Heffernan has the enviable job of taking serious the trove of 30 and 60-minute rubbish transmitted with colorful aplomb to the Nielsen set. (You: "You watch that trash?", Heffernan: "It's my job".) Instead of furtively glancing to make sure no one walks by while Anna Nicole slurs and writhes on the screen, she can stare guilt-free, potato references be damned. And her writing, imbued with kaleidoscopic color-drenched metaphors, to quote John Travolta in Grease, "it's electrifying!"
Let's get her background out of the way: Harvard; former Talk magazine Editor; published in Harpers, New York, New York Times, Glamour, Salon, yada, yada, yada; and writer of the Emmy-nominated documentary "Matthew's Murder" -- she's been around the block. All of the above are terrific, by the way, but for today, class, we're reading her fun work in Slate which is fabulous.
A search for Heffernan's Slate pieces on 8/7/02 or earlier, will produce 19 articles - from her "Faster, Harder, Stupider" riff on HBO's reality stalwart "Real Sex" to the ditzy debut of E's Anna Nicole Smith to the Cartoon Network's punchy, punky Power Puff Girls. It's a knockout collection. In fact, should you at some point get stranded on a Desert Island, make Heffernan your first stop back. If you think Television is amusement, a silly and momentary diversion from life, you're wrong. It is life, it is increasingly how we communicate with each other, and a quick read of Heffernan will leave you fully prepared for the most daunting cocktail party crowd. For instance:
Is the bore to your right droning on, lip curled up, about "the media"? Offer "Unsafe on Any Sunday: SOS in America brings you fear lite", where Heffernan says of this easier-on-the-nerves News Magazine show:
"...On SOS, rumors of an Iraq-led apocalypse do not circulate; senators do not trade favors for wide-screen TVs; banks do not collude with fake companies...Instead, the SOS team investigates the manageable, regional perils that define this country: speeding school buses, pets on drugs, gambling grannies..."
