Vanity Fair 'The Hollywood Issue' 2024/2025 by Gordon von Steiner
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TaylorBinque
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Of course, people love to tear down a asian star. She is starring in one of HBO's most anticipated series which she flew twice to audition. And why not, have a representation of South East Asian on a major international magazine cover. We also come in different shades. When Lady Gaga started to do acting, no one bat an eye on here. When an accomplished K-pop singer started to do so, people start complaining.
tigerrouge
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Are those comments being made because people don't like Asians, or could it be general fatigue and cynicism at the massive promotional machine that's behind any aspect of K-pop and their stable of stars, which seems to have little nuance in its promotional methods, and doesn't offer much to a non-fan beyond the impression of a tightly-controlled exterior life that's lived under constant vigilance?
KoV
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Notice no one was complaining about Dev Patel? Because he’s an actor.
Now, Lisa may wind up being completely fabulous in the new season of The White Lotus when it’s released next year, but putting someone with currently zero acting performances in any Hollywood films or TV shows alongside a slew of acclaimed actors is an odd move.
Had they given Gaga a spot on a Hollywood issue cover or any covers dedicated to top/exceptional actors prior to any of her acting work being released, that’d be odd too. But it never happened.
tigerrouge
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No print subscription copy yet, but it seems Vanity Fair's attracting some attention for a feature about Cormac McCarthy (repost of a uk.news.yahoo.com summary, as some sites mentioned here are paywall
‘Vanity Fair’ Faces Major Backlash Over Cormac McCarthy Scoop
Eboni Boykin-Patterson
Thu 21 November 2024 at 9:20 pm GMT
A profile of literary icon Cormac McCarthy’s “secret muse” is causing a stir for Vanity Fair, as other publications and social media users alike criticize the magazine for “messing up the literary scoop of the year.”
The Telegraph notes Vanity Fair “ruined” the big reveal with “questionable writing,” while Defector wondered why the magazine’s profiler couldn’t just “write normally” about McCarthy’s “fascinating” muse, Augusta Britt.
The piece’s author Vincenzo Barney characterizes Britt as a “a five-foot-four badass Finnish American cowgirl,” before describing her and McCarthy’s decades-long relationship through Britt’s eyes, which began when she met 42-year-old McCarthy near a motel pool when she was 16 years old. According to the profile, Britt maintained a relationship with the author until his death last year at age 89—and their relationship would inspire McCarthy’s books’ characters for decades.
“I loved him more than anything,” she told the magazine in the piece, which obscures the disturbing details of the the runaway teen’s sexual involvement with McCarthy as she enjoyed his “protection” and escaped from a life “in and out of foster care.” For example, Britt only “jokes” that McCarthy is a “groomer”—a term she says she uses as a “defense mechanism” as Barney continues to tell the story in the most flowery and romantic of terms.
Even the first sentence of the piece—“I’m about to tell you the craziest love story in literary history”—ignores that the romance in question involves a grown man and a teenager.
A takedown of the piece in The Telegraph called Barney’s prose “terrible, overwrought, nonsensical,” adding, “It is so bad that it isn’t even funny.” The primary issue, however, is Barney “seems to treat McCarthy’s pedophilic interest in the vulnerable teenager as a great love story,” the site critiqued.
Social media users agreed, with one posting a photo of Barney and accusing him of “glamorizing Cormac McCarthy’s pedophilia.”
One reader called the profile an “international sex trafficking exposé” while another wrote that Barney was “positively drooling over the thought of an exploited, abused 16-year-old girl.”
As social media users declare that Barney was “the last person on earth” who should have written Britt’s story and seemed “endlessly pleased with himself,” even those willing to accept Britt’s stance that McCarthy wasn’t a “creep,” for pursuing her a teenager, are horrified by the quality of the writing itself.
In Defector’s takedown of the profile, it notes that “There’s a sort of next-level tragedy in [Britt], depicted in so incredibly many (doomed) forms in somebody else’s words, finally deciding to share her story with the world, in her own words, and choosing as custodians of those words a writing and editing team that will send those words out into the world hideously adorned.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Barney for comment. And while he has not addressed the criticism directly, he does seem to be relishing the attention, reposting some of the harshest criticisms of his work on X.
‘Vanity Fair’ Faces Major Backlash Over Cormac McCarthy Scoop
Eboni Boykin-Patterson
Thu 21 November 2024 at 9:20 pm GMT
A profile of literary icon Cormac McCarthy’s “secret muse” is causing a stir for Vanity Fair, as other publications and social media users alike criticize the magazine for “messing up the literary scoop of the year.”
