Not to Mince Words, But TMZ is the Antichrist

My friend Burt Kearns at the superb blog Tabloid Baby has been righteously and rightfully taking the toxic and tactless gossip site TMZ.com to task for being the classless operation that it is. And suffice it to say, I second that. It's rather unfathomable that this attack-dog corner of cyberspace is backed by boatloads of AOL/Time Warner corporate cash, as it is so unctuous, sleazy and extreme that it's singlehandedly slicing a dagger through whatever credibility entertainment journalism had remaining. It's ruining things for those who are at least fighting to retain a measure of taste and sensitivity, as boss Harvey Levin and his TMZ possess none.

The latest example of the Website's shameless MO is the above photo that announced the death Sunday of Merv Griffin. Wow, how very clever to turn its headline into a "Wheel of Fortune" puzzle, huh? This is what passes for cute at TMZ.com, which has made an art form of the trivial and the unconscionable.

I mean, you know you've crossed the line (actually, obliterated it is more like it) when a guy who runs a site called Tabloid Baby is pummeling your bottom-feeder style -- and he's right on target. Kearns believes TMZ "is giving tabloid a bad name." Good tabloid, he reasons, "has a sense of humor and a sense of morality. Tabloid sticks up for the little guy. It doesn't make heroes out of villains. It's a form of journalism that speaks to the Average Joe." By contrast, he reasons that TMZ boasts "stories and headlines that have been lewdly written...It's pervy and porny and crass and dirty and nasty and ugly."

Kearns also observes that TMZ is responding to the criticism from he and others by growing even more aggressive and relentless in looking to get a rise out of the celebrity community. He points to a recent provocation of, and confrontation with, comedian/actor Brad Garrett, using a self-created incident with the towering and talented star of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and Fox's "'Till Death" to take a cheap shot at him on its site. Some TMZ dweeb with a camera (part of the stalkerazzi) evidently got into Garrett's face as he exited a restaurant in Malibu on Sunday night, and when the star tried to push the lens away, he was made to look like a prima donna hothead.

It's utterly unfair, as Garrett is -- from everything I've seen -- the most affable, jocular and cooperative of Hollywood personalities. But TMZ earns his stripes with a carefully calculated "gotcha!" agenda of negativity and humiliation -- plumbing the depths of showbiz's underbelly to glorify whatever darkness can be strip-mined. It's sad and infuriating that it has come to this.

Here's another smart take on the TMZ/Brad Garrett debacle from the smart and glib L.A. Daily News TV Critic David Kronke and his blog The Mayor of Television.

Comments

[LLR]

I saw this, too. Tacky. There also seems to be a lot of anger and disgust even among TMZ's own readers (!), if you noticed a lot of the comments to this posting on their site. Some people stuck up for TMZ, saying "Hey, Merv had a wicked sense of humor - he would have thought it was funny..." Well, perhaps, if they would have done it in slightly better taste. Besides, when did the all-knowing staff of TMZ (likely too young and clueless to even grasp the contributions or significance or pure wonderfulness of Merv) have such an "inside read" on Merv's sense of humor? Give me a break. Stick to your Kevin Federline stories. Clearly you can't handle reporting on industry legends, you goons. As someone so aptly put it, "maybe TMZ shouldn't give their 'weekend guys' so much creative control. First of all, why that photo of Vanna, so happy (and clapping?), next to THAT phrase? Geez, if they were going to spend so much time doctoring up a WOF game board, how about a "RIP MERV" or "WE'LL MISS YOU MERV" or something like that? "MERV GRIFFIN DIED TODAY?" What a bunch of idiots. Just when you thought it was nearly impossible for a soul on the earth to cast any sort of negative light on Merv Griffin, TMZ manages to do it. Merv was one of the classiest guys around, yet he gets blasted by one of the most classLESS bunch of buffoons in the biz. TMZ, here's a new message for your board: TMZ IS DEAD TO ME. Buh-bye.

[Kevin Allman]

They're trying to compete with a guy who (allegedly) uses agency photos without payment or permission, and then (not-so) allegedly draws coke boogers in celebrities' nostrils and semen running out of their mouths.

Meanwhile, what of the long-delayed TMZ D.C., and what will it be like? Will Beltway stalkerazzi be positioned outside Capitol Hill watering holes, trying to provoke Olympia Snowe or Russ Feingold into throwing a haymaker at the camera?

I'd love to hear Harvey Levin's vision for the thing.

[A Knowing Mind]

Everything stinks from the top, down, and in the case of TMZ there is no question that a very large amount of self hatred and self loathing is making the site run. Nobody behaves the way the people at TMZ do unless they hate life and hate themselves. It reminds me of the story of a major Hollywood producer who at a party stops to look at his own reflection and says to himself "I am not an attractive man." Given how ugly this producer was in his life, this admission of his own self disgust was very telling and had several dimension.

My belief is that the TMZ staffers are being driven by a similar philosophy of self disgust which is why their pages are so vile and cruel. Cruelty is the weapon of people who despise their own reflections. TMZ hates the subjects of their stories because TMZ hates itself.

Unlike Perez Hilton, who is still a basket case working out his psych issues online, TMZ's only mission is to destroy and ridicule. In the end they'll fall on their own swords and suddenly it won't be so funny for them anymore.

[Semih GÜNAY]

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