Understand, I’ve never seen his program. The times that I’ve seen him on talk shows or such, there was something about him that just annoyed the crap out of me…and it’s not just because every time I see him I can’t tell if it’s him or actor Jeffrey Tambor.
But now I know why.
The big headline in the “Daily News” is that Phil “Quick Draw” McGraw was summoned by Britney Spears’ parents for help, and that he escorted their tormented daughter from the hospital where she was quite rightly dispatched. Frankly I think the intended three days couldn’t have hurt, but she departed with McGraw after a day. As I read the article, I thought, “Okay, well…maybe I was too hard on the guy. He’s reaching out to a high-profile mentally collapsing patient and perhaps–“
Then I got to the part where he’s planning filming a TV special about her which will doubtless land him huge ratings if he can get her to cooperate.
What a slimeball. What a total scuzz. What an opportunistic creeping bag of pustulence is Doctor Phil McGraw. Craig Ferguson memorably gave a monologue as to why he had no intention of making Britney Spears jokes that was by turns honest, painful and hilarious, and in the end he absolutely nailed it: This is a woman having a public mental breakdown and she needs genuine help. Ferguson, a recovering alcoholic, understood that. McGraw understands ratings and keeping his own name out there.
If McGraw said he was taking a month off from his program to try and spend time setting Spears on the road to recovery, that I could respect. But seeking merely to exploit her in order to score ratings…well, frankly, one has to wonder about the parents who sent the call out to him. If they knew that was his intent, it’s little wonder Spears is as screwed up as she is.
PAD
• 
I never really had strong feelings for or against McGraw until now. To me, he was just another celebrity character, and I pretty much ignored him, since I was never a regular watcher of Oprah, and have never seen his show.
I think the one time I saw an episode of Oprah with him, it featured a married couple in which the wife was a controlling, domineering woman who controlled everything from how many sodas the husband was allowed to have each day, to how he held his fork, to how he parted his hair, and even complained when he sweated while he slept. That said, it wasn’t hard to side with McGraw when he offered advice that was critical of here. Aside from this and appearances in things like Scary Movie, in which he basically lampooned himself (being able to make fun of yourself will always get you points with me), I didn’t think much of him.
Now, however, I think I’ve seen his true colors. It wasn’t enough that he attached himself to Spears’ coattails. No, he had to make her leave the hospital early, and exploit her for ratings.
He and Spears’ parents deserve one another. The only one missing from this orgy of depravity are Lindsay Lohan’s and Paris Hilton’s parents.
Thank you for this, Peter. I’ll avoid Dr. Phil more studiously from now on; he’s always rubbed me the wrong way, too.
For the record, here’s a YouTube copy of Ferguson’s 13-minute monologue about why he wouldn’t make fun of Britney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbaRyDLMvA
If Britney and her parents are too focused on keeping her in the public light, I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave the broadcast special idea to Phil. There’s no risk on their part, whereas he will adopt some culpability if she descends further. His only sincere option may be to tell her what seems to be the truth, which is she should walk away from show business and make her personal life and her children her highest priority.
The reason “hitting bottom” is crucial for reform is because privilege shelters and enables dysfunction. Interventions are meant to demonstrate to the addict that he has hit a low his loved ones emphasize he should avoid sinking further from. If the public nature of the to-be-televised Dr Phil intervention does this, he will have earned his accolades for healing Britney. Or the whole thing could result in nothing, like Geraldo opening Al Capone’s vault.
You know, it took the WGA deal for me to even watch Craig Ferguson, and now I’m hooked. I can’t help but like the guy. I see what Letterman sees in even hiring him.
Now I have even more respect for him, knowing his position on this.
Right now, both Spears sisters are easy targets. One didn’t do anything all that wrong (i.e. she’s having a kid underage), and the other has been having severe problems. These problems I relate to since I’ve watched someone very close to me go through the exact same thing, and nothing changed for her until she sought help, and honestly wanted to stop. Spears is almost there. She’s at a point where she has every reason to stop, but her addiction is still saying “use me, use me, use me.” She has the money and means so there’s nothing keeping her from doing so, except, I don’t know, the hospital she was staying in.
