New Age of Scandal?

After reading the August 31 Entertainment Weekly cover story about our 'Summer of Scandal,' there are a couple of things I feel compelled to point out. First and foremost, let me say that I have been reading EW since I was 12 and really have a hard time getting through a Friday afternoon without the latest issue. For the most part, the magazine does an excellent job of looking at new pop culture and filmmaking while having a robust appreciation for the Hollywood of the past.

Which is what makes the new issue slightly strange. One of their commentators notes a 'new age of bad girls,' while a later article lists Woody Allen marrying Soon Yi Previn as one of the more scandalous scandals of the last 25 years. While this certainly may be the case, it is not exactly an original scandal. To talk about Woody and Soon Yi and not mention their predecessors, Charlie Chaplin and Oona O'Neill, is to deny Hollywood scandal at its origins. To talk about Lindsay Lohan and not acknowledge the original self-destructive bombshell Marilyn Monroe is to completely ignore the fact that starlets have been making desperate fools of themselves since before the word was invented. And to say the words Angelina Jolie when discussing scandal and not add the words Elizabeth and Taylor immediately afterward makes it seem as though astonishingly beautiful, amazing (if homewrecking) actresses have not existed before the year 2005.

The question is not whether or not these are new, troubling phenomena, but what has changed about our culture that we care so much more.