishing, considering the level of the defectors. “Say what you will about them now,” writes Haggis, “[but] these were staunch defenders of the church, including Mike Rinder, the church’s official spokesman for 20 years!” Scientology has claimed that their high-profile defectors hold personal grudges against them for demotions and other bureaucratic failings.
Gawker and Lainey do a good job of pointing out the fact that this is no casual denouncement — Haggis has been a longtime member of the church, and has documentation and personal experience to back up his damaging claims. In other words, these attacks aren’t originating from your run-of-the-mill Scientology denouncers. Haggis was an insider; his words and criticism cannot be taken lightly.
But we also need to consider the massive publicity machinery that the Scientology network has in place. If you think Scientology is just a network of weird people who ask you to come into their massive buildings and take personality tests, as they do here in Austin, you’re wrong. Scientology is tremendously endowed, incredibly connected, and supported by some of the biggest movers and shakers in all of Hollywood (and the world, for that matter). (See here for a list of Hollywood-associated Scientologists — importantly, it’s not just big names, but ‘below-the-line’ talent that make up the majority of the business)
For more on their recruitment centers and a rather subtle yet scathing indictment, see The New Yorker‘s truly fabulous take on “Chateau Scientology” here; see also Time‘s critique of the church’s financial policies. In brief, Scientology attempts — and, in some cases, has been successful — in shutting down critical discourse. They failed to coerce Google and Yahoo to omit search engine results critical of the church; they nearly succeeded in their attempt to get Comedy Central to shut down the South Park Tom Cruise episode (in which a cartoon rendering of Cruise, er, ‘comes out of the closet’). Wikipedia has even gone so far as to ban Scientology IP addresses from editing. Yet for every controversy (and there are many, as evidenced by the Wikipedia page devoted entirely to the topic) there have been many that have been erased from public memory or prevented from entering discourse in the first place.
Whatever you think of the religion, including its esoteric and, for lack of a better word, ‘different’ theological teachings, for our purposes, what matters is how it will be handled. In other words, will this be the beginning of something big — something that will affect all of those touched by Scientology in Hollywood and abroad — or will it fade with the next news cycle.
At this moment, it could go either way — much depends on the response of the church, the potential responses of prominent Scientologists (Tom Cruise and John Travolta in particular), and when, or if, Haggis decides to speak out again. Haggis’ attack is two-pronged, after all: he decries the church’s general policies and denounces the church as homophobic and bigoted. The first attack is nothing new — as his letter points out, several articles have gone after the general policies of Scientology and the ‘severing of ties’ policy in particular. But this second claim — the assertion that the church, and, by extension, all those associated with it, are bigots — is a bombshell. It’s one thing for your religion to have strict policies to which one voluntary submits. Mormonism, for one, practices ex-communication and requires tremendous sacrifice, both financial and personal, on the part of its members. It’s quite another to be overtly bigoted and homophobic, especially in Hollywood, where Scientology has made its most public headway. Sure, most Christian religions aren’t crazy about the gays. But again: those religions aren’t striving to attract the most wealthy names in Hollywood as their public members and financial backers.
I’ve done a tremendous amount of reading and thinking about the way that scandal works. Events aren’t scandalous by nature — it’s all about a specific moment in time, the status quo at that moment, and the transgression of societal norms. (For a truly excellent take on Hollywood scandal in particular, see Adrienne McLean and David Cook’s edited collection Headline Hollywood).
For instance, black face was not scandalous in 1920; nor was it scandalous in 1962, as we learned in a recent episode of Mad Men. Having a baby out of wedlock was scandalous enough for Ingrid Bergman to be denounced on the senate floor in the 1950s; today, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt can have as many so-called ‘bastard’ babies as they’d like, and not just because they’re pretty.
The scandal of Haggis’s letter, then, is not that he denounced a church of which he has long been a part; nor is it the confirmation of one of the church’s most controversial practices. As alluded above, it’s the allegation of homophobia. Because in Hollywood in 2009, it’s not okay to actively not like gay people. It’s especially not okay to support legislation against giving rights to gay people. The scandal is the idea the church and its members would support a position so brazenly transgressive of the Hollywood societal norms. Can you imagine what would happen if Tom Cruise had denounced homosexuality instead of psychiatry when he went on The Today Show with Matt Laeur? What if John Travolta, who dressed as a woman in Hairspray, said that all crossdressing was evil? What if Kirstie Alley, with all of her various endorsement deals, criticized the marriage of Ellen and Portia di Rossi? Haggis claims that the church and its members are doing this very thing — only covertly, lest it lose its all-important big name support.
Of course, Cruise, back under the control of a micro-managing publicist, would never dare alienate such a section of his public. But the now strong public association between Cruise and Scientology might allow the letter — if its message continues to reverberate throughout the mediascape — to damage the Cruise image, not to mention the images of the dozens of other prominent names associated with the religion.
Again, we’ll see what happens in the next day or two. To my mind, however, there’s very little that the Scientologists could do to counter this narrative. Haggis is respected; his position in the church offers his statements credence; the bigotry implied is explosive. What’s more, it’s already gone viral — there’s no way to kill the story, lest they stop the major news outlets from posting. The New York Times has yet to post a story, neither, oddly, has TMZ, but The Washington Post and dozens of others have. If and when you find more information — or more complicated reactions — please post them below. In the meantime, we’ll see how this scandal is handled, dismantled, or blown to the wind.
The Banality of the Celebrity Profile: Vanity Fair and Penelope Cruz
Penelope Cruz Looks Pretty (and says little)
Like most major movie stars, Penelope Cruz has led an interesting life. She has worked with many talented and skilled directors; she’s bilingual; she’s dated interesting people and played interesting roles. But from reading her recent profile in Vanity Fair, available here, this is what I’ve learned about Penelope Cruz: She’s nice. She is not your typical version of pretty. She doesn’t like to talk about herself. She works with male directors, many of whom have complicated feelings about her. I only know that they’re complicated because the directors said so. Oh, and she works hard.