McGraw should know all this, being a licensed professional. Though, it may blow up in his face.
There’s a reason why programs like AA have a public relations policy of having no public relations policy (basically, protect the identity of their members, and members are encouraged to not identify themselves unless they are helping someone new). Humans are human, and alcoholics and addicts have a terrible disease that’s looked at from the outside as moral depravity. If a public figure represents such a program, and that disease, publicly – they are still likely to relapse, as many have – like anyone who identifies themselves with such a disease.
From what I’m seeing, Spears is serving the public as the “town drunk”, and entertaining everyone so. She’s being pointed to as someone to lord over, someone to be morally superior to. She provides the same service as, say, someone on Springer (who claims he began his show to genuinely help people). And right now, that’s something called “good copy”.
If Dr. Phil’s trademark advice doesn’t (and it’s likely not going to) help Britney Spears, it will probably make his quick fix, no nonsense advisor image look like a failure. There is no quick fix, and addicts tend to say to that person what they want to hear, so they can go on to do what they’re going to do.
“I’m going to make a real change.”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t want to keep doing this.”
The truth of the matter is that the addict usually means all of what they say, but the disease kicks in, and suddenly they don’t know why they’re knocking on their dealers door. It is not a moral issue (though, under the influence, morality becomes a very flexible thing), it’s an illness. No one tells a cancer patient “why don’t they just stop having cancer.”
If Phil’s special actually provides a service and makes people aware of this fact, then some good might come out of this. If Phil’s special becomes an episode of “Intervention” with little follow-up and no long term plan for Spears to actually want to stop, then it’s simply exploitive and a way for advertisers to exploit housewives and househusbands.
Again, Phil can possibly redeem himself if it helps make the public aware of addiction as an illness. Still, this would make Spears the public face of addiction and recovery under the MacGraw plan. And if she relapses, which is a strong possibility, well there goes that.
This is probably the most I’ll ever write about Britney Spears in my lifetime, not to mention Dr. Phil.
For several years MTV hosted Loveline with Adam Carola and Dr. Drew, which is what introduced me to both of them. Lately Dr. Drew (Dr. Drew Pinsky, actually) has started to fall into the Dr. Joyce Brothers role. He appears on TV whenever they need a medical expert to comment on something.
However, there are things that make me respect Dr. Drew. For one, his advice has always seemed pretty straightforward. It’s not insulting like Dr. Phil, he actually talks about medical causes for things and seems to know what he’s talking about in a way that Dr. Phil doesn’t.
Second, for much of the time that he’s been a TV personality, if not all of it, Dr. Drew has maintained a private practice and continued seeing patients. It’s not part of a show, the patients are regular patients, and it’s a real part of his life. Even with all the acting stuff he’s done on the side, Dr. Drew has continued being a real doctor.
Then there’s Dr. Phil. According to wikipedia, he got out of seeing patients pretty quick, and never really liked working one-on-one with patients from the start. The stuff I’ve read about Dr. Phil makes it seem more and more like being a doctor is just a means to being a celebrity for him.
Dr. Phil IS scum, of course. But this really made me look at Brittany’s parents as being the bigger scum bags. It’s obvious this girl doesn’t just have addictive problems, she has mental problems, severe ones. Do her parents find the best help for her? No, they get her some high profile TV hack.
the worst part is, this slightly talented girl is going to go the way of Anna Nichole Smith if someone doesn’t try to legitimately help her real soon.
I always wondered if people who did reality shows really knew what they were getting into. If somebody signed up for something like that I would want it to be their decision, without anybody associated with the show encouraging them to do something that they might regret.
So apparently we have McGraw now trying to convince somebody that it would be good to humiliate herself further by having her seemingly neverending train wreck of a life televised.