The Telegraph notes Vanity Fair “ruined” the big reveal with “questionable writing,” while Defector wondered why the magazine’s profiler couldn’t just “write normally” about McCarthy’s “fascinating” muse, Augusta Britt.
The piece’s author Vincenzo Barney characterizes Britt as a “a five-foot-four badass Finnish American cowgirl,” before describing her and McCarthy’s decades-long relationship through Britt’s eyes, which began when she met 42-year-old McCarthy near a motel pool when she was 16 years old. According to the profile, Britt maintained a relationship with the author until his death last year at age 89—and their relationship would inspire McCarthy’s books’ characters for decades.
“I loved him more than anything,” she told the magazine in the piece, which obscures the disturbing details of the the runaway teen’s sexual involvement with McCarthy as she enjoyed his “protection” and escaped from a life “in and out of foster care.” For example, Britt only “jokes” that McCarthy is a “groomer”—a term she says she uses as a “defense mechanism” as Barney continues to tell the story in the most flowery and romantic of terms.
Even the first sentence of the piece—“I’m about to tell you the craziest love story in literary history”—ignores that the romance in question involves a grown man and a teenager.
A takedown of the piece in The Telegraph called Barney’s prose “terrible, overwrought, nonsensical,” adding, “It is so bad that it isn’t even funny.” The primary issue, however, is Barney “seems to treat McCarthy’s pedophilic interest in the vulnerable teenager as a great love story,” the site critiqued.
Social media users agreed, with one posting a photo of Barney and accusing him of “glamorizing Cormac McCarthy’s pedophilia.”
One reader called the profile an “international sex trafficking exposé” while another wrote that Barney was “positively drooling over the thought of an exploited, abused 16-year-old girl.”
As social media users declare that Barney was “the last person on earth” who should have written Britt’s story and seemed “endlessly pleased with himself,” even those willing to accept Britt’s stance that McCarthy wasn’t a “creep,” for pursuing her a teenager, are horrified by the quality of the writing itself.
In Defector’s takedown of the profile, it notes that “There’s a sort of next-level tragedy in [Britt], depicted in so incredibly many (doomed) forms in somebody else’s words, finally deciding to share her story with the world, in her own words, and choosing as custodians of those words a writing and editing team that will send those words out into the world hideously adorned.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Barney for comment. And while he has not addressed the criticism directly, he does seem to be relishing the attention, reposting some of the harshest criticisms of his work on X.
KoV
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I haven't read the article, so I can hardly judge it fairly. Still, the story is an interview with the woman herself, so if she describes her 50-year love affair with the (not deceased) Cormac in glowing terms, I'm not sure that's entirely on the VF writer.
tigerrouge
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If she had authored the article herself, she would be somewhat more in control of how the relationship is portrayed. But once your story passes through several different lenses - a writer, an editor - you've lost control of the picture.
There's a tradition of lionising American male writers of the 20th century as towering figures whose approach to sexual matters is celebrated as representing an important type of personal liberation, it wouldn't surprise me if that attitude still lives on in some places. Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, John Updike...
I do remember a relatively recent VF article about a true crime situation that was recounted in the form of a fairly sensationalist narrative, which made for entertaining reading, but seemed slightly out of step with how serious the rest of the magazine tries to sound.
But if all the features in Vanity Fair struck the same tone, it would be very monotonous. I'll read every issue from start to finish, but I will admit what interests me the most is VF's tales of society scandal, and how some superficially glamorous part of the entertainment industry was really held together by resentment and sellotape.
There's a tradition of lionising American male writers of the 20th century as towering figures whose approach to sexual matters is celebrated as representing an important type of personal liberation, it wouldn't surprise me if that attitude still lives on in some places. Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, John Updike...
I do remember a relatively recent VF article about a true crime situation that was recounted in the form of a fairly sensationalist narrative, which made for entertaining reading, but seemed slightly out of step with how serious the rest of the magazine tries to sound.
But if all the features in Vanity Fair struck the same tone, it would be very monotonous. I'll read every issue from start to finish, but I will admit what interests me the most is VF's tales of society scandal, and how some superficially glamorous part of the entertainment industry was really held together by resentment and sellotape.
alwaysademo
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^Detractors made me actually read the piece so they did a good thing there. I wouldn't on my own.
VF writer seems besides himself and his fanboy's fortune, he was writing about a personal hero with breaking news he got to break, at times the writing so mushy in a macho way (he wrote it like a roman à clef almost), all in all still undeniably a great story for McCarthy's readers. Some parts were a true revelation, almost like he opened up a new dimension to this writer's entire career. The muse also seems to talk to VF writer about him (they spent thousands of hours talking) because she couldn't talk to him anymore, and she has to talk to someone about him.
