T A B L E_.T A L K

What do public opinion polls mean? Talk about the science of popular opinion in the Media area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Revolt of the elitists
By James Poniewozik
Two new media studies amplify the death cries of the literate overclass
(01/27/99)

The man without principles
By James Poniewozik
The career of the great German cultural critic Hans Magnus Enzensberger is a case study in the virtues of intellectual inconsistency
(01/27/99)

Truth in advertising
By James Poniewozik
The downfalls of Miller Lite's "Dick" and Spin's Michael Hirschorn show marketing can still explode when you defuse it
(01/26/99)

Wall Street Journal personals work!
By Susan Lehman
A Page 1 feature about a filthy-rich businesswoman was "a giant, high-class singles ad." Plus media news and notes from all over
(01/21/99)

A battle for the soul of America
By Steve Erickson
It's time for the American people to realize that the Clinton trial isn't really about Clinton -- it's about democracy
(01/20/99)

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BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVE

Wills to Sheehy: Your Clinton-incest psychobabble grows tiresome

PLUS: GAZOONGAS RAISE MAXIM, MOTHER JONES SEARCHES IN VAIN AND OTHER TALES OF MEDIA MADNESS.

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BY SUSAN LEHMAN

In a syndicated column published earlier this month, Garry Wills trashes Gail Sheehy's Vanity Fair piece on the Clinton marriage. It's psychobabble and worse, Wills told Media Circus. For one thing, the author and professor says a quote Sheehy attributes to him is mangled and distorted.

"How can we trust all the unnamed people she quotes in the article when she can't get quotes of named people straight?" Wills says. In the column he writes that Sheehy's notion that Clinton needed Monica because Chelsea was about to leave for college is as vile as it is silly. (What Wills calls this "sneaky suggestion of incestuous feeling" is reminiscent of Lucianne Goldberg's recent remark, in response to a crude question posed to her by the bottom-feeding New York Press, that the president "finger fucked" Chelsea.)

Sheehy, the bestselling author of "Passages" and several other books, has just signed with Random House to write a biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton; she refused comment on Wills' critique.

Great jiggling gazoongas! Maxim sales soar

What can you say about a magazine about breasts, sports, beer and gadgets? That its sales are rising at staggering speed! According to numbers released Wednesday by Maxim, the men's magazine that reliably features voluptuous cover girls baring significant portions of their upper anatomy and answers questions like "Did Ozzy Ozborne bite a bat's head off?" -- it can now guarantee advertisers 950,000 readers each month. That's roughly 300,000 more than GQ and Esquire, and more than twice the number Details guarantees.

Bodacious ta-tas, what is this all about? "I'm not quick to throw around words like 'intellectual' or 'literary,'" says Maxim editor Mark Golin. "We try to pack the magazine in a way that most guys -- [GQ editor] Art Cooper, [Esquire editor] David Granger and [Details editor] Michael Caruso excluded -- would find amusing, useful or of interest. And it seems to be working."

Flaunting his decidedly non-high-minded predilections, Golin says, "Are we busy writing letters to Norman Mailer here? No, we're not." He crows that Maxim gets fan mail from readers ranging "from Harvard professors to gas station attendants" singing the praises of Maxim articles on buying Valentine's Day lingerie and "Confessions of a Strip Club Bouncer." (Golin says he does not remember the names of any of the magazine's Cambridge admirers.)

Are the other men's magazine's dumbing down to keep up with Maxim? Astute readers, newsstand visitors -- even Newsweek, in a piece in the current issue, "Finding the Inner Swine" about Maxim and its influence -- have noticed a large number of big-breasted women gracing the cover of many recent men's magazines. But Caruso, Granger and Cooper all say, nope, Maxim's meteoric ride to mammary mammon has had no effect on their respective titles.

"What does this have to do with me?" Esquire's Granger said of Maxim's freshly announced rate base. "I can honestly say that Maxim has never been in my mind as I've done any planning for Esquire."

"If the numbers are true, I tip my hat to them," said GQ's Cooper, who went on to delicately filet Maxim with the scalpel of demographic euphemism: "The downmarket segment of men's magazines is very crowded and it's hard to break out of the pack. They've broken out with a lot of tits and ass and sophomoric humor."

"Congratulations to them," said Caruso, "I wish them all the best but they have no direct effect on us whatsoever."

N E X T_ P A G E | The real story: "The editorial vision ... is to copy Maxim"