Yeah, I agree. He is scum.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Britney would’ve been forgotten by now if it weren’t for a series of public misadventures. It all serves to keep her celebrity status. Pathetic.
Yes, Dr Phil is a creep for exploiting the whole situation, but so are the folks E!, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition and a whole slew of others. Moreso, It aggravates me to no end when CNN and other “news” outlets cover this silliness as though it were a real story
It turns out Britney didn’t want anything to do with him and his report that Dr. Phil spent an hour with her is erroneous. She blasted him and demanded he leave.
The man is self-seeking, not altruistic. Britney needs help, and needs to do it on her terms, without the world watching her every move.
The question is, will we/the media let her?
Yes, Dr Phil is a creep for exploiting the whole situation, but so are the folks E!, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition and a whole slew of others.
Yeah, well, y’know what? Nobody on E!, Entertainment Tonight, Inside edition or the rest of the slew practices a profession that abides by the Latin precept “Primum non nocere”–“First, do no harm.” He’s supposedly a dámņëd doctor, and I have to think that elevating ratings above the welfare of a troubled young girl qualifies as doing harm.
I strongly suggest anyone who hasn’t go check out the Ferguson monologue on “Youtube.” Just search under “Craig Ferguson” and “Britney Spears” and it’ll come right up.
PAD
Paul: If you’re right about that being the only thing that matters here…then I fear for this woman.
If I ever need help, I’ll seek out Quick Draw McGraw. 🙂
I strongly suggest anyone who hasn’t go check out the Ferguson monologue on “Youtube.”
It’s a good monologue, but the fact that he starts out basically saying “you know, what I say does affect the individuals I make fun of” just kind of loses its meaning a bit if he goes on making fun of individuals anyways, even if they aren’t Britney Spears because he believes he’s gone through what she’s going through now.
But, as Ferguson points out, Spears needs to help herself. And until she does so, all the Dr. Phil’s in the world won’t make a difference. She’s obviously not serious about rehab (for whatever it is she needs rehab for, drugs, alcohol, whatever), she doesn’t seem to be able to make the best decisions for either herself or her children, and I’m getting the impression that her family isn’t helping the situation
Thanks PAD, I just watched it on youtube. The was very interesting.
Once upon a time, before he was the lovable Dr. Phil, friend to Oprah, defender of the downtrodden, and fattest man ever to write a diet book, he was Phil McGraw, jury consultant.
So there wasn’t a lot of integrity to lose, if you know what I’m saying.
Everybody knows how this is likely to end. As long as her family–the people most of us would have around us trying to do the right thing in a situation like this–are instead encouraging her to hit ever greater depths, it’s hard to see how this doesn’t become another Hollywood suicide story.
I’m not sure that her behavior is so much that of an addict as it is serious bipoloar disorder. In which case I’ll be amazed if being shamed on national TV will do anything more than send her into a greater spiral.
It’s obvious this girl doesn’t just have addictive problems, she has mental problems, severe ones.
Yep. I see a lot of people still talking in terms of addiction, but it’s becoming increasingly likely that addiction isn’t the issue here. Given her age, and onset of erratic behaviour, it seems pretty likely that post-partum depression and/or psychosis has triggered a full mental collapse (or precipitated/pushed an early bipolar break).
She definitely needs help, but I don’t think rehab is where she’s going to find it.
Found the Ferguson video – and it’s certainly interesting. Unlike Craig, though, I don’t see anything negative with what Ferguson said. He said, basically, that he was sheltered with what effect his comedy was having on his targets until he met Costner, and then saw Spears beginning to break down, and realized that even if you can find the inherent funny in a situation like the female astronaut’s mental break, you shouldn’t necessarily pursue it. That there are targets out there who you can skewer til the cows come home for ridiculous, over the top, asinine behaviour that has nothing to do with mental illness, substance abuse, or the litany of things that break a person. The people who instead make themselves targets because they are blowhards, they try to cheat or lie to the public, because they do stupid things to be stupid, or get media attention.