If ppl insist it's veering into Me-too territory, then I'd say it's a Me-too with a happy ending. The whole time the underage thing never took over because the substance of the piece had real weight. Up until the last paragraph she sounded in love and she's 64. So much unnecessary projections really.
VF writer seems besides himself and his fanboy's fortune, he was writing about a personal hero with breaking news he got to break, at times the writing so mushy in a macho way (he wrote it like a roman à clef almost), all in all still undeniably a great story for McCarthy's readers. Some parts were a true revelation, almost like he opened up a new dimension to this writer's entire career. The muse also seems to talk to VF writer about him (they spent thousands of hours talking) because she couldn't talk to him anymore, and she has to talk to someone about him.
If ppl insist it's veering into Me-too territory, then I'd say it's a Me-too with a happy ending. The whole time the underage thing never took over because the substance of the piece had real weight. Up until the last paragraph she sounded in love and she's 64. So much unnecessary projections really.
alwaysademo
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Funny this took me back to the one time VF secured and released 2 missing chapters of Capote's Answered Prayers that I made a point to sit down and devoured...
tigerrouge
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I can see the UK version of the digital issue, it's showing 152 pages, the inside gatefold ad is Cartier.
The editor's note talks about the rescheduling of the Hollywood issue to this month, "Think of this Hollywood issue, with its new arrival date, as the beginning of a long and glorious red carpet, winding from the critics' honors and Golden Globes, through the guild and independent film awards, all the way to the industry's biggest night (and, of course, the Vanity Fair Oscar Party)."
Half of the editor's note is devoted to telling you that "you must experience the Hollywood Issue online" to get the most from the cover shoot. Or you could always focus on producing the great photography and portraits that VF has done for decades, which stand on their own merits?
- The contents open with a 13-page gift guide, there's a 2pg article about Gabriel Sherman talking about his movie about Donald Trump / Roy Cohn, then the Hollywood Portfolio begins;
- The Cormac McCarthy article is followed by a feature about director Steve McQueen, then a legal drama piece about Karen Read;
- "Signs of Life" is a photo-heavy look at some forthcoming movies, it's a bit of a page-filler;
- Lili Anolik returns to the pages of VF with a look at Joan Didion's love life, then it's a piece about a spoof 'James Bond' movie that JFK made two months before his assassination, in which he was "killed";
- Back page Proust Questionnaire is Hugh Grant.
I usually find myself liking the written content of these double-month VF issues, although the page count initially made me think it wouldn't be the case here. But it seems nearly everything I want from VF is in here - a range of features about fairly different topics, written by a range of voices.
The only thing missing for me would be imagery that really hits the mark, something that makes you look back years from now and still be impressed.
They've exchanged gravitas for a more casual feel, but maybe this is supposed to bring things closer to the viewer. There are pros and cons with having a less elevated look.
The editor's note talks about the rescheduling of the Hollywood issue to this month, "Think of this Hollywood issue, with its new arrival date, as the beginning of a long and glorious red carpet, winding from the critics' honors and Golden Globes, through the guild and independent film awards, all the way to the industry's biggest night (and, of course, the Vanity Fair Oscar Party)."
Half of the editor's note is devoted to telling you that "you must experience the Hollywood Issue online" to get the most from the cover shoot. Or you could always focus on producing the great photography and portraits that VF has done for decades, which stand on their own merits?
- The contents open with a 13-page gift guide, there's a 2pg article about Gabriel Sherman talking about his movie about Donald Trump / Roy Cohn, then the Hollywood Portfolio begins;
- The Cormac McCarthy article is followed by a feature about director Steve McQueen, then a legal drama piece about Karen Read;
- "Signs of Life" is a photo-heavy look at some forthcoming movies, it's a bit of a page-filler;
- Lili Anolik returns to the pages of VF with a look at Joan Didion's love life, then it's a piece about a spoof 'James Bond' movie that JFK made two months before his assassination, in which he was "killed";
- Back page Proust Questionnaire is Hugh Grant.
I usually find myself liking the written content of these double-month VF issues, although the page count initially made me think it wouldn't be the case here. But it seems nearly everything I want from VF is in here - a range of features about fairly different topics, written by a range of voices.
The only thing missing for me would be imagery that really hits the mark, something that makes you look back years from now and still be impressed.
They've exchanged gravitas for a more casual feel, but maybe this is supposed to bring things closer to the viewer. There are pros and cons with having a less elevated look.
