Customer Reviews

A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Reexamined as a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Madame Cintra hath hit the nail on the head, tiny and misshapen as that head may be. The central issue here is the mutation of Fame, once an aura that cloaked the highly accomplished as an epiphenomenon, has now become a purely mundane commodity, like sterilized cow manure. CW focuses her incredulous disgust at the most shameless of perpetrators, but one suspects her real targets are not the megelomaniac freaks on the stage, but the mindless legions of zombies that consume the fetid swill as if it were ambrosia of the gods. Fame is now the "radioactive beef" that moronizes both the performer and the audience, in differing ways and in differing degrees. Of course, lurking in the shadows is the implicit recognition of the Corporate absorbtion of Everything into one great happy, megamerged obedience school for lobotomized work-a-trolls who should be thankful for a pizza with The Works as a reward for good company boy self abasement. Corporatism isn't directly assaulted in this book, undoubtedly because Madame Cintra has the acumen to fly under the radar of hidden forms of censorship. But have no doubt, Corporatism is the cause, as it needs to reduce everything it touches into a return maximizing, clearcutting, fume belching money machine. But, know the disease by its symptoms. Superstardom that has evolved into a different Ontological category; Audiences as mass consumers of plasticized crud, the Media as docile and cuddly PR pets, who will say or do almost anything if the price is right. Ms. Wilson, for all her hyperbole and contortionism, is essentially right on in her analysis of the situation, and just about the only person on the scene with the guts and wit to tell it like it is, without shrivelling into the typical careerist bet hedging gooey eyed flattery spewing baby talking goo goo neurotic greasy pole shinnying imbecile. My hat goes of to her. More power to ya, babe.

Wilson's razor-sharp commentary cuts apart why-celebs such as Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand, examining how they became famous at the expense of our culture. Wilson skins musicians, esp. Michael Jackson, as well as fashion models, wannabe film actors, authors, and the theater in her inimitable caustic tone.

At times, Wilson is brilliant in carving new holes in the already-thin fabric of celebrity. Later in the book, however, you can tell that she and her editor have sewn together her columns from salon.com, which, though wonderful as columns, do not come together to form a cohesive argument. In a way, Wilson has become a victim of her own fame, toddling out used commentary and selling it as new, like a remake of a Hollywood favorite, starring Peter Scolari and Molly Ringwald.

This book is mostly enjoyable, however. You'll flag sections of it to read later to your friends, or when you hear Dion's "eye-bleeding" rendition of that awful Titanic song and need your own little way to get back at her.

First reading H.L. Mencken - Prejudices, First Series - way back in grad school, I felt as though I were under rhetorical and ideational assault. Over and over again, ambushed by Mencken's relentless pushing prodding needling stratospheric chthonic ribald mocking joyously playful yet deadly serious language, finding it so jaw-droppingly, startlingly funny that I'd be howling out loud at 2 a.m., waking wife, kids, to whom I'd try to read his inimitable raillery against mountebanks, poltroons, Comstockery, "uplift," and the full panoply of the sins and sinners of his age. Mencken's rhetorical excessiveness, his superabundance of sinuous, surprising, jazz-like prose (he wouldn't have liked that simile) thrilled me, made me want more, made me a devotee for life. And after pondering long and hard, the only writer I can today imagine comparing to Mencken is Cintra Wilson - but as a Mencken on a delirious cocktail of speed, acid, extra bile for a less genteel audience, and pther mystery elixirs that may be swirling through the stream of her imagination. But, my God, this is simply startling, uproarious, deadly accurate journalism.

It begins with a brilliance of eye. Wilson sees segments of the spectrum that the rest of us are blind to - great journalism begins in great observation. I would quote, extensively, but I don't want to diminish the pleasures of discovery for any who might pick up this book. Let me simply say that Wilson has a long skewer and, impaled like stacked shishkabob, are a long list of deserving (and deservingly easy) victims, icluding Cher, Bruce Willis, Ike Turner, the dancing-singing-boy groups, and Keanu Reeves; surprising appearances by Jack Nicholson, Jack Palance, and others, and, perhaps most unforgettably (and a most timely inclusion), Michael Jackson and "the nose." And, no, this isn't a simple case of status envy: Wilson's criticisms are deeply rooted in the behavioral characteristics of the studied species, homo celebricanus, which, as we sadly see in the new reality TV rage (American Idol, etc.), might as well be ANY of us, given a few million dollars and a People Magazine cover. A Massive Swelling makes for immediate, even necessary, reading and deserves a new edition with a prefatory essay that pulls the current mass hysteria/idolatry into perspective.