The problem is not with Cruz: she’s answering the questions in the best way she knows how. It’s the way that the author (Ingrid Sischy, longtime editor-in-chief of Interview magazine) and the magazine collaborate to make the profile as boring as possible.
In general, Vanity Fair is good at offering up a celeb profile with a few juicy goodies: Brad Pitt admitting he’s not fit for long-term marriage (while still married to Jennifer Aniston), for example. But they’re routinely the least robust piece of ‘journalism’ in the magazine. (Of course, Vanity Fair is neither The New Yorker nor Vogue — it’s pieces, whether dealing with the aftermath of the Bernie Maddox scandal or intrigue in the Hamptons, always employ ample bombast and melodramatic plotting.)
The celebrity profiles reliably employ a ‘Rolling Stone lead’ (think of the line from Almost Famous: ‘I’m flying high over Tupelo, Mississippi…and we’re all about to die) that is intended to illuminate the star’s inner self in some crucial way: in the Cruz piece, we’re offered the following:
Some years ago, when Penélope Cruz was still on her way up the movie-star ladder, I had a behind-the-scenes adventure with her that gave me a chance to see what the Spanish actress is made of. I had arranged for her to do a cover shoot for Interview, the magazine I then edited, and on the day of the shoot I got a call from the photographer, who was freaking out. She had planned a bunch of fun setups, but the day hadn’t even begun yet and now Cruz’s minders were demanding that the photographer make it snappy: there wasn’t time to do anything but a few basic shots. The huffs and snits were about to spoil the shoot, so I headed over to the location, a nightclub on 14th Street, to see if I could fix things. I quickly sussed out the real reason Cruz’s people were trying to cut the shoot short: she had been summoned for a meeting later that same day with the other Cruise, as in Tom, who back then, in 2000, was still considered Mr. It. I got nowhere with her Spanish rep—apparently our rinky-dink photo shoot was chopped liver in comparison with a meeting with Hollywood’s top gun—so I marched into hair and makeup, where the actress was getting spiffed up for the first picture, and pleaded our case directly. She looked horrified that we’d been made to feel rushed and small, and asked me to tell our photographer that she was honored to be working with her and was committed to posing for all the images she wanted.
In other words: Cruz is nice. She is classy. And she was wanted by America’s hottest man. There’s also an unmistakably scent of flattery — always present in the VF celeb profile — that makes the magazine seem more like Dominick Dunne, so pleased to put another star on its cover, than, say, The New Yorker, which regularly uses undercurrents of satire to subtly ridicule the subjects it profiles, whether most recently with Nikki Finke or last year’s sporty undercutting of Ariana Huffington.
Here, style is key. The way that The New Yorker — which has many faults, don’t get me wrong, I’m no absolute NYer apologist — treads the fine line between praise and pomposity is by letting the subject speak for him/herself. The moments when the subject seems most ridiculous — when her words seem to belie the attributes usually bestowed upon him — is when he is allowed to speak at length, or explain his own appeal. A recent profile of “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” Joe Arpaio, simply allowed him to dig himself his own rhetorical hole — granted, that hole was expanded with the atrocities of his inhumane “tent city jails” in the Arizona heat, but he did himself no favors.
Part of this is rhetorical skill. Take this exchange between author and subject in the Finke profile:
One Saturday evening, after we concluded a three-hour call, she phoned back twenty minutes later to say, “Everyone tries to portray me as sad, pathetic, lonely—that’s not me at all.”
“I don’t think of you that way, Nikki,” I said.
“You don’t know anything about my private life,” she said, quietly.
“That’s probably true.”
“O.K.”
And then — paragraph and section break. Affective result = Finke is lonely and sad, and that’s what makes her vindictive and mean.
But Vanity Fair does little with a star’s actual words.
Here’s what we get direct from Cruz’s own mouth:
“That evening was when they told me they wanted me to do Vanilla Sky. I was very happy to hear it because I had done Open Your Eyes“—the 1997 Spanish film upon which Vanilla Sky is based—“and I really wanted to do the movie and do it with them.”
“…One night in 1990 she caught his Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, a loony kidnapping/love story/sex-and-bondage caper starring Victoria Abril. That was it. Epiphany time. “That was the day I decided to be an actress,” Cruz says. “I fell in love. I’d found what I wanted to do. I really didn’t want to have to be in an office. I was a good student, but not happy. I thought, I have nobody in my family and no friends who can make a living out of anything related to an artistic profession, but I want to try. I decided to look for an agent.”
She remembers, “When I did my first movie in America, I already had my return ticket to Spain.”
She says, “Pedro would push me to the limit. He really knows how to press all my buttons. You can only go into something like that when it’s somebody you really trust. I always feel like he’s my safety net. Like I can fly and go far, because he’s going to catch me. The biggest [panic] attack I had during the movie was the scene where, for the first time, Lena makes the decision to try to become an actress. I don’t know what happened to me that day, but before and after we filmed I could not breathe.”
“Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame.”
“Javier is even better at air guitar!”
And that’s the full extension of her own voice in the profile.
In the words of others:
As Woody Allen says, “I don’t like to look at Penélope directly. It is too overwhelming.”
Sophia Loren, for her part, is unstinting in her praise for Cruz. She says, “Penélope is very accurate in her work. She wants to be very precise about what the director wants. And she takes her career very seriously, which she should. I think she loves what she does and it shows on the screen. She has become a real friend. We talked a lot about life and our careers. I talked about De Sica, she talked about Almodóvar. When it was my last day she came to my dressing room. She was crying, and I was crying. This is the first time that I have left a film crying because we got so upset about leaving each other.”