I think, actually, Ferguson touched spot on the reason I tend to avoid most late night television (or talk show TV in general): it has too much of the negative aspects of the spectacle to it, where they are focusing on making fun of the misfortunate.
By all means, take my politicians down. Preferably with a blow gun or other sharp instrument (wit included). But I squirm when any monologue (or other comedy) veers too far into the realm of making fun of those who simply have the misfortune of having public breakdowns because of who they are, or their handlers made them into being.
As someone with alot of training in the field (I have an MA in psychology) I have never ever liked Dr. Phil.
He completely ignores all the rules and steps and methods I learned in my training about what makes psychology work.
“The worst part is, then people like my girlfriend watch his crap, and look at me and say: thats the kind of therapist I want.
And why is that? because instead of a long drawn out process where your feelings and thoughts have to emerge from inside of you (and hence actually be your own), Dr Phil basically tells you how you feel, or how you should feel or act. Or he leads you to the answer he feels is right. And its like: “wow, you fixed my major problem in 15 minutes! On your show!” Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.
And all that is, is quick fix television wanna-be psychology.
Ferguson made the great point that comedy should be about targeting the pompous, the larger than life figures. The comedian should be the spokesman of the underdog, not the schoolyard bully making fun of the fat kid.
When you make fun of Larry Craig, you’re going after hypocrisy. When you go after George Bush, you’re going after powerful men who make dumb decisions that affect the little guy. This is the mistake Don Imus famously made — his joke failed because his targets were kids who had done nothing to really deserve his ire. It’s similar to when Mike Myers erred in joking about Chelsea Clinton’s appearance back in 1992.
Paris Hilton takes knocks because she represents what the average person hates — someone who has had everything handed to he and who expects the world to basically be her father/mother surrogates and continuing giving everything to her.
Britney Spears, on the other hand, is someone who has been making people rich since she was barely into her teens. I’m sure PAD might empathize with her in the sense that he has a job that is viewed by the average person as “fun,” but is still hard work. She climbed to the top and there’s nothing Americans like more sadly than watching people tumble.
What’s happening to Ms. Spears now basicaly isn’t funny — not to her family or to her kids. I think Americans don’t really appreciate the effect of mental illness. It’s very much like saying, “Why doesn’t she stop having cancer?” So, she falls apart mentally and we all have a good laugh.
But it’s not funny.
Same with Lindsay Lohan. This kid might be dead in a few years. She lacks the support system to save her from herself.
And, really, it’s an election year — we have more than enough material rather than to mock the weak.
According to the gossip site TMZ.com (take it for what it’s worth,) this is an even more pathetic publicity stunt than we’d thought.
TMZ has learned Dr. Phil’s visit with Britney Spears was not exactly as advertised.
People on the 7th floor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center say the doctor arrived about 7:30 AM Saturday. We’re told Britney did not invite him in; she didn’t even know he was coming. Sources say it was Brit’s parents who told Dr. Phil to go to the hospital. When he walked into her room, we’re told, a blindsided Britney walked out — and eventually came back.
Sources say Phil tried speaking with Spears for about 15 minutes — not an hour as Dr. Phil’s press release states — but she wanted none of it. We’re told Phil was doing almost all the talking. As for walking with her to the car on her way out — again, as his release states — we’re told if he was walking behind her, that’s news to her. She absolutely was not accompanied by him.
Sources say Dr. Phil somehow convinced Brit’s mom and dad to be on his show, which will tape Monday and air Tuesday (it was just moved up a day), but as one person put it, “Based on the interaction between Dr. Phil and Britney this morning, it’ll be a cold day in hëll before Britney goes on his show.” We’re told she absolutely will not appear on the program.
Sources say Dr. Phil wants to do a television intervention, something that isn’t sitting well with some of the people who have known for a while that Britney has a very serious mental condition — likely a bipolar disorder that is now in the red zone.
