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Chelsea Handler: Leno's Naughty Rival
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Chelsea Handler's bawdy talk show is the perfect antidote to the boys' club of late night and the shrill biddies of daytime. Caryn James on TV's smartest blonde.
Let other talk-show hosts play nice. I’m addicted to Chelsea Handler and here's why.
A typical moment on Chelsea Lately, Handler’s talk show on E!: Handler will start talking about Star Jones’ new “positivity blog,” then toss aside the card she’s reading from and say disgustedly, “I can’t even finish this.” About a rumor that druggy Amy Winehouse might want to adopt, she guesses that Winehouse heard there was a crack baby up for adoption and “thought it was a baby made of crack.”
Irreverent, smart, sometimes crude and often hilarious, Chelsea Lately is breaking up the boys’ club of late-night, but that’s the least of it. She’s doing for pop culture what Jon Stewart’s Daily Show does for—or to—the news. She sends up the idiocy of our obsession with Lohans and Kardashians while indulging our endless fascination with them, the way Stewart mocks the media’s lunacy while giving us some updates we can really use. (Handler’s timeslot is directly opposite Stewart’s, one more reason to love your DVR.)
Although her show is steadily gaining popularity, Handler, an actress and stand-up comedian, may still be best known for her books of comic essays, My Horizontal Life and Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea (still on the Times bestseller list after nine months). Her strategy in these wickedly funny autobiographical pieces, mostly about her drinking and dating and sleeping around, is to co-opt an attitude no one would blink at if she were a man, as if she were a smart-ass frat boy in a hot blonde’s body. She’s carried that persona to television, where it’s morphed into a contemporary version of a 1930s broad: sharp-witted, blunt about sex, refusing to fade into the background (fart jokes and all).
Mentioning an E! report that Lindsay Lohan’s friends claimed she was the victim of a “smear campaign” by ex-girlfriend Samantha Ronson’s allies, Handler sneered, “like Karl Rove’s involved.”
The centerpiece of the show is a roundtable conversation with guests who are usually other comics, better known in nightclubs than on TV; their contributions are basically stand-up delivered sitting down. What makes this format work is Handler’s droll attitude as she announces pop-culture topics and deflates their pretensions, tossing grenades from inside the walls of E!’s celeb-central. It’s jarring to see promos for E! News during Lately, because they include the kind of dopey celebrity items—sometimes the very same items—Handler is making fun of. Mentioning an E! report that Lindsay Lohan’s friends claimed she was the victim of a “smear campaign” by ex-girlfriend Samantha Ronson’s allies, Handler sneered, “like Karl Rove’s involved.”
Her occasional sketches are hit-or-miss, best when they have some sly subtext. Recently she staged a parody of E!’s reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians on the same night Khloe Kardashian was a roundtable guest. Khloe wasn’t in the sketch, but Mom Kris was. The appealing message—one that doesn’t insult the viewer’s brains—is that we all know no one takes this stuff seriously. Even the Kardashians know that they are a joke.
The E! demos say that women make up nearly two-thirds of the Chelsea Lately audience, and the show is especially popular among young women. The 34-year-old Handler is clearly a welcome change from the sameness of the suit-and-tie guys on late night, especially the network guys who strain so hard to seem cool. (Jimmy Fallon may Twitter, but that only makes him a guy in suit and tie who Twitters.) But I also think the secret of her appeal to women is that she is such a great relief from the earnest ladies of daytime talk shows, from The View with its creaky wisecracking, to Oprah to Ellen (you’ll find no self-help tips from Handler).
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Caryn James is a cultural critic for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Marie Claire and The New York Times Book Review. She was a film critic, chief television critic and critic-at-large for The New York Times, and an editor at the Times Book Review. She is the author of the novels Glorie and What Caroline Knew. As a film commentator, she has been a guest on Charlie Rose, Today, CBS Sunday Morning and MSNBC.
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Caryn James is a cultural critic for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Marie Claire and The New York Times Book Review. She was a film critic, chief television critic and critic-at-large for The New York Times, and an editor at the Times Book Review. She is the author of the novels Glorie and What Caroline Knew. As a film commentator, she has been a guest on Charlie Rose, Today, CBS Sunday Morning and MSNBC.
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Caryn James is a cultural critic for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Marie Claire and The New York Times Book Review. She was a film critic, chief television critic and critic-at-large for The New York Times, and an editor at the Times Book Review. She is the author of the novels Glorie and What Caroline Knew. As a film commentator, she has been a guest on Charlie Rose, Today, CBS Sunday Morning and MSNBC.
Chelsea has one of the best shