Catfights make good copy

, originally uploaded by willabeast.

You must go read this article right now. It is as good as watching an episode of Desperate Housewives. No, it's even better. It's the best things about scripted and reality television melded into one delicious, naughty, funny, inappropriate fuck you. It is exactly what every single publicist, spoiled actress, stressed out creative and devoted viewer deserves. Who knew all those people could be served up in one helping?
Calling a piece like this brave is a silly thing to do- sending up a popular television show is not in the same universe as, you know, war journalism. But, if staking your career on an article, burning lots and lots of bridges, and consenting to spend the next week on the phone with people trying to rip you a new asshole can be considered something approximating brave, then it's that. Odds on Ned Zeman never writes a profile again and the head of ABC is still screeching at Graydon Carter. I applaud Mr. Zeman, Mr. Carter, and staff for writing something that will only make their lives harder and ours' more entertaining.
Nor were they merely content with a supremely catty article. They raised an additional, and enormous, middle finger to ABC and Co. with the cover shot, which manages to abide by the letter of ABC's rules (that Teri Hatcher not be the center actress) while entirely disregarding its spirit (Hatcher is, instead, the center of the frame).
Yet, given all this, there is probably no scripted show on television that could stand up to press like this better than Desperate Housewives. I see basically no downside for them. This just makes it a better soap opera. The drama and tension are ratcheted to another level. And to judge from the article, the actors are just playing themselves. See Susan/Teri say the flakiest shit ever, cry, and try to put a good face on everything. See Lynette/Felicity be a good person. See Gabby/Eva be self-involved and sweetly silly (discussing her audition, show creator Marc Cherry remembers asking Longoria what she thought of the script and her replying "I only read my part."? To which he thought, "Very Gabrielle."? Hollywood, the only world where being a complete trotch in an interview might help you get a job). See Bree/Marcia be a 100% crazy, high maintenance ice princess.
Cross is without a doubt the villain of the piece, and I could not love her more for it. She says, "I think of Melrose Place as Andy Warhol and this show as Kandinsky or a Francis Bacon."? Marcia, what a great fucking call. That is just so true. When I think of Melrose I think of irony and fame and reinterpretation and Marilyn and Mao and when I think of DH I totes thing of disturbing, fat naked men. You know what else it's like? It's like how 90210 is E.M Forster and The OC is Jane Austen. Its like how E.M Forster is sorbet and Jane Austen is Ben and Jerry's. How sorbet is daffodils and Ben and Jerry's is tulips. How daffodils are the Bills and tulips are the Packers. How the Bills are wet socks and The Packers dirty underwear. It makes exactly as much sense as that. And the amount of sense that makes people? That amount of sense is absolutely zero. 100% zero sense made.
But that's amazing! Because what kind of sense can you expect from a woman with a 6 inch scar running down the side of her head who keeps on keeping on with Michael Mancini even though she knows full well he is a very, very bad man? Not a very fucking good kind that's what kind. And you know what that means? That there is now very flimsy evidence that Marcia, Kimberly, and Bree are, in fact, all one, very real person. Thank God. The world is a much more livable place with psychotics as entertaining as M, K, and B running around in it. So three cheers for MKB who should feel free to fuck up every and any photo shoot she ever attends.