Reduce, Reuse, Re-Quote
With the tabloids once again brimming with news of
celebs' shrinking waistlines, Keeping Tabs almost skipped right over the
Star 's recent declaration that Hollywood's quest for thinness is "really
getting out of hand." "Just ask ultra-lean Frasier star Jane Leeves,"
the Star suggested knowingly. Why ask Leeves? Because according to the
Star , she's so "sick of being added to the ever-expanding list of bony
leading ladies that she's forced to eat 'more than I want' in restaurants
'because I'm afraid that somebody's watching me.' " But Keeping Tabs didn't
need to ask Leeves for her thoughts on the Tinseltown thin parade, because she
already had--in an interview with the actress that appeared in USA
Weekend just before the Star hit the newsstands. Queried about the
media's criticism of her weight, Leeves said, "I've been thin my whole life. I
do now find myself in a restaurant eating more than I want to because I'm
afraid that somebody's watching me, which is ridiculous." (Click here to read the rest of the interview.)
This is not the first time Keeping Tabs has caught
one of the tabs with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar. While their most
compelling assets are those memorable pieces of journalism that certainly won't
appear anywhere else--such as last week's Globe "Then!" and "Now!"
photos of Clint Eastwood's varicose veins--when it comes to filling the rest of
their pages, the tabs are ruthless recyclers. Of course, mainstream
publications have been known to borrow a quotation or two, but they usually
give a nod to the original source. The tabs, on the other hand, have managed to
turn the brazen, uncredited filch into an art form unto itself.
Last week's
Globe , for example, trumpeted that it had snagged "five fun facts" about
actress Jennifer Love Hewitt "that might surprise you." The surprise, however,
would only be for those who hadn't first read those same five facts--with the
corresponding identical quotes--in Robert Abele's November
Maxim cover story about the actress. And
that Star item about Rosie O'Donnell opening her home to
trick-or-treaters seemed awfully familiar, maybe because it had appeared in the
New York Observer two weeks earlier. (Unless, of course, O'Donnell
spokeswoman Jennifer Glaisek managed to remember and repeat to the
Star --virtually verbatim--everything she told the Observer .)
The Star 's regular "Star Style" feature is
frequently written in a breezily intimate manner that could fool the
unsuspecting reader into thinking that the celebs have actually cozied up,
pajama-party style, and dished with the Star about their beauty,
fashion, and health secrets. But the only person it would appear the
Star has cozied up to is its research librarian. In last week's column,
for example, featuring Felicity 's Keri Russell, the vast majority of
Russell's musings were cribbed word for word from a May People magazine
story and an August InStyle feature. Credit for those charming quotes
about Russell's fondness for mangoes and Eggo waffles and the fact that she
once had bangs "three tiers high," for example, should go to People ,
while it was InStyle 's Lisa Simpson who reported that Russell, an avid
walker, says she has "big, huge, happy endorphins" flowing through her
body.
This week, the Star runs a two-page "Star
Style Special" cover story ("Shania: I'm not beautiful") that claims to have
all the dirt on country superstar Shania Twain's "secret flaws" and what she's
doing "to make herself perfect," including using a skin ointment meant for
softening cows' udders. It didn't take long to trace the sudden interest in
Twain's bovine toilette to the Nov. 2 edition of London's Daily
Telegraph . The Star 's Carolyn Callahan was apparently so enamored of
the interview Twain gave to the Telegraph that she tried to replicate it
exactly: The first five quotes from Twain in her piece are identical to those
in reporter Judith Woods' original, although Woods and the Telegraph are
never mentioned. Surely Callahan just forgot in the rush of her scoop.
While we're on the subject of editorial déjà
vu , Keeping Tabs has become strangely attached to "Tilton Talk," the part
of Charlene Tilton's new Globe gossip column in which the former
Dallas star spouts off about whatever strikes her fancy, with ellipses
separating her insights from one another. Recent entries have begun "What's
with all this millennium hysteria?" and "How about those new Target ads?"
Reading Tilton Talk always left Keeping Tabs with an unmistakably familiar
feeling, until it finally came to her: Tilton has clearly been paying homage to
the Larry King- USA Today school of column writing. And why not?
Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery.