Rob Marshall remembers, “She’d be the last one in that soundstage working, and I’d have to say, ‘Penélope, it’s over.’ The day we were shooting her big song, ‘A Call from the Vatican,’ she was out there working so hard. In the middle of the number she does all this work with ropes—she was swinging on them and it was scary and she had formed calluses and her hands were bleeding. Daniel was screaming to her from the back of the soundstage that she is a warrior.
“Penélope was born to be an actress,” says Almodóvar, who knows her better than anyone in the business.
Comparison to others:
Cruz is poised to become a new member of the tiny firmament of actresses who began their careers in a language other than English and went on to become truly international stars: the Marlene Dietrichs, Greta Garbos, Ingrid Bergmans, Sophia Lorens, Anouk Aimées, Catherine Deneuves, Jeanne Moreaus, and Liv Ullmanns.
In the past only Spanish-American Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino) got anywhere near stardom in Hollywood, and changing her name was just the beginning of what she had to do.
Because of Cruz’s looks and the fact that the camera loves her as much as it does, her comedic flair has often been left untapped. But she could just be the great 21st-century screwball talent, the Jean Harlow or Carole Lombard of our time.
Through her own words (however few of them — and it’s not that Cruz can’t speak English), the words of her directors/fellow stars, and the author’s comparisons to glamorous, respected stars of yore, the Cruz image emerges as a structured absence: we don’t know her so much as we know how other people describe her. Or, put differently, we conceive of her through the conceptions of others. She has benefited from the tutelage of strong male directors; she is devoted to her craft and immensely talented — especially for an international actress (!!); she has wild, stereotypically ‘Latin’ conceptions of love and passion. (Point of comparison: am I who I say I am, and who I’m revealed to be through enucative acts….or am I the sum of my internet browser ‘cookies,’ Amazon wish list, and Gmail ads?)
Indeed, Cruz is perhaps most ‘present’ in the ways in which she is styled and photographed for the profile. For even though Vanity Fair is replete with rhetoric, it’s also filled with pictures — lots of glossy, Leibowitz-style (or actual Leibowitz) pictures.
Thus we have the cover shot of Cruz unzipping her own dress (see above) and, at least when viewed online, a bevy of additional shots, some taken for this particular article, others from previous photoshoots, yet all reinforcing the same simple message of Cruz’s hard work, class, and foreignness.
Note how she’s paired with her Svengali (Almodovar) and her neurotic American savior (Allen). But also note her engagement with each: Almodovar instructs while she molds her image, while she seems to be propping up Allen’s drooping masculinity. (What he — and his filmmaking — really needs….Spanish passion!) The other two shots clearly situate her as a member of old world Hollywood/European glamor — a semiotic melange of Hepburn, Loren, and Bardot.
Again, what’s most striking — and resonates most strongly — about the entire profile is the images. One shouldn’t be surprised — we live in a tremendously visual culture, after all — but the Vanity Fair profile is only a few steps away from the profiles of US Weekly and People, which pair much lower profile photography with profiles (some official, others hodgepodged from surveillance and sound bites) that manage to communicate as little as possible in anywhere from 1000-5000 words.
Ultimately, we’re dealing with a technique that Mary Desjardins has termed the “systemization” of celebrity scandal and gossip. Weeklies are faced with pressing deadlines; thus they turn a single scandal, such as Jon and Kate, into a string of eight magazine covers — mostly by combining photos to make people appear mad at each other, recycling old quotes, and digging up ‘close friends and neighbors’ to serve as character witnesses.
Vanity Fair may not doctor its photos or manufacture its quotes, but the banality of its profiles is perhaps even more offensive. I don’t expect to learn much from a profile in People. But Vanity Fair manufactures the same high melodrama and vacuous stories — and gossip about New York high society, as opposed to reality stars — in glossier packaging. The ads are for Gucci, yet the stories are devoid of real weight or worth. Of course, the lack of ostensible, worthwhile content, and our attraction to it and its subjects, ironically has tremendous value when we’re trying to get at its significance in society — thus explaining my interest here.
Indeed, I’m not positing that every story in every magazine needs to somehow edify the populace or posit a solution to world hunger. I am, however, suggesting that profiles that pose as journalism — such as those in Vanity Fair — lower our expectations of how we can or should expect to know a person: through her appearance and styling, what other people say about her, her relationship to powerful men, and comparisons to other historical figures, regardless of the accuracy of such descriptions. While a comparison to the way that Obama was sketched in the public imagination may seem far-fetched, the essential connection remains: many listened to his words and ideas, but those who did not judged him on what he looked like, the way he was styled, and, most importantly, what other people said about him.
It’s second-hand image formation. It’s the long-time business of Hollywood star formation. It’s nothing new. But it’s banality — especially when posing as high class quasi-journalism, priding itself on its identity as the anti-People — is no less enervating.
Battling Images: Kanye vs. Taylor vs. Beyoncé vs. Viacom
During Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, Lady Gaga appeared in what looks to be a snowman suit, a queen of hearts oufit that entailed covering her entire visage in red lace, and participated in a performance that ended with her splattered with fake blood and earning her the nickname “Bloody Eye”. See here for a nice overview. Yet she has been completely overshadowed by an interaction between Kanye West and pop princess Taylor Swift.
As Alisa Perren pointed out this morning, the incident has likewise sparked a showdown between fans and Viacom, which, as owners of MTV and notoriously protective of copyright, including YouTube clips, is hunting down clips of the incident as soon as they pop up. Try this direct link to the video on the MTV website. You’ll just have to sit through a very short commercial, so don’t be dissuaded.
The facts, more or less:
*Taylor Swift won the VMA Award for Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me,” beating out Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, and Beyonce When Taylor Lautner (aka Jacob on Twilight AND her future co-star in ****) announced her name, the close-up on her face expressed rather geniune-looking surprise.
