May
26
| oprah, rita skeeter, and hollow dreams | Tweet |
with a blog post title like that YOU KNOW i’m about to go deep.
cue the janet jackson.
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so there is a writer named kitty kelley. she got famous in the mid-80’s for writing unauthorized, gossip-laden biographies of cultural icons like frank sinatra (slut!), jackie o (wife of a slut!), and nancy reagan (secret slut who incidentally boned frank sinatra!). just last month, she published her latest effort, oprah, a long ass book (445 pages to be exact) which purports to shed new light on the life of the daytime queen/media mogul, but mainly just rehashes a bunch of shit you either already knew, or if you didn’t know, you probably wouldn’t care about. aside from a handful of salacious details involving things like john tesh and crack cocaine, there isn’t much in oprah that kept me from wanting to shut the cover, turn on some old school mariah, and get back to making cauliflower soup.
in the interest of full disclosure, i should note that while i am an oprah fan, i fully recognize the level of egomania inherent in her endeavors (please refer to EVERY cover of o magazine if you disagree) and wasn’t surprised to discover that she is highly self-obsessed, considers the kennedys to be “family,” and forces all those who deal with her — from harpo employees to landscape architects to her dog’s veterinarians — to sign non-disclosure agreements in an effort to maintain her carefully crafted public image. she has done a lot of good in this world (giving literally millions of dollars to charity, inspiring folks to read a motherhugging book, teaching housewives about multiple orgasms) but also some bad (unwittingly perpetuating the notion that some jewish families sacrifice babies, publicly flogging faux memoirist james frey, introducing the masses to dr. phil).
in reading kelley’s work, i expected new and possibly shocking insights on oprah’s life, an understanding of how she built her empire, an analysis of her successes and missteps. instead, i got what felt like a slightly beefed-up outline peppered with national enquirer headlines. as lauren collins wrote in her review of oprah in the new yorker, “kelley’s pen is not dripping poison so much as slightly curdled milk.â€
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when i mentioned to my sister that i was reading oprah, she made a very astute observation: KITTY KELLEY IS JUST LIKE RITA SKEETER. for those of you who don’t worship at the altar of j.k. rowling, rita skeeter is a fictional character from the harry potter series. first introduced in book four, skeeter is a meretricious journalist who knowingly slanders our beloved boy hero for her own professional advancement. paula abdul even wrote a song about it.
in thinking about the many connections between kelley and skeeter, i was struck by the following: we trust journalists to present the truth, or at least both sides of an issue, and when we pick up a work of nonfiction that claims to be objective and unbiased (especially one printed by a reputable publishing house) we assume that (1) we can reasonably believe what we are reading and (2) we can clearly discern WHERE and HOW authors have obtained their information. the problem with skeeter, kelley, and others like them is that transparency and integrity are sacrificed in the name of sensationalism and personal gain.
WHICH ALSO SEEMS TO BE THE THEME OF THE 21ST CENTURY. i know the gilded age already happened, but i kinda feel like the second incarnation has descended upon the good old u s of a. when vapid, silicone-based reality tv personalities are literally MILLIONS of times as famous as poet laureates and machiavellian financial overlords guzzle money while countless families are bankrupted by their convoluted schemes, you know there is trouble in the hamster cage.
it should come as no surprise that “yellow journalism,” a brand of hyperbolic — and highly speculative — reporting designed to attract readers and stir controversy, emerged in the gilded age, at a time when newspapers were vying for market dominance and audiences were hungry for the next juicy tidbit. were it not for yellow journalism and inaccurate reports that the U.S.S. maine was deliberately sunk in 1898, there’s a very good chance that the spanish-american war would not have happened! which would mean that the guantanamo bay detention camp would not exist! which would mean that we wouldn’t have been covertly waterboarding people there for the past decade! HOT DAMN.
when journalism is co-opted by politics, or business interests, or even an individual writer’s quest for fame, it makes our world just a little bit more hollow. when headlines are taken at face value and footnotes foregone, we end up believing and doing things that don’t make sense (weapons of mass destruction what?). basically, my point is this: we can’t rely on others to disseminate truth. just because you read it in the new york times doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. remember, even they got duped.
if you made it to the end of this post, which i think turned out to be more of a diatribe than a book review, you are freaking amazing. holler at me with your thoughts.
I really loved this post, especially the Clueless references in the video
Great points to think about on our hollow society, way to keep it real.
love wednesdays! great thought-provoking review – funny too!
You’ve got the brains of a novelist
…the similarities between now and the gilded age are far more apparent than I previously realized, thanks for the eye opener. Once your done layin down the sickest tracks I think you should write some crazy-hilarious but yet inspiring book…I’d totally read it.
