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Love her or loathe her, Kathy Griffin has become a PR expert by pretending to be a celebrity loser. The finale for the 5th season of her award-winning Bravo reality show "My Life on the D-List" aired a few weeks ago, but Kathy timed the launch of her book Official Book Club Selection for this week so that she is currently saturating every media market as though she had a network fall season show. Say what you will about her blatant attention-whoring about her blatant attention-whoring: Griffin studies the game and plays it hard.
Official Book Club Selection has garnered A-List media coverage, and she's played it broad. She told Kathie Lee and Hoda that she planned for her first memoir to outsell the Bible. (Awkward!) She trumped Jon Gosslin's media binge this week with a mock-trailer clip for "Kate is Enough" on Jimmy Kimmel Live. She's also played it (somewhat) straight as well, with painful stories of an abusive brother and eating disorders on ET and about her plastic surgery and about sexism in Time. Kathy Griffin is everywhere, selling her show, selling her book, selling the Hollywood dream that if the star of YOU doesn't supernova on its own, you can claw your way to the top of the shiny, manmade mountain of fame via commoditized narcissism.
I've talked with many people who loathe her, but I'll keep buying what Kathy Griffin is selling. Heiress apparent to Joan Rivers' celebrity roasting legacy, Kathy brings a corrupt-but-worshipping skew to A-List bashing. "My Life on the D-List" has shown audiences that Kathy actually loves her targets, which simultaneously redeems her cutting humor and makes it all the more brutal. Yes, she's crass and caustic, but she understands celebrity so well that she walks the tightrope between setting fire to the House of Hollywood while banging on the door to get in.
She's also pretty damn smart. The title of her book is the most genius book title in celebrity publishing history, even better than when Madonna named a coffee table book "Sex." What better way to show that you are desperate for Oprah's stamp of approval but that you've got the balls to Book List yourself, all the while trashing the gimmicks and power of the Grand One? Official Book Club Selection works on two levels: it is a gossipy parody of the use of books and interviews as vehicles for the consumption of curated celebrity backstories, but it is also a tell-all from Kathy's life and ambitious career. Bad men, ugly events, heartbreak, bulimia, divorce, sexism, botched plastic surgery (with pictures!)--Kathy knows what Oprah, and readers, want to hear in between jokes. She says as much in the book's Forward, which is an open pitch letter to Oprah:
By the way, don't even think about Skype-ing my mom for this episode. She'll throw me under the bus in a heartbeat. She's got a thing for Gayle. Ring a bell? ... Here's why you will admire me. I'm living the life you secretly wish you could. I've got the dysfunctional family like a lot of people. I've bitten, scratched and clawed to get where I am, just like you. But I don't have to be nice about it.
Leigh McEachran loves it that Kathy is not nice. "She throws every celebrity under the bus (you better read up Steve Martin, you’re in for a doozy!) and includes great anecdotes of her encounters with A-Listers. But even when she’s not discussing dating Jack Black and Quentin Tarantino, everything written is an incredible page turner. Many comedians cannot seem to translate their humour from oral to written word. It either comes across as too serious or trying too hard. But Kathy Griffin fans will not be disappointed, this red-headed comedian is just as funny in text as she is in speech."
With so much Kathy available everywhere in your face for free, some might wonder how she could possibly succeed with a book. Kat Dub at Story Boutique nails the mystery of what we crave from a performer who is as over-the-top as Kathy plays herself. "We know about her plastic surgery, her mom, and her claw-you-way-to-the-top mentality, but in the back of your mind you wonder if this is how she always is. In my case, my curiousity as well as Kathy's crazy, magnetic personality had me