TMZ contacted Cedars to find out why the hospital let a television doctor on a floor that has such fragile patients, particularly since Britney had no idea he was coming. It’s especially troublesome that Cedars let Dr. Phil go uninvited to Britney’s room, since she had already been discharged and presumably had a right to know if someone wanted to visit. A Cedars rep made it short and sweet, telling us, “No comment.”
A rep from the “Dr. Phil” show had no comment as well, other than “Dr. Phil met with Ms. Spears at family members’ invitation.”
I think Britney used to be a worthy target for jokes. When Ferguson said that jokes should go against the politicians, the Trumps, and the powerful, I think Britney used to be in that category.
After all, she was a *huge* star. Rich, able to get whatever she wanted, all that stuff. So when she kinda-sorta-accidentally married a guy in Vegas a few years ago and got it annulled a few days later, I made jokes with everyone else. There’s nothing wrong with the late night talk show hosts of the world joking about that kind of thing.
But now it’s just sad. It’s like if a coworker comes to work with a hangover from partying the night before. Do you make a joke? Of course you do (well, I do). And if he’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday, even better.
But what if he’s hung over every day? That’s not a one time mistake, that’s a problem, so most people would back off pretty quickly.
If Costner or Spears do something silly, a little joking is no big deal. But at this point making fun of Britney is like making fun of an accident victim.
I guess Dr Phil would be a more ethical show if he was a small claims court judge instead. He’d have to square-off against Judge Joe Brown on even ground.
It’s a wonder portraying Larry Craig’s holding others to a standard he refuses to be held by as hypocrisy is in any way controversial.
1PAD,
If you want to think Dr. Phil is a scumbag, I suggest you dig into his public history before being a TV-Shrink, Psychologist or Jury consultant.
If you look into his ill-conceived fitness business . . . I think you’ll find a whole new reason to dislike him.
I’m not saying he isn’t an intelligent man. And I’m not saying he doesn’t understand psychology. I’m just saying the first person he’s going to help out is . . . Phil McGraw.
It sounds, Mr. D., like you have a shot at appearing on “The Root of All Evil,” that new show hosted by Lewis Black. The show is a debate between two funny people about which is more evil…say, Wal-Mart or Heroin, Kim Jung Il or Hulk Hogan, that sort of thing. I think you could be the attorney proposing that Dr. Phil (or as Black has called him on more than one occasion, “Doctor F*** Phil”) as being more evil than the guy who brought sushi to the United States.
TMZ contacted Cedars to find out why the hospital let a television doctor on a floor that has such fragile patients, particularly since Britney had no idea he was coming. It’s especially troublesome that Cedars let Dr. Phil go uninvited to Britney’s room, since she had already been discharged and presumably had a right to know if someone wanted to visit. A Cedars rep made it short and sweet, telling us, “No comment.”
I can actually answer this one – or at least give you the answer that an awful lot of hospitals would give, which is that if someone is taken in on a 5150 as an adult, and they don’t have a marriage or specific legal guardian naming medical decision making capacity to a specific person, the right reverts to the parents. (This is also true for most medical treatment, people – set up your advanced directives, living wills, get your legal documents in order, make sure the person making your medical decisions knows your wishes should you become incapacitated, and talk to everyone about your choices and beliefs!)
Since Spears is unmarried, chances are good that as her closest adult living relatives, her parents have decision-making capacity. As long as Spears wasn’t in a lockdown unit and denied all visitation rights, her parents could allow anyone they wanted in to see her while she was deemed unable to make her own medical decisions.
That she so adamantly stepped up to defend her privacy and desires (if what TMZ reports is truer than the sham doc, which I have no trouble believing) is probably one of the reasons the hospital lifted the 5150 early – easier to work with the patient who seems to have an idea of what’s good for her, than decision-makers who are making what most doc’s would clearly consider bad decisions for the patient.
…those last few sentences became sort of convoluted, but hopefully they made sense. It made sense in my head, but that’s not much of a guarantee of anything, really.
