Parade

I’ve pretty much given up on my campaign to mock and/or eliminate Parade Magazine. It’s an embarrassing publication that no self-respecting American newspaper should include, but it’s not worth the time to regularly dissect its inanity. Particularly when it can embarrass itself so well.

This morning’s Parade Magazine (January 6th, 2008) cover article is on Benazir Bhutto — a refreshingly newsworthy subject for the magazine. After all, Bhutto was assassinated on December 27th, and her death has brought new concerns about the future of Pakistan and the region.

However, the cover headline asks an unsettling question: “Is Benazir Bhutto America’s best hope against al-Qaeda?”

Gosh, I hope not. Considering she died ten days ago.

The article by Gail Sheehy was written before the assassination. That’s okay. But the printed version makes no clarification whatsoever about what’s happened in the meantime: in Parade-land, Bhutto is still alive, racing towards the election. She’s our best hope!

Obviously, Parade is printed in advance. From the website: “The assassination of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27 occurred after PARADE’s Jan. 6 issue went to press.”

But does Parade really need to be printed ten days in advance? Did the editors spend the last week and a half sitting on their hands, hoping their average reader would be so clueless to world events so as not to notice that the subject of their lead article was gunned down for the world to see? (Sadly, the editors’ gamble may be reasonable.)

The web enables print media to amend and expand their reporting, which Parade did to some degree. From the site: “After her assassination, PARADE immediately posted the entire interview online,” which is a great start, but then, “and Sheehy appeared on network and cable TV news shows to discuss her face-to-face conversations with Bhutto.”

So you put your journalist on television to talk about the interview, but then declined to frame the article in context for your publication?

I’ve worked in media enough to know that nothing is impossible. They could have fixed the cover. They could have added an introductory paragraph pointing readers to the web for more information. And failing that, they could have wrapped the issue with an explanatory note.

But they would have only done that if they were an actual news publication, rather than a crappy info-tainment tabloid pretending to be one.

My beef about their “long lead time” excuse is that the insert is included in daily newspapers across the country, which creates the expectation that it’s at least somewhat timely. Which it’s not.

And so the onus really falls on newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, which need to be proactive about how they’re going handle such errors. After all, the printed copy of Parade says “Los Angeles Times” at the top, in the newspaper’s logotype. In simple fact, the January 6th, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Times says Benazir Bhutto is still alive. That’s embarrassing.

Update: I’m delighted to find I’m not the only one aggravated.

Several readers have expressed bewilderment at this site’s weekly Parade feature, asking, “What is the point, exactly?”

That’s a question worthy of koan-like contemplation: can utter pointlessness have a point?

International readers in particular have no frame of reference for Parade, so let me offer the briefest of introductions. Parade comes free in the Sunday paper. (No one would ever buy it.) Its feature story is generally about one of three topics: a threat to your family, a threat to your health, or how great America is.¹ In addition to the uniquely unfunny Howard Huge comic, Parade includes Marilyn Vos Savant, an ageless woman who claims to be clever.

But the most delicious part of Parade is right inside the cover: Walter Scott’s Personality Parade. It’s a Q and A about random celebrities and detritus of popular culture, with very wide latitude for topicality. Some might look at the improbable phrasing of the “reader questions” and conclude that they’re simply fabricated by a soulless publicity machine.

But I choose to believe.

I choose to believe that average Americans are dying to know more information about Phil Collins’s new girlfriend, yet are incapable of the most rudimentary Google searches. I choose to believe that it is complete coincidence that a reader in Bumfucket expresses curiosity about a minor actor’s next role the exact week said actor’s new TV movie airs.

And because of my deliberate and irrational naivete, I choose to see my weekly re-answering of Parade questions not as parody or satire, but a celebration of pointless celebrity gawking. Parade’s journalism is like Las Vegas’s architecture: empty, false and kind of fascinating.

Now that I’ve answered the meta-questions,² let’s begin with this week’s installment, which originally ran in the January 14th issue.

What do you make of Eddie Murphy’s claim that his divorce inspired his Oscar-worthy Dreamgirls performance?—Sam Rush, Kailua, Hawaii

Great question, Sam. By asking, “What do you make of it?” you invite skepticism, yet keep the door open for just about any answer. Personally, I can’t imagine a celebrity lying for any reason, so I take Eddie at his word.