*When Taylor came to the stage, she thanked her fans and MTV, declaring “I sing country music, so thank you so much for giving me a chance to win a VMA.” (This is a key point, I think, and has been super overlooked by those commenting on the incident)
*Kanye West then jumped onto the stage, took the microphone from Swift, and announced “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!” (Referring, of course, to Beyonce’s now iconic video for ‘Single Ladies’)
*The cutaway shots to Beyonce show her seemingly aghast, surprised, embarrassed — it’s difficult to tell.
*The audience responded with a standing ovation for Swift, but the director of the VMAs chose to cut to voiceover and track back to wide screen, rather than allowing Swift to respond or recover. According to an account of someone serving as a seat holder, she stood there for about 30 seconds, fighting back tears. The television audience only saw the shift transition away from the incident.
*Swift went on to perform, singing live, a few segments later.
*When Beyonce won for “Video of the Year” at the end of the show, she welcomed Taylor Swift back on stage to finish her acceptance speech. In a moment of apparent solidarity, the two shared the stage — and, at this point, Swift had changed into a red dress that coincidentally matched Beyonce’s. The return has been variously labeled “triumphant” and “self-satisfied.” As you see below, there’s quite an interesting dynamic going on in the way that Beyonce ‘cedes’ the spotlight. Again, the direct link.
*Kanye was confronted by MTV officials and asked to leave; he was also apparently yelled at by Swift’s mother (and manager).
*According to several reports, West was drunk at the time he jumped up onto the stage.
*Kanye has since ‘apologized’ on his blog. First, in a post from last night, he wrote, in all caps:
I’m sooooo sorry to Taylor Swift and her fans and her mom,” he wrote. “I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would’ve said. She is very talented! I like the lyrics about being a cheerleader and she’s in the bleachers! I’m in the wrong for going on stage and taking away from her moment!
“Beyoncé’s video was the best of this decade!!!! I’m sorry to my fans if I let you guys down!!!! I’m sorry to my friends at MTV. I will apologize to Taylor 2mrw. Welcome to the real world!!!! Everybody wanna booooo me but I’m a fan of real pop culture!!! No disrespect but we watchin’ the show at the crib right now cause … well you know!!!! I’m still happy for Taylor!!!! Boooyaaawwww!!!! You are very very talented!!! I gave my awards to Outkast when they deserved it over me … That’s what it is!!!!!!! I’m not crazy y’all, i’m just real. Sorry for that!!! I really feel bad for Taylor and I’m sincerely sorry!!! Much respect!!!!!”
*This morning, he posted: ““I feel like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents when he messed up everything and Robert DeNiro asked him to leave…That was Taylor’s moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry.”
So there we have it: Kanye West steals Taylor’s moment, makes a big scene, causes a big stir, and apologizes. Rather insincerely. But there’s some major image reification going on here: on the part of Kanye, most assuredly, but also as concerns the images of Swift, Beyonce, and MTV and its trademark awards show in general. I’ve asked the one and only Kristen Warner, frequent contributor to the blog, to help me find a way through this discursive and semiotic jungle. (In other words: people are interpreting this event in myriad ways — figuring it in terms of race, taste, contrivance and manipulation….and hopefully we can make some headway as to the various messages the event sent and will continue to send.)
My initial thoughts are as follows:
*MTV loves to exploit the VMAs. Ever since Madonna showed up in full 18th century garb to perform “Like a Virgin” (is that right? KW in: I think Virgin was the wedding dress roll around deal; Vogue might have been the 18th century garb), they’ve been a site primed for transgression. They even have a section in their web coverage of the event marked “Most Talked About Moments.” Think the Madonna/Britney/Christina three-way kiss; think Britney’s infamous and lethargic ‘comeback’ performance.
They’re desperately trying to keep the MTV brand - and these awards — relevant. And, apparently, succeeding. See Bruno/Sasha Baron Cohen’s incident with Eminem at last spring’s MTV Movie Awards for a less successful (and visibly orchestrated) attempt. The fact that Taylor Lautner, her future co-star, presented the award = no coincidence. And while I doubt MTV knew Kanye was going to do what he did, I do think they knew Swift was going to win (duh)…and have since profitted immensely, both discursively and through ad rates on the web site, from the firestorm that has emerged. They’re selling access to the entire show through OnDemand; as you’ve seen, the clips of the show are wed to commercials. Viacom is trying to find a model to profit off of the show in the DVR era. This seems to be working.
*This is what Kanye does. Reify his image. If we define a celebrity scandal as an incident when information about a celeb emerges that clashes or undercuts their existing star image, this is NO SCANDAL. Kanye has had temper tantrums — and I don’t know how else to describe them — before. The following encapsulates the kind of quotes Kanye offers on a regular basis: “I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice…It’s me settling into that position of just really accepting that it’s one thing to say you want to do it and it’s another thing to really end up being like Michael Jordan.” As someone pointed out, if anything, the fact that Kanye got up on stage — even when the ‘Video of the Year’ had yet to have been handed out, which Beyonce was obviously going to receive — points to either his stupidity or his supposed drunkenness. But it’s still not a scandal.
*This also does nothing but affirm Swift’s image as a precocious yet put-together star. I’ve been thinking about doing a post on Swift for awhile — and still might — as to the authenticity commonly affixed to her star. She writes all her own music, plays her own instruments, and puts all her friends and past loves in her songs. She’s not even 20 years old and already the saving grace of the music industry. She’s blonde, she’s adorable, she’s the anti-Miley Cyrus. One commentator calls her “a young Southern girl who is the first non-tramp role model America’s teenage girls have had in a decade.” And now that means Kanye has made her a victim - and she emerged triumphant. If anything, it’s only bolstered her fan base and consolidated pre-existing affection.