Totally droppin some knowledge on my head in this one…
I may not worship at the altar of Rowling, but I totally see your point. The Internet makes it even scarier when society relies on Twitter tidbits as fact off the bat, we have to take back the importance of checking our sources.
Ironically enough, before I read this I caught wind that Congress is selling out on the issue of net nuetrality. Or at least that’s what Chris Gore’s tweet told me. So I signed an online petition, easy enough, but somewhere I lost the passion and the feeling even though the issue is dear.
Whatever will we do in this hyper-connected “Information Age”? Read books, I say.
love it! I gotta say, for a second there I thought you met Oprah and there was going to be a pic just like the one of you and Bieber but with you and Oprah. Ha. Then I remembered Kitty aka Rita. Very insightful review as always! I’m still thinking about what tabloids/the internet/shitty journalism etc. mean for the future of our society…
love this review! i think you just might be part of the cure for our gilded age, m’dear.
Excellent diatribe. Pop culture refrences? Check. Pessimistic view of personal/corporate/political greed? Check. Words in all-caps denoting growing disbelief/frustration? Natch.
The good news: The Gilded Age ended in the late 19th century as a result of an epic economic crisis (they had those back then?), a spurious war (whaaa?) and a game changing election (yes they could) that gave way to the progressive era (thanks wikipedia!).
Does that mean there may be another Progressive era in the near future? Maybe.
P.E. 1.0 Highlights: Fitzgerald and Hemingway (flappers, too); Prohibition (epic fail); WWI (still better than WWII); Women’s Suffrage (anything that angers Ann Coulter has to be good, right?)
Potential P.E. 2.0 Highlights: Chabon and Moore (if these two get together and write historical comedies about jewish vampires the world will never be the same); War Against Obese Children (with the wars on drugs and poverty goinig so well, i’d think twice about spending too much on a “mission accomplished” banner; WWIII (FTW!); Gay Marriage (again, i just wanna see the look on Ann Coulter’s face)
Also, it’s nice to hear that John Tesh is gettin’ some.
regardless of whether or not we’ve decided to tackle the new oprah hardcover, i think anyone with half a brain has come to realize that the mindless tabloid mentality has taken over the collective brain of not only our country, but much of the world.
there was a glorious time not so long ago when people became connected to artists…true artists. that’s who we idolized, looked up to and desperately tried to emulate. those who created something that spoke to us, no matter the medium. now, because our attention spans have been reduced to mush by our need for the “right now,” we are obsessed with who’s sticking it to kim kardashian and her dopey sisters, rather than who’s saying something profound with a pen, a brush, their voice or instrument… you get the picture.
shit – i think even the space program has become like a hockey game… onlookers waiting for the next catastrophic accident instead of what might become uncovered in parts unknown. i’ll take it even one step further: WHY THE FUCK DO WE EVEN CONTINUE TO SUPPORT AN 18 BILLION DOLLAR A YEAR SPACE PROGRAM WHEN MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY ALONE WILL NOT HAVE EATEN ANYTHING TODAY???!!!
Ah fuck – what time are the Real Housewives on?
Love the review! Also, have to ask, do you secretly subscribe to O? We will only judge you a little bit.
Flay, you’re darn right that Kelley’s Oprah book. is symptomatic of a larger problem.
@How*Nice : You may have a point with regards to the space program having losts its way, but I can think of bigger problems than $18,000,000,000.
Cot damn! I just dled your new mixtape & I’m in LOVE! It’s really jammin’. Heard about it from Amplive’s myspace blog (thank goddess).
Enjoyed the hilarious vid too, especially the Hole reference(but most of the others made me laugh)! You’re the foshizzle ma nizzle. Thx for the great tunes!
I was on my iTunes today and felt like listening to MASHed Potatoes. To my disappointment, my computer couldn’t find the files so I was on here to download it again and stumbled upon this book review. It was quite entertaining for 3 am. Haha. I liked how it pretty much has its own soundtrack.
So yeah. It was completely random and reminded me of how shitty the world is becoming, but, it’s refreshing to know that I’m not the only one who thinks so. I’m still perplexed as to why there were so many copies of that book on the wall if the publishers were wasting their money producing it in the first place. Ah well.
Thanks for the entertainment! I will be back for more =)
yeah…
its been going on for years now.
there is no stopping it before we all crumble. When we do…I want you to know you’re the most talented white female MC to ever live (believe me, I’ve searched) on the face of the earth. So….cheers for that!
Long live our hairy, melodramatic overlords!
=)
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! Bye bye and continue like that
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