Could you tell me how the ’50s film star Jeff Chandler died?—Winnona Evanauski, Holton, Mich.

Shortly after completing his role in Merrill’s Marauders (1962), Chandler entered a Culver City hospital and had surgery for a spinal disc herniation on May 13, 1961. There were severe complications, an artery was damaged and Chandler hemorrhaged. In a seven and a half hour emergency operation over and above the original surgery, he was given an enormous amount of blood, 55 pints. Another operation followed, date unknown, where he received an additional 20 pints of blood. An average adult has about 14 to 18 pints of blood, so his entire blood volume was replaced 4 to 5 times! Chandler fought hard to live, but expired June 17, 1961. His death was deemed malpractice and resulted in a large lawsuit and settlement for his children. Tony Curtis and Gerald Mohr were pallbearers at Chandler’s funeral.

Do you know where I found this information? An amazing website I discovered called Wikipedia. Be careful, though. It’s apparently written by ordinary people, as opposed to professionals like Walter Scott.

I saw a trailer for The Painted Veil, with real-life couple Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber. Did they meet on that film?—Diane Silver, Canton, Ohio

Diane, you saw a trailer for a movie, and really think it’s worth bothering our nationwide readership with your silly question? How’s this: spend your $9 to see the friggin’ movie, and if you’re still curious, then maybe Walter can get your answer.

You asked readers to respond to your selections of the Top 10 football players of all time. What were the results?—Thomas T., Cedar Rapids, Iowa

100% agreement. Parade readers know better than to disagree with their intellectual superiors, be they real or fabricated.

Sean Bean, best known as heroic Boromir in Lord of the Rings, plays a sadistic kidnapper in a remake of The Hitcher. What drew him to the role?—Joanna Jones, Columbus, Ohio

Personal experience. “Back in the early 90’s, I went through a phase where I liked to pick up hitchhikers and put them through psychological torture,” says the classically-trained Bean, 47. “This was a chance to revisit those days.” Would he let his 8-year old daughter watch the film? “No, she’s too young.”

Kristin Chenoweth won rave reviews for The Apple Tree, now on Broadway. What’s next for the talented singer?—D. Silver, Devon, Pa.

Dinner. She’s thinking about having a salad. But the salmon looks really good, too. It’s just so hard to decide. What are you having?

Jaime Pressly, who plays Joy on My Name Is Earl, is pregnant. Who’s the father?—Tammy M., Detroit, Mich.

Surprisingly, Earl. “A lot of people wonder how I could have gotten pregnant by a fictional character,” says Pressly, 29. “But look at Mary and Jesus. I mean, it’s completely presidential. (sic)” It’s also a reminder that no method of birth control is 100% effective.

Ivanka Trump is back with her dad this month on The Apprentice. Does she also intend to continue modeling?—Theresa Vaughn, Cleveland, Ohio

If by “modeling,” you mean her father’s history of dating beautiful women who somehow tolerate his presence despite his being physically and spiritually repellent, then no.

After seeing Home of the Brave, I’m curious: How does 50 Cent rate the demands of acting vs. rapping?—Matt Z., West Chester, Pa.

“It’s not a literal thing, you know what I mean? Everything, if you give yourself over to it, eventually transcends into something artistic and that’s always a world that is a bit gray and indefinable. You do all the kind of concrete work that you can do, the documentaries or the audio tapes or the visuals or what you read, you interview people. I keep saying I put myself alone in a room four months before we started to shoot and tried to get in that room everyday for an hour or two with all these materials that I had and everything I could, and just start working. And what that is, is something that I had to figure out. A lot of it was practice and things like that of technical stuff. But ultimately all that had to be one. Where it wasn’t just imitation, it wasn’t just mimicry, it was creating a character. A real guy and it was trial and error.”

Actually, that was Philip Seymour Hoffman. Trust me, you don’t want to ask 50 Cent about the craft.

1. The perfect Parade cover story would hit the trifecta: “How one small town stopped a deadly disease that was killing our kids.” ↩
2. The other frequent question is why I turn off comments on the Parade articles. The answer is simple: just to frustrate you. ↩