I don’t know Spears well enough (or at all) to determine what her problem is, but actually I think my daughter Ariel may well have nailed it. She said, “People have been allowing her to do whatever she wants for so long that she’s just used to things being that way. So now she’s freaking about because she can’t understand why people are telling her she can’t ‘be Britney’ anymore and do whatever she wants.”
It may not be that she has bipolar disorder. It may be quite simply a massive case of arrested development, someone who has been surrounded by enablers who have allowed her id to run wild for years. She’s never really had to function with the responsibilities of an adult, and instead of growing into them like a normal person, she’s having them forced upon her by a judge. And, to use the cliche, it’s like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.
PAD
What bad thing can anyone say about sushi? It’s like eating butter without it making you tired afterwards.
I specifically tuned in to Craig Ferguson’s show that night back in July when Lindsay Lohan was in a car chase and found with cocaine in her pants pocket. He basically just came out and said, “Lindsay. LINNNND-say. Oh, Lindsay,” in a kind of scolding matter, then said, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”
On “The Tonight Show” that same night, Rob Schneider dressed in drag to play Lindsay Lohan in a mock interview.
And that’s why I adore Craig Ferguson.
First of all, you don’t have any business having raw fish served to you unless you communicate in high-pitched squeals and live someplace that has the words, “People seated in the first three rows will get wet” printed right outside. It’s raw fish. Raw freaking fish. Anyone who eats this overpriced crap and comes down with bellyaches, I have no sympathy for ’cause you knew the odds going in. If you’re a human being and you’re going to eat fish, throw it on a grill the way God intended you to.
I hadn’t heard about the Lewis Black show. I doubt they’d want me; I’m not a comedian.
PAD
I’m going to have to agree with Mike on this and tell PAD that he is wrong wrong wrong! Sushi is proof that God loves us.
And not all sushi involves raw fish–try Spider Roll! It has the following attributes:
1- The only food I know of with the word Spider in it.
2- Although it actually is made from fried softshell crab, the legs stick out in a genuinely spider-like manner. You can pretend to be the guy on Man Against Wild, forced to devour tarantulas after a a forced landing into the Brazilian rain forest.
3- It’s delicious.
The trick to sushi is to find the right wasabi/soy sauce combination, which takes some practice. Too little and there isn’t enough bite. Too much will clean out your sinuses. Also, too many people soak the sushi in the sauce until it falls apart. To each his own but for me it takes just a bit to do the trick.
What other food dances in your mouth like sushi? (I’m being metaphorical here–if it actually dances the fish is too raw.) The faint sticky sweetness of the rice, the chewy texture of the seaweed, the delicate buttery (good description, Mike) texture of the fish, the saltiness of the soy, the fire of the wasabi. Depending on the roll chosen you might get additional factors–avocado, flying fish eggs, etc.
Every bite is a moment to savor.
Believe me, oh my brothers! I was once as you are! I ordered tempura while others ordered that which I disdainfully dismissed as bait. But once you experience the real thing…once you unlock its secrets…there is nothing better.
Common misconception.
Sashimi is raw fish.
Sushi is little rice rolls with filler which often is raw fish, but not necessarily.
No such thing as too much wasabi.
AiiiiiYEEEEEEE!
Frances Farmer Redux, anyone?
Well well well…it appears I made a false assumption. Since he bills himself as “Dr. Phil,” I was foolish enough to think he was actually a medical practitioner.
Turns out…no. He has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
So technically speaking, he is in fact not beholden to “Primum non nocere” since he is not actually a medical practitioner. I guess that means he really is no different from E! and the others and is free to do as much harm as he wants.
Isn’t that nice?
PAD
“Even Dr. Ruth only has an educational degree.”
But she was a sniper, so it’s best not to argue with her.
Of course, that’s true of most of these guys who have their own TV or radio shows. Even Dr. Ruth only has an educational degree. Notable exception is Dr. Drew Pinsky who does indeed have an MD.
