Whether you lust after it, loathe it, or feign apathy toward it, fame is in your face. Cintra Wilson gets to the heart of our humiliating fascination with celebrity and all its preposterous trappings in these hilarious, whip-smart, and subversive essays. Often radical and always a scream, Wilson takes on every sacred cow, toppling icons as diverse as Barbra Streisand, Ike Turner, Michael Jackson, and-for obvious reasons-Bruce Willis. She exposes events like the Oscars and even athletic jamborees as having grown a "tumescent aura of Otherness." Wilson's scathing and irresistible dissections of Las Vegas as "the Death Star of Entertainment," and Los Angeles as "a giant peach of a dream crawling with centipedes" pulse with her enlightened rejection of all things false and vain and egotistical. Written with her trademark zeal and intelligence, A Massive Swelling is the antidote for the fame virus that infects us all.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Warning: do not read this book at a wake, on a precipice, or with a full bladder. Unless you're a humorless fan of Cher, Michael Jackson, Barbra Striesand, or Mick Jagger, Wilson's turbo, heat-seeking essays about fame, the bane of our commodified culture, will induce bent-double, breathless laughter. A columnist for Salon and the San Francisco Examiner, Wilson, a latter-day Dorothy Parker without the self-hate, writes about the psychoses the lust for fame induces in the stars, their fans, and countless pathetic wanna-bes. In writing about boy bands, like the New Kids on the Block, Wilson reports on the disturbing fan mail they receive from women old enough to be their mothers. Excessive cosmetic surgery in pursuit of perfect bodies elicits blisteringly hilarious commentary on the likes of Courtney Love and Celine Dion. Smart, supercharged, ethical, and talented, Wilson also takes on the ersatz worlds of the Oscars and Las Vegas, and the malignancy of racism and sexism in Hollywood. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Cintra is an original. She is talented, funny, and altogether exceptional." -- Francis Ford Coppola
"I like to laugh and I like to think and Cintra makes me do both out loud and in public. She tells the truth funny. She's brilliant, she's funny, and she's really good-looking in that sexy picture in the back of the book that you get for no extra charge. She's better than the best, but you can't afford her, so just buy her book. It's the only thing about her that's cheap." -- Penn Jillette, Penn & Teller
"If the subjects of Cintra Wilson's loathing continue to appear in public after this book is published, it must be because they can't read." -- Greil Marcus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"I like to laugh and I like to think and Cintra makes me do both out loud and in public. She tells the truth funny. She's brilliant, she's funny, and she's really good-looking in that sexy picture in the back of the book that you get for no extra charge. She's better than the best, but you can't afford her, so just buy her book. It's the only thing about her that's cheap." -- Penn Jillette, Penn & Teller
"If the subjects of Cintra Wilson's loathing continue to appear in public after this book is published, it must be because they can't read." -- Greil Marcus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By Erin O'Brien
Format:Paperback
Cintra Wilson, a former, longstanding columnist for the "San Francisco Examiner" with a substantial cult following, has produced her first book, a series of satirical essays on celebrities and our cultural obsession with them.
Wilson nails down the essential creepiness of true fandom with the inclusion of such artifacts as an entirely genuine boxful of inadvertently deliriously funny fanmail for "New Kids on the Block": the tragically illiterate x-rated writings of desperate, usually suburban, adult women to teenage boys.
Her observations appear in chapter-length discussions of Elvis in Vegas; the ever more bizarre persona of Michael Jackson and its psycho-sexual origins; and the LA and New York commonplace of the rabidly, shamelessly ambitious aspiring actor, who defines degradation down in a quest for fame.
Wilson argues that celebrity culture is not only toxic to the egos and even physical well-being of celebrities, but also to ordinary folk, ceaselessly encouraged to regard their own lives as inherently shabbier and less important, going undocumented in gossip columns and tabloids.
Wilson's rages at celebrity culture are startlingly real, and produce unforgettably, cruelly funny putdowns of figures from divas Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion, to Siegfried & Roy, as the quintessence of the degraded Las Vegas performer. One can only wonder at what private events befell Wilson to produce this magnificent fury at the fame machine, and a wild attack on its cogs and wheels.