*I also want to note, in passing, that there are several theories that this was an elaborate conglomerate backstage deal: Viacom lets Kanye do his thing (the drinking was staged; that’s the reason why there was no security to take him off the stage, etc. etc.) and NBC/Universal gets to profit off his appearance on the premiere of Leno’s ‘new’ show on Monday. See Gawker’s recap for details. I’m quite dubious. As one of the columnists points out, “Yes, MTV likes controversy, but their fake controversies in the past—eg. Bruno falling on Eminem—ham-handedly telegraph “this is a stunt” a mile off. Last night, you saw a moment of genuine awkwardness production-wise after Kanye took the mic when the booth seemed to stumble and be unsure about cutting away—not the hallmark of a pre-planned, pre-choreographed stunt.” Indeed, I think the reason some people are wont to think of this as choreographed is because of MTV’s admitted orchestration of the Bruno/Eminem stunt. If you just watch these two side-by-side, you realize they’re operating on entirely different levels. Second, apparently President Obama called Kanye a ‘jackass’ in off-the-cuff, off-the-record remarks. I’m not even going to go there.
KW: I love disclaimers. So I will list the key one here: I do not think what Kanye did was acceptable. I think as Katy Perry said, his behavior essentially, “stepped on a kitten.” That said, there’s a couple things I want to elucidate on with regards to the phrase “stepped on a kitten.” The visual imagery that phrase suggests is powerful and visceral and somehow makes what Kanye did seem all the more traumatic and painful. He stomped on pure, white, fluffy, feline innocence and because of that we all need to rally around that innocence and encourage her. But what does that make Kanye? A big bully? An ogre? Someone who would tred on innocence? I don’t disagree that his alleged drunkenness certainly made him act out in highly inappropriate ways but is the way that we are discussing his behavior cause him to fall into one of those tropes? You know those tropes, those easily definable types that help us narrativize and make sense of these kinds of events. I can’t help but think that to a small degree we are working with some tropes about violent, oversexualized black masculinity in contrast with white innocence. I mean, for Christ sakes the girl is a country singer! You cannot get more down home white girl than that (also a trope). (AHP Comment: Just look at that picture. She’s wearing a white dress for goodness’ sakes.)
Also it is worth reiterating that Sunday night is not the first time Kanye has gone off book and expounded (most times not too terribly well) on the persons, places or things he believes have been wronged or unjustly inconsidered. Specifically, I’m thinking of the Concert for Hurricane Katrina Relief in September of 2005 when Kanye made his infamous statement (while standing next to poor, innocent Mike Myers) that “George Bush hates black people.” Watch that here:
An interesting point of comparison comes when you examine the similarity in Mike Myers reaction and Taylor’s reaction. Mortification, shock, dismay is quite evident for both “victims” of Kanye’s attack. But of course the latter event is layered with issues of gender and race that make it far more painful for Taylor and for the viewer. For Kanye, however, the distinction between Taylor and George is slim; the point is that in BOTH cases he was telling the truth as he saw it-live television be damned. Now I think that discussing the way Kanye’s latest outburst affected Taylor is important but the trauma will surely be shortlived. The message there will be that Kanye is a buffoon and a prima donna and Taylor is entitled to a long, successful career winning VMA’s and Grammy’s and whatever else she may dream to earn. However, the implications of Kanye’s statement during the Katrina telethon suggest that he is willing to stake his career (and yes, perhaps fulfill his very large ego’s desire to be the center of attention) on being plain about how things are and the fact that maybe, Bush isn’t the biggest fan of black folks-or of New Orleans, or of the greater Gulf Region for that matter. For me, nothing that he will ever do will top that telethon speech-not even commandeering Taylor’s VMA ‘moment”.
Finally, I know that to Annie, intention is hardly a component of celebrity gossip or scandal. It matters less that this might have been a planned kerfuffle than it does how the star images will be deconstructed and reconfigured through the tv news circuit and social networking communities (I hear he cried on Jay Leno!?!). Trust, I think both Annie and I agree that both parties will be fine. Kanye was fine post-Katrina telethon; Taylor will be more than fine after this encounter. However, I do want to consider the possibilities of this being a staged pseudo-event because everything seems so perfectly synchronized and everyone seemed so perfectly positioned throughout the course of the ceremony to be a simple coincidence. Similar to the above mentioned incident with Bruno and Eminem that was eventually proven to be staged, it is highly likely that something of equal twisted pathology could have been staged for these folks as well. Hell, even Beyonce got to play a key role in the restoration of the status quo. Look at this magnificent narrative at work: Kanye steps on the kitten, gets cursed out and banished from the building and we wait for the entire second half for the redemption which comes by way of the black Queen herself, Beyonce. Wearing the same red as Taylor, she ushered the teenager (who I might add was PREPARED to return to the stage complete with utter lack of shock or surprise face that would have been required for such a surprise) back onto the stage to “have her moment.” Everyone wins. Well, kinda. We get to talk about female solidarity (I’m not quite convinced that a pseudo event actually counts as genuine solidarity) but we also have to talk about racist tropes of black masculinity that so subtly creep back into public consciousness by way of simple but accurately poignant phrases like “stepped on a kitten.”
My final thought is: Why isn’t anyone really talking about the differences between Madonna reclaiming Michael Jackson as a pop star that more closely aligned with her own identity and not a BLACK pop star who lived in-between cultures for the great majority of his life? And why isn’t anyone talking about the greatest faux pas of the night: Rapper Lil’ Mama’s involuntary (she says she couldn’t help herself) stage jumping during Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ performance of “New York State of Mind”? I’ve got some theories…and they all involve the lack of kittens.
Transformers Crew REALLY Hates Megan Fox: "She has the press fooled."
Megan Fox and Transformers Director Michael Bay
Megan Fox has been doing heavy promotion duty for Jennifer’s Body, which is currently screening at TIFF. As she has been wont to do (see my previous post on the cultivation of her image), she made an offhand, outlandish quip, only this time she compared Transformers director Michael Bay to Hitler, and then some:
God, I really wish I could go loose on this one. He’s like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he’s not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he’s so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it’s endearing to watch him. He’s vulnerable and fragile in real life and then on set he’s a tyrant. Shia and I almost die when we make a Transformers movie. He has you do some really insane things that insurance would never let you do.