He has a talk show where he aids people for a living. Those people aren’t famous but many of them are in bad shape and he helps them on the air and collects a paycheck and most people don’t blink an eye at it.
What’s the difference between that and aiding Spears and all of the other patients he aids?
Not trying to bait an argument but basically trying to see where your stance is on them.
Denny, a lot of people have been saying for a long time that Dr. Phil doesn’t really aid people on his show. He just makes them feel bad while offering nothing that’s actually helpful.
Everyone needs to get a paycheck, so getting paid while doing work that helps people isn’t a big deal. The problem is when getting a paycheck and some fame becomes more important than making sure what you’re doing is actually helpful. That’s Dr. Phil.
The difference is that he’s coming across like an opportunistic ambulance chaser in this instance, as opposed to dealing with people who voluntarily come onto his program.
PAD
PAD, I have eaten sushi for almost 20 years, and let me tell you about my experiences. It took me a long time to acquire a taste for it after living in Japan, but I did. And I’ve never ever gotten sick from eating it. But I always eat in high-end sushi places that buy quality fish and MOVE fish daily so it’s always very,very fresh.
I suspect those getting sick are eating in all-you-can eat or cheap sushi joints. You would have about as much chance seeing me in such a place as you would seeing me in a Chinese buffet.
Some more clues as to “Dr.” Phil McGraw’s skeeziness…
His show is really about selling books that he and his wife have written. Each time I’ve watched the show (for entertainment purposes only) I’ve heard him say, “I wrote a book called Family First…” Honestly, it’s like a drinking game.
He also overtly uses the show as a platform to gain his children public attention. I speculate that it’s either an attempt to to get them enough public attention for book deals or to enhance his image as a father figure.
The big clue for me, though, is that he calls himself Dr. Phil. When did these “Doctors” stop having last names? Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew, Dr. Ruth, Dr. Laura… It just reeks of bûllšhìŧ to me. What? Are we supposed to feel like we can confide in them because they’re are allowing us to use their first names? Like it makes them come off as more personable? So why don’t they drop the “Dr.” part? Maybe it works on eight-year-olds, but on adults? I’m not buying it.
Dr. Drew Pinsky, for the record (if such exists), always came off as professional and I imagine that’s not always easy to do when Adam Carolla is ones co-host.
McGraw, on the other hand, comes of as a charlatan.
Say what you will about Britany Spears, but she at least had enough sense not to play McGraw’s game. That indicates, to me at least, that she has developed some foresight. Or that she wants a perscrition stronger than “Family First” or “How My Husband Used His Celebrity Status to Get My Book Published.”
M
I don’t know Spears well enough (or at all) to determine what her problem is, but actually I think my daughter Ariel may well have nailed it. She said, “People have been allowing her to do whatever she wants for so long that she’s just used to things being that way. So now she’s freaking about because she can’t understand why people are telling her she can’t ‘be Britney’ anymore and do whatever she wants.”
**************
SER: I’d agree with Ariel on this. It’s similar to what happened with Tom Cruise (I don’t think he “went” crazy — was it really any coincidence that he’d fired his longterm manager prior to jumping on couches?).
When you basically provide the livelihoods of everyone around you (including mom and dad), it’s hard to not consider yourself the center of the universe. You certainly are for those around you.
I recently watched the Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life.” What I find most brilliant about it is the fact (and this is something I think some people miss) is that Tommy isn’t *evil.* He’s an average 6-year-old kid who has god-like powers. There is no such thing as power and responsibility at that age. A child who can go unchecked — whose parents are too afraid for their own lives and sanity to discipline — will become a monster.
And I’m sure there are many people close to Britney or Lindsay who reassure them that “it’s good that you did that… real good” as they then go and cash their checks.
I think Britney used to be a worthy target for jokes. When Ferguson said that jokes should go against the politicians, the Trumps, and the powerful, I think Britney used to be in that category.