Easily one of the most uproarious and literate works of pop cultural commentary available. Wilson is a true original.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Cintra is my favorite columnist in Salon magazine, and I was really looking forward to this book. I was disappointed, however, to discover that most of the book consists of material that has already appeared in Salon (and can still be read by accessing her archived columns). Although I don't regret buying the book, I'm a little surprised that it doesn't include a disclaimer that it "contains previously published material" or something to that effect.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Alicia Trees
Format:Paperback
My, wasn't I surprised to find someone who loathed Celine Dion as much as I do! Cintra Wilson's funny, fearless deconstruction of these so-called icons will surely immunize you against the cult of celebrity. Her chapter on young ice skaters and gymnasts broadens our scope of what this celebrity-thing is that people seek: sometimes involving a search for immortality (via plastic surgery, numerous dye jobs, changes in stage personae) and deification (sometimes resulting in an Oscar, a Grammy, or getting one's face on a cereal box)... Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Barbara Streisand - even Elvis - will never look the same to me again. Her criticism is scathing at times but very thoughtful: these are not random rants.
I was unfamiliar with Cintra Wilson's Salon column when I read "A Massive Swelling," but it doesn't surprise me that the book functions somewhat as an anthology of past writings. It does have that feel to it. I definitely don't think this weakens the book for the newcomer to her writings. I think it's a good sign that folks are mostly upset about not finding newer works from her. It just means we're all looking forward to what she has coming up next.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
On a par with "Holidays in Hell" by P. J. O'Rourke
This is one of my favorite essay collections, on a par with "Holidays in Hell" by P. J. O'Rourke. I have read it a dozen times over as many years, and still turn red in the ears,... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Rick Wiedeman
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definitive Snarky Pop-Culture Bible
If you have a love-hate relationship with our celebrity culture, this is a book you must read. Both grudgingly admiring and sharply critical, this book discusses our fascination... Read more
Published on August 6, 2006 by Glamorama
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spot-On Commentary on our celebrity-obsessed culture
This is a book that sorely needed to be written. It may be several years old, but it was new to me.
With a piercing wit and a sharp tongue, Cintra Wilson cuts down to... Read more
With a piercing wit and a sharp tongue, Cintra Wilson cuts down to... Read more
Published on October 10, 2005 by Malcolm Saldanha
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hip and hilarious prophecy
Hip and hilarious pop culture uber-critic, Cintra Wilson, traces the imagery of the last 25 years of American celebrity icons to illustrate the emotionally warping effects of the... Read more
Published on June 1, 2005 by Jennifer M
4.0 out of 5 stars
like Tarantino swallowed the Oxford English Dictionary...
this book is not without its faults. I must admit feeling like a pervert signing it out at the local library thanks to the title and cover picture. Read more
Published on March 31, 2005 by M. Stark
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the funniest, most biting books ever.
This is pure comedy. And pure satire. Cintra Wilson's writing is at once warm and cutting. Her plunge into celebrity culture is illuminating, disturbing and highly entertaining. Read more
Published on January 12, 2005 by Uncle C
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not worth any amount of your time
The preponderant 'massive swelling' in this collection is that of Cintra Wilson's ego. At no times does her prose effuse anything other than the superficial, the facile, and the... Read more
Published on December 25, 2004 by Ben Sullivan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mark E. Smith and the Punky Bunch
Why do I dig this book? It's because the names "Joey McIntyre" of the New Kids and "Mark E. Smith" of The Fall were but pages apart. Read more
Published on May 20, 2004 by John J. Baker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truthful, Wonderful, & Sad.
It is embarassing how seriously Americans take the culture of celebrity and the media. One of the many reasons we are the world laughing stock. Read more
Published on November 29, 2003
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Truth About Celebrity
In the world of super-hype and fame worship, in a time when all you have to do to prove yourself 'worthy' is to become famous sounds a voice of reason. Read more
Published on November 14, 2003 by Lauren Williams
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