Reel Politique: Prize Beat, Diablo Cody 3
For the second week in a row, Entertainment Weekly has shown a fixation on Juno, the middlebrow Gilmore Girls knockoff, but at least this week it’s kept the noise to a dull roar. There are only seven references to the film (pages 11-12, a featurette on conservative message baby movies; page 16, in connection with Ellen Page’s next movie; page 22, a mention of its WGA nomination; pages 53 and 57, in two charts; page 70, a sidebar on the soundtrack, and a comment in the music chart). But that’s probably because an earlier, overriding obsession stepped forward: Conan O’Brien. Over the years, the magazine has displayed a certain helplessness before the talk show host’s supposed wit. In its Sound Bites column, which culls one liners on or about TV, it has usually offered over the years a Conan quote, regardless how bland or humorless. Late last year the magazine went something like eight weeks in a row quoting O’Brien in the column. Now he appears on the cover, flaunting a typically witless article “by” him inside, a strike diary. Are people really all that interested in Juno and Conan O’Brien? Or are certain elements at the paper following their own fandom or trying to promote these products because they are “good” for us? Or is it, as I suggested last week, that Entertainment Weekly is terrified of losing readers and is trolling for younger catch? I wish that the paper would get back to reporting actual arts news rather than skew its editorial content toward an imagined demographic before which it appears to be helplessly in thrall.