Man some of the incredibly boneheaded things I've seen written in this magazine ever since I re-upped a year subscription this past July for the first time in years, makes me wonder if I should've at all. So my new one comes in the mail yesterday, Jennifer Aniston is the cover girl. But one of the smaller blurbs they're touting on the cover is "TV's Smartest People", and Tina Fey is one of the names teased, so I'm thinking holy shit, did they finally get things right with one of these sort of lists??

Then I take a look at the actual article...

Looking over the most of the entries, largely the criteria for being "smart" is quite simply if you've been shrewd enough in the business to've been highly successful and make yourself an obscene amount of money. Granted maybe some of you will read this and thinking to yourself "dude, what did you expect?" but call me naive. Again, seeing the inclusion from the front of Tina Fey, I thought it was going to be shining a light on those in entertainment who are actually the good kind of smart. Like and as part of it, aren't those who you think are giant tools (then again, Oprah was another name they used as a tease).

And okay the #1 name on the list? Seth MacFarlane. Good god I think this guy is rather overrated. Now bear in my mind, I actually do like Family Guy, but frankly it seems like he winds up not impressing me almost as much as he does so. For one thing, his like 5 different random asides during any particular episode ("I haven't felt this awkward since I..."), while okay some of those have some humor to them, more than anything all that does is show me that he's too lazy of a writer to produce a full 22 minutes of steady narrative of a story every week. Sure, anyone can come up with several different 20 seconds bits that have absolutely nothing to do with anything else, the creativity is telling a complete story. Plus, assuming he's not just kidding at the stabs he's taken at several other TV shows over his time, he's pretty damn smug and arrogant (particularly considering some of the jokes he's blatantly stole from The Simpsons). Again though, I know having said all this you'd probably think I hate the show, not at all, in fact the character of Stewie I absolutely love.

But again, Oprah -- #6. Though cool to see JJ Abrams at #18 and Jon Stewart at #24. But okay, if these two other particular entries don't otherwise tell you pretty much anything you'd need to know about this list...

#16: Simon Cowell & Ryan Seacrest
#25: The Women of "The View"


umm... yea. :vomit:

EW is dreck, I don't know how you expected anything different.

do you also look at rolling stone "greatest" and "best" lists and complain about those as well?

Well haven't we all groaned over their lists, along with pretty much everyone else's (like hello, their most recent 100 Best Singers). I mean right here on this page someone else just brought up the 100 Movie Characters, there's been much more talk about how off it is than on, overall.

I don't know, I guess with this one, it's just not a very traditional idea, at least that I've seen magazines do before, it's not anything obvious like "Best all time Albums" or "All time Movies" or whatever, and just astounds me that if you're going to bother to put together such a list, that you use such ass backwards criteria.

As to EW overall and the first reply poster, well yea I guess up until not all that long ago I considered EW pretty good, so it seems they've especially gone downhill lately.

I've always thought EW was terrible. Their movie reviews especially.

'

Well I'll grant you, even for multiple years now sometimes I as well have felt their reviews can be downright headscratching, but generally speaking, yea for awhile before this I thought it was a good publication to keep up with for being an all around movie/TV/music fan.

I used to read People Magazine for their in-depth political coverage, but they're really gone downhill lately. Hugh Jackman is cuter than Matthew McConaughey!? Not in this lifetime!!

Oh c'mon now, even in their heyday EW wasn't that bad

A+

my point is that it's been well documented that, most of the time, the people that make these lists are catering to those who consider themselves to be "hip" and "cool" and make lists accordingly. it's no surprise that they put seth macfarlane on top of the list. of course he has no talent, but he's popular so he was put at the top of the list to justify the egos of those who read the mag. you should take that shit with a grain of salt and ignore it.

man i have to completely disagree with the love of stewie

what an overdone character

I don't know why but somehow I still find this magazine to be prestigious.

I still have old articles from '98-'03 when I was subscriber. And I still read 'em B&N.
Oh for the record, I never wrote complaints or any of that.

EDIT: you know, I've been think about selling those old articles on Ebay or something.
Wonder how much I'd get for the Eminem and Britney issues from 1999...

I really don't get America's twisted fascination with celebrities.

Rolling Stone isn't great either but it's a lot better than EW.

I would hardly classify that as an american trait.

it's often confused, because we have the best celebrities

Well and that's a perfectly valid point. I'll echo an amended statement: I really don't get the human race's twisted fascination with celebrities.

And just celebrity, in general. The average joe more than willing to humiliate themselves on national TV for 9 seconds of fame and to be some pseudo-celebrity

Oh for gods sake you're kidding right? Yea, I'm a big fan of Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, lord knows I'm the only one like that around here. And since on a Pearl Jam forum, I bothered to pick a photo of Eddie himself that I've always liked for my avatar, it obviously means I have a "twisted fascination' with him.



Better luck next time.

He does look pretty cute in that pic, I'll give you that.