The press picked it up, threw it around a bit — Cinematical and Nikki Finke made fun — and then this bombshell from three anonymous crew members from Transformers. It was initially posted on Bay’s website, but has since been taken down, as I’ll explain below. It’s long, but I’ve highlighted the juicy parts.
This is an open letter to all Michael Bay fans. We are three crew members that have worked with Michael for the past ten years. Last week we read the terrible article with inflammatory, truly trashing quotes by the Ms. Fox about Michael Bay. This letter is to set a few things straight.
Yes, Megan has great eyes, a tight stomach we spray with glycerin, and an awful silly Marilyn Monroe tattoo plastered on her arm that we cover up to keep the moms happy.
Michael found this shy, inexperienced girl, plucked her out of total obscurity thus giving her the biggest shot of any young actresses’ life. He told everyone around to just trust him on his choice. He granted her the starring role in Transformers, a franchise that forever changed her life; she became one of the most googled and oogled women on earth. She was famous! She was the next Angelina Jolie, hooray! Wait a minute, two of us worked with Angelina – second thought – she’s no Angelina. You see, Angelia is a professional.
We know this quite intimately because we’ve had the tedious experience of working with the dumb-as-a-rock Megan Fox on both Transformers movies. We’ve spent a total of 12 months on set making these two movies.
We are in different departments; we can’t give our names because sadly doing so in Hollywood could lead to being banished from future Paramount work. One of us touches Megan’s panties, the other has the often shitty job of pulling Ms. Sourpants out of her trailer, while another is near the Panaflex camera that helps to memorialize the valley girl on film.
Megan has the press fooled. When we read those magazines we wish we worked with that woman. Megan knows how to work her smile for the press. Those writers should try being on set for two movies, sadly she never smiles. The cast, crew and director make Transformers a really fun and energetic set. We’ve traveled around the world together, so we have never understood why Megan was always such the grump of the set?
When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we’ve had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it’s very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) — easily another 45 minutes in the chair!
So when the three of us caught wind of Ms Fox, pontificating yet again in some publication (like she actually has something interesting to say) blabbing her trash mouth about a director whom we three have grown to really like. She compared working with Michael, to “working with Hitler”. We actually don’t think she knows who Hitler is by the way. But we wondered how she doesn’t realize what a disgusting, fully uneducated comment this was? Well, here let’s get some facts straight.
Say what you want about Michael – yes at times he can be hard, but he’s also fun, and he challenges everyone for a reason – he simply wants people to bring their ‘A’ game. He comes very prepared, knows exactly what he wants, involves the crew and expects everyone to follow through with his or her best, and that includes the actors. He’s one of the hardest working directors out there.
He gets the best from his crews, many of whom have worked with him for 15 years. And yes, he’s loyal, one of the few directors we’ve encountered who lowered his fee by millions to keep Transformers in the United States and California, so he could work with his own crew.
Megan says that Transformers was an unsafe set? Come on Megan, we know it is a bit more strenuous then the playground at the trailer park, but you don’t insult one of the very best stunt and physical effects teams in the business! Not one person got hurt!
And who is the real Megan Fox? She is very different than the academy nominee and winning actors we’ve all worked around. She’s as about ungracious a person as you can ever fathom. She shows little interest in the crew members around her. We work to make her look good in every way, but she’s absolutely never appreciative of anyone’s hard work. Never a thank you. All the crewmembers have stopped saying hi to Ms. Princess because she never says hello back. It gets tiring. Many think she just really hates the process of being an actress.
Megan has been late to the sets many times. She goes through the motions that make her exude this sense of misery. We’ve heard the A.D’s piped over the radio that Megan won’t walk from her trailer until John Turturro walks first! John’s done seventy-five movies and she’s made two!
Never expect Megan to attend any of the 15 or so crew parties like all the other actors have. And then there’s the classless night she blew off The Royal Prince of Jordan who made a special dinner for all the actors. She doesn’t know that one of the grips’ daughters wanted to visit their daddy’s work to meet Megan, but he wouldn’t let them come because he told them “she is not nice.”
The press certainly doesn’t know her most famous line. On our first day in Egypt, the Egyptian government wouldn’t let us shoot because of a permit problem as the actors got ready in make up at the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael tried to make the best of it; he wanted to take the cast and crew on a private tour of the famous Giza pyramids. God hold us witness, Megan said, “I can’t believe Michael is fucking forcing us to go to the fucking pyramids!” I guess this is the “Hitler guy” she is referring to.
So this is the Megan Fox you don’t get to see. Maybe she will learn, but we figure if she can sling insults, then she can take them too. Megan really is a thankless, classless, graceless, and shall we say unfriendly bitch. It’s sad how fame can twist people, and even sadder that young girls look up to her. If only they knew who they’re really looking up to.
But ‘fame’ is fleeting. We, being behind the scenes, seen em’ come and go. Hopefully Michael will have Megatron squish her character in the first ten minutes of Transformers 3. We can tell you that will make the crew happy!
-Loyal Transformers Crew
Whew. In the few hours since this was posted, Bay took down the letter and issued his own statement:
I don’t condone the crew letter to Megan. And I don’t condone Megan’s outlandish quotes. But her crazy quips are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter I still love working with her, and I know we still get along. I even expect more crazy quotes from her on Transformers 3.
So what’s going on here?
As Finke points out, crews lashing out at stars is not unprecedented: Bruce Willis once complained about crew salaries, blaming them for the rise in film costs (while he himself was netting $15 million a film). According to lore, he came to the studio lot the next day, parked his car, and returned from a meeting to find it absolutely blanketed in spit.
