I Like to Watch

Jan. 7, 2007 | Magazine offices are incredibly glamorous places. I know that whenever I visit Salon's international headquarters in San Francisco, I always marvel at the sheer sophistication of the place and of the beautiful, well-dressed people who bustle about, straightening their Armani suits or touching up their red lipstick, making their important phone calls, discussing weighty topics in hushed tones, or typing out their cover stories with glossy manicured nails, tap tap tap! As you've probably noticed by now, people who have an encyclopedic knowledge of news and politics and a knack with the written word also tend to be hopelessly glamorous and charming and devilishly good-looking to boot, which is why most magazine offices have more in common with dinner rush at Nobu than a place of employ.

But you don't need me to describe the unnerving elegance and style of the magazine world, since the subject is explored repeatedly in romantic comedies and girly novels and TV dramas, most recently in ABC's "Ugly Betty" and last year's hit movie "The Devil Wears Prada." Add to that two new TV shows: FX's "Dirt," a one-hour drama starring Courteney Cox as the editor of a celebrity tabloid, and MTV's "I'm From Rolling Stone," a reality show that follows a gaggle of aspiring journalists as they intern with Rolling Stone magazine for a summer in the hopes of winning a year-long spot as a contributing editor. Yes, the rest of the world is finally catching up to what we in the magazine business have known all along: namely, that we're the most charismatic, alluring people in the known universe. I can't tell you how gratifying it is, to finally see the ultra-sexy realm of word counts and carpal tunnel and petty bickering with editors depicted on the small screen!

Dirt devil
But if you've seen one of those ubiquitous print ads for "Dirt" (10 p.m. Tuesdays on FX) that features Courteney Cox wearing a strapless red floor-length gown, you've already caught a glimpse of how fabulous tabloid journalism can be. Now, personally, I can't remember the last time I saw an editor in a floor-length ball gown, but maybe that's because I've never worked in the undeniably classy world of tabloids.

As good as Cox looks in bright red, though, her character, Lucy, is about as compelling as that soggy, rain-soaked copy of the New York Post you stumbled over on the subway this morning. We'd all love to see Cox transcend her "Friends" persona, but unfortunately she's so unconvincing as a villainous editor, I couldn't stop thinking about the understated, hissed superiority of Meryl Streep's memorable fashion editor, Miranda Priestly, in "The Devil Wears Prada." Streep transformed what might have been a flatly nasty role by taking lines that would be screechy or hysterical in anyone else's hands and smoothing them into breathily demonic utterances that would make any assistant shiver in her Jimmy Choos. But where Streep's restrained, absent-mindedly biting Miranda reminded us of every oppressively arrogant boss we've ever had, Cox's monotone Lucy reminds us of Monica on sedatives.

Basically, Lucy has no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever. She's clearly supposed to be a tough and heartless editor, anxious to do whatever it takes to keep her two magazines, Dirt (Think: In Touch or the National Enquirer) and Now (Think: People), afloat. Unlike Miranda, who has a telling habit of ending each interaction with the dismissive phrase "That's all," as in "That's all I need you for, now get the hell out," Lucy has no tells, no tics, no habits at all. She's all business, telegraphed with an unvarying deadpan delivery that's far less artful and interesting than Streep's little resigned sighs and eye rolls. In a clumsy attempt to keep us interested in Lucy, we see her all alone and lonely (right after another character hisses that she's all alone and lonely, just in case we miss the point), and we're treated to recurring scenes of her in bed, matter-of-factly reaching for her vibrator.

Next page: The campy beauty of "Ugly Betty"