But for all Wilson's long, feverish, and spot-on ranting against the disease of celebrity in the United States and the myriads of ways in which is distorts our culture, society, economy, she also bestows. . . praise. This strikes the reader as oddly as would delicate hands on a Cyclops. It is equally hilarious, pinning the recipient of Wilson's encomia to his or her own unique piece of corkboard for detailed scrutiny. I direct the prospective reader to the peerless portrait of King Hell Mick Jagger for a brilliant sample of Wilsonian tribute.

I was tempted to dock Wilson a star for being so wholly oblivious to the many, many things other thoughtful commentators have written on fame, celebrity, and the perversions of both (they ARE different - "fame" is earned, like Julius Caesar's; "celebrity" is simply the fact of being celebrated while generally otherwise lacking merit, like the 9 American Idol losers). I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing to a book that, and writer who, so completely transported, entertained, and enlightened me - with an average belly-laugh a page. Mencken assumed room temperature half-a-hundred years ago, but the Menckenesque debunking spirit lives on in Cintra Wilson. Thank god.

Fame and celebrity are beyond any doubt a huge lure in our society, but the author is absolutely unrelenting in exposing and puncturing the ugly, bloated underside of celebrity and its ramifications.

The author primarily targets singers, actors both movie and stage, entertainers, wannabes, chieftains, and the cheerleaders of celebritism for their distorted lives where everyday realities and decencies are ignored and which can proceed in positively obnoxious and harmful directions. The celebrities selected for skewering are hardly surprising. The calamitous lives of Michael and Elvis; the grotesqueness of disfiguring plastic surgery as a means to stay or get on top (see Cher); the unrestrained lewdness of aging Hollywood actors and moguls; and the sleazy, smarmy Las Vegas entertainer, a la Wayne Newton, easily serve to make the point.

The broader culture is hardly spared. The hugely deforming and crippling aspects of small girls pursuing fame through sports, namely gymnastics and ice skating, pushed by celebrity hungry parents and coaches is a chilling reminder of the costs of reaching for fame. In addition, the connection between unimaginative entertainment and the promotion of noncontroversial celebrity is examined. Not spared is the unquestioning obsession with celebrities that the broader culture exhibits.

Though unfamiliar with her writings, the book seems to be snippets of previous work - probably columns - and does lack the continuity of a more conventional book. Her phraseology is often catchy and original as well as outrageous but at times can be awkward and difficult requiring rereads to grasp the intent.

The book is rated fairly highly due to its outrageousness and irreverence towards a phenomenon that needs skewering. A decision to read this book would hinge on one's interest in the dissection of the shenanigans and sicknesses exhibited by mostly show-biz personalities and the broader culture intent on celebrity.

I enjoyed the book a lot. Like many readers, I am glad she's out there, wittly drawing attention to a social pathology (celebrity worship) that's so endemic that nearly no one notices or questions it.

But what I really want to add to the commentary is how suprised I was to find her, at heart, really very compassionate. Even as she skewers celebrities, and their worshipful fans and wannabes, she seems finally to be deeply concerned for the corrosive effects celebrity culture has on them, and on nearly everyone.

For example, despite all the witty deconstruction, she obviously feels really, really sorry for Michael Jackson, his lost youth, and his tragic attempts to reclaim it. True contempt is fairly rare in her book, and seems more reserved for talentless hacks and holders of purse-strings. And even then, I don't think she really thinks of them as happy, fulfilled, or enviable.

Between the lines of acid-tongued prose: concern the the happiness and spiritual well-being of all involved.

Among Cintra Wilson, David Sedaris, and Joe Queenan, I feel my dark heart is finally being channeled and revealed. This book is laugh-aloud funny, spot-on social commentary to scour our smarmy, collective perceptions and foibles cleaner than any upper colonic. It's not for the faint-hearted nor those who wish to remain deluded, but for everyone else it's a relief, like the collective popping of every helium balloon-headed star. She is way too young to be this wise and way too American to be so well-educated and cable of processing her thoughts. And may she continue writing for the rest of the long life she has to live, providing some movie star or the city of LA doesn't put out a hit on her.

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. This book is finny, sad and an oh so improtant look at ourselves as Americans and as people. I am a grubby little nobody unfamous person, so I guess this reviwew won't get read anyway.