To my mind, the most significant part of the entire tirade isn’t the bit about her being pissed about visiting the pyramids, or even the suggestion that she become a porn star. Rather, it’s the truly scandalous idea that there are two sides to Megan Fox. The crew members’ disclosure establishes a very obvious bifurcation: there is a ’real’ Megan Fox (the one who’s a bitch on set, untalented, and ‘dumb as rocks’) and the ‘fake’ Megan Fox, who tells crazy stories to reporters and poses like a porn star.
Crew members are often figured as sources of authenticity: during Julia Roberts’ heyday in the early ’90s, almost every profile about her gushed about how fantastic she was with the crew, threw them parties, etc. etc. (And, not suprisingly, Roberts ended up marrying a member of the crew when she was working on The Mexican). Friendly to the crew = friendly to the ‘little people’ = friendly to us! Julia Roberts would be our friend! Such discourse was especially helpful when Steven Spielberg accused her of unprofessionalism on the set of Hook: Spielberg may have had a problem, but the crew — the stand-ins for her fans, and, in essence, for her audience — they were on her side.
But that’s not all. They also specifically address the idea of star and image production: by highlighting the fact that she was ‘plucked from obscurity’ by Bay, they gesture to the ways in which individuals (and, in this case, unknown individuals with nice bodies, who will require little salary but attract many boys) are molded and crafted for stardom. Of course, Fox was not in total obscurity when cast for Transformers, but her image coalesce into its current form following her casting in the film.
They also make explicit mention of her comparisons to Angelina Jolie….and declare her lacking. Lacking professionalism, specifically. Yet they are also implicitly suggesting that Fox cultivates the comparisons, and that they — the ‘real’ people, speakers of truth — find her derivative. She can’t act, she’s not a nice person, she’s ‘dumb as rocks,’ and has no future in the industry. Basically, she’s a fake, and you should feel duped if you thought anything else.
Now, whether or not such a prediction comes true is somewhat inconsequential. I’ll be fascinated, however, to see how this bit of information is picked up outside of the industry. Right now, I’ve read it on industry blogs and seen it mentioned in passing in various newspapers, but I want to see if the gossip mags do anything with it (and if you see it — please send it my way, even if it’s just a gossip blog).
The stakes are somewhat high: if this disclosure is further circulated and authenticated in mainstream discourse, it’ll significantly alter what ‘Megan Fox’ signifies. Put differently, it’ll change what her image means. So many already suspected her of fakeness: of constructing and cultivating her own image. In many ways, proof of such construction is the kiss of death — we love to think of stars as seamless, natural creations, regardless of the fact that all public personalities — whether Obama or Kim Kardashian or Meryl Streep — are in the business of image cultivation. But to let those seams show: that’s poor form. That’s sloppy publicity. Truly unprofessional, as the crew might say.
The Noxema Girl and Mr. Steamy Get High, Get Naked, and Get…..No Coverage?
Eric Dane, aka ‘McSteamy,’ and Rebecca Gayhart, aka The Noxema Girl
If a scandal falls in the middle of Hollywood, and very few people read about it, did it happen at all? Or does it indicate that the stars involved don’t even merit the attention? OR does it mean that the subject matter is just too dirty and ugly to think about?
This is relatively old news, and it’s also ‘sad smut,’ as Lainey would put it — gossip on matters that are serious and dangerous. But I’m particularly struck by the way it’s been relegated to the back pages of the gossip rags — or not covered at all.
The story, in brief: Rebecca Gayheart, whose face is forever immortalized for my generation as ‘The Noxema Girl’ (and/or Dylan’s ill-fated wife in Beverly Hills 90210), is married to Eric Dane, aka ‘McSteamy,’ from minivan majority fav Grey’s Anatomy. Last Spring, Lainey published a blind item with the following clues:
Smack No Kids
Smack No Kids:
They’ve been married a while now, he’s still desperately in love with her, and has been patiently waiting to have children…only she hasn’t been healthy enough to get pregnant. Because she loves heroin. Last summer it was a last chance, he took her on extended holiday, cleaned her up, a new positive attitude, kept her busy working on a new project through the fall, away from her regular enablers, and it totally worked out. She was in a good creative space. She was able to fight the temptation.But as an actor, the work ends eventually and if there’s nothing new to do, there’s really nothing else to do. Bored and idle, the old demons have come back. One day last month he came home from a long overnight and couldn’t find her. The dealer called a few hours later telling him to pick her up, she was so out of it even he had to cut her off and she had started harassing his other clients. All the emotional wear and tear, it’s beginning to show on him physically too. But he’s working more than she is and can’t get away for several weeks so he’s hired a babysitter to watch her night and day. Babysitter. She resents him for it of course so the fights are getting worse … and the one benefitting from all of this is a slag bitch colleague who’s been waiting for her chance for a long, long time.
Last week, Lainey somewhat uncharacteristically acknowledged that the blind item did indeed describe Gayheart and Dane, perhaps because a very illicit and very scandalous video of the pair had recently surfaced. The video, which depicts the couple and another woman (former Miss Teen USA Kari Ann Peniche, recently of Celebrity Rehab) in various states of undress and intoxication, includes Gayheart’s admission that ‘I’m so high!’ For more, see the extensive Gawker post, including edited video, here.
Us Weekly ran a two page spread — very brief reportage — concluding with an inside source who claims “this is another cloud over Grey’s, and they don’t need any more negative publicity.” The couple’s lawyer has been riding the crazy rhetoric train, claiming:
“This is simply a private, consensual moment involving a married couple, shot several years ago, which was never intended to be seen by the public. Although the participants are nude, the tape is not a ‘sex tape.’ It is a private tape made for only my clients’ personal use, and nobody has the right to exploit it. If anyone exploits the tape, they will be violating my clients’ rights and will be exposed to significant liability.”