After all, she was a *huge* star. Rich, able to get whatever she wanted, all that stuff. So when she kinda-sorta-accidentally married a guy in Vegas a few years ago and got it annulled a few days later, I made jokes with everyone else. There’s nothing wrong with the late night talk show hosts of the world joking about that kind of thing.
But now it’s just sad. It’s like if a coworker comes to work with a hangover from partying the night before. Do you make a joke? Of course you do (well, I do). And if he’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday, even better.
But what if he’s hung over every day? That’s not a one time mistake, that’s a problem, so most people would back off pretty quickly.
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SER: I think Johnny Carson, for example, used to really get this. He’d often have a star on his show who he’d ribbed for a blunder they’d made — similar to the guy who showed up at work with the hangover. However, Carson was always classy enough to know when to back off ,as you say.
Britney’s crazy first marriage was genuine fodder — sort of like Liz Taylor’s multiple marriages. Something she herself would willingly joke about.
Now, though, when talk show hosts should back off, they react like Jed Clampett hitting texas t.
I shamefully admit to having watched Dr. Phil’s show when it first came on. Pretty soon though, I realized that it was just a case of schadenfreude, and I was enjoying somebody point out the obvious to people who were too stupid to see it for themselves. Once I realized that, I felt pretty disgusted by it.
The guy’s a douchebag, and the story you share only adds to the evidence.
I’m going to have to agree with Mike on this and tell PAD that he is wrong wrong wrong! Sushi is proof that God loves us.
QFT. I heartily agree with the statement that all-you-can-eat sushi is an invention up there with fire and the wheel.
I just saw some of the Ralphie Ray Comedy Central special, where he told us all why he hates Dr. Phil: “I can’t trust a guy with a pørņø mustache.”
Now that that’s out of my system…
Yeah, his offer of “help” was pretty scummy. Massive publicity has never seemed to help anyone already famous — that Britney and K-Fed didn’t do much for either of them, and some suggested the Jessica Simpson-Nick Lachey marriage was severely hurt by their being videotaped all the time — and his special with her would be more of a public spectacle than an intervention.
Of course, it’s hard to defend Britney with all the horrible things she keeps doing. After her most recent MTV performance, I wrote an article online defending her against most of the criticisms (so she was a little heavy and didn’t lip-sync or dance perfectly — these are crimes or sins?). But just about everything since then has either been her neglecting her kids, acting irresponsibly (skipping a court date due to illness, then seen partying that night), or crossing the line between diva and mentally ill (as with the magazine interview she ruined a few months back).
The main problem — one, I suspect, shared by Michael Jackson and many other celebs — is that she’s surrounded herself with people who are there to make her feel good, not to warn her or help her when she starts screwing up. So if she decides to drive without a license or skip court, they tell her how right she is instead of advising her to get her priorities straight. And now reality is crashing into that false support. The results haven’t been pretty.
The self-effacing Peter David said:
I hadn’t heard about the Lewis Black show. I doubt they’d want me; I’m not a comedian.
But you’re funny on the stump, boss. I’ve seen you get rooms of people giggling. You can talk extemporaneously beautifully, more so than any author I’ve ever seen in person. And you have theatrical experience.
Also, Comedy Central is doing the show. I’ve seen the standup guys they put on these shows; without any ethnic inference intended at all, they’re the migrant workers of standup comedy. The guys who do gigs in teeny clubs, on the road 362 days a year, who can only afford MySpace web pages. You are, on your off days when you’re sick as a dog, at LEAST as good as them. Get some tape of your solo panels at a con and send it in; they’ll love you.
Besides my honest belief that this is true, you backed me up on my insistence that sushi is the most nauseating food on the planet, and I owe it to you.
Wait, is lox prohibited by Judaism? That could be the basis of a New York-based version of Footloose.
This is in today’s Chicago Sun-Times:
http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/zwecker/728694,CST-FTR-zp07.article
Considering the person writing the article, I tend to believe it.
I think that lox is cured, either by brining, smoking, or both, so it might not technically be considered raw.
It’s pretty good. But it sure ain’t sushi!