In other words, there’s no way to spin this. Gayheart was convicted in 2001 of vehicular manslaughter hitting and killing a 9-year-old with her car. She was also photographed in 2003 naked, in a bathtub, with a crack pipe.
Now you might be thinking: Gawker coverd it! So did Lainey! It was in Us Weekly! It was totally covered! On the contrary: it was on the 56th page of Us Weekly, and didn’t even merit a cover mention. This, from the magazine that repeatedly featured an affair between Lee Ann Rimes and the star of a Nora Ephron made-for-tv movie. And as much as I like Gawker, it has a fraction of the audience of either of the big mags. TMZ covered it, but not with its usual updates and panache — most likely because Gawker got the scoop. Crucially, the language used to describe the tape isn’t ‘scandalous’ or ‘shocking’ — but embarrassing, a word with a far softer connotation than those usually associated with sex tapes and hard drug use.
So what’s going on here? Why doesn’t this merit a cover? We’re talking HARD DRUGS here. Is it too sad of smut? Is it the fact that Eric Dane — the real object of the minvan’s affection — is not directly linked to the drug use, and is trying to ‘save’ his addicted wife? Is it that the romance at the heart — the marriage of Dane and Gayheart — doesn’t seem to be in peril? And only a truly nasty sexual scandal, such as the various exploits of both Jon and Kate, will sustain curiosity, outrage, and readership? Or is that too little is known about the ‘real’ Gayheat and Dane…and their personal lives, despite any matter of coke and sex, simply aren’t established enough to merit a disconnect between established persona and action?
I will say that from what I remember from Grey’s halcyon days, McSteamy was a bit of a sex-driven cad, so a sex-tape wouldn’t absolutely undercut his ‘picture personality.’ But then again, knowing Grey’s, I’m sure he’s reformed and had serious relationships with half of the hospital. But the guy’s nickname is MCSTEAMY.
And maybe that’s what gets to the heart of the issue: as Lainey points out, Dane has repeatedly announced that they want to start a family. And if they have, and continue, to reframe this scandal and recovery in terms of love, unconditional marital devotion and the possibility of a big-cheeked Noxema girl baby, they may do no wrong. Rimes, on the other hand, is getting a divorce, and Jon keeps dating the daughter of Kate’s plastic surgeon. You might assume hard drug use would out-scandal those actions. But as the last few weeks have proven, you’d be wrong.
Post Script: Apatow, Rogen, Heigl Throwdown!
The shitstorm continues. Heigl’s The Ugly Truth opened relatively strong with $27 million domestic (although not strong enough to beat current summer rom-com champ, The Proposal).
And this weekend, it goes up against the Rogen/Apatow/Sandler collaboration Funny People. Rogen and Apatow have been doing the press rounds for the film, and have obviously heard wind of Heigl’s comments — both concerning her “torturous” schedule at Grey’s Anatomy and her previous complaints about her own collaboration with Apatow and Rogen, Knocked Up. (For the record, Heigl told Vanity Fair that Knocked Up “paints the women as shrews,” while the men look “lovable.” She added, “It was hard for me to love the movie.”)
On Howard’s Stern’s XM Radio show, Rogen and Apatow offered the following (via US Weekly):
“That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way,” he quipped on Howard Stern‘s SIRIUS XM radio show on Thursday.
Added Apatow, “I hear there’s a scene where she’s wearing … Underwear …
with a vibrator in it, so I’d have to see if that was uplifting for women.”
Apatow figured Heigl was “probably was doing six hours of interviews and kissing everyone’s a**, and then just got tired and slipped a little bit” when she made the remarks to Vanity Fair.
Regardless, Rogen said, “I didn’t slip and I was doing f****** interviews all day too … I didn’t say s***!”
Even more baffling, said Apatow, “We never had a ‘fight’” with Heigl while filming. “Seth always says, it doesn’t make any sense [because] she improvised half her s***,” Apatow said, adding that she “could not have been cooler.”
Apatow said he hasn’t spoken to Heigl since her remarks. He doesn’t know if he’d make a big deal about it, either.
“It all depends on how much coffee I have had that day,” he said. “If I was fighting … with someone else about something I may handle it wrong, and if I’m in like total Buddha mood, I’d be like ‘I feel sad that she hasn’t learned the lesson of her journey yet,’” he said.
After the remark, “[You think] at some point I’ll get a call saying ‘Sorry, I was tired…’ and then the call never comes,’” he said.
Rogen said he doesn’t feel bad since Heigl seems to run her mouth and most people, including Grey’s Anatomy staff.
“I gotta say it’s not like we’re the only people she said some bat **** crazy things about,” he said. “That’s kind of her bag now.”
Now, this has been framed as Rogen and Apatow attempting to divert attention away from her movie and onto theirs, but I think the choice of forum — Howard Stern, who tends to encourage more, well, frank discussion — helps to at least frame their discourse as the expression of their ‘authentic’ feelings about Heigl.
Ultimately, Rogen and Apatow undermine any and all discourse that asserts that Heigl has become a scapegoat, or that her words are taken out of context (see the Newsweek article). If even the people she WORKS WITH say she’s this sort of person, she must be.
Again, I want to emphasize that it doesn’t really matter whether or not she really is a shrew — what matters is that all aspects of her image (and the media) seem to be collaborating to portray her as such. It also doesn’t help that she was the executive producer of The Ugly Truth — further highlighting what has been constructed as ‘movie-role’ hypocracy: criticizing her character in one film and playing one that seems to embody the selfsame traits in another.
That’s about all I have to say — other than the fact that everywhere, even The Onion A.V. Club, seems to be circulating this line of discourse. Heigl’s got to turn this around quick — either by mocking herself (a Funny or Die video or SNL skit might do, but I don’t know how funny she really is) or by doing something significant enough to drape over this now acutely felt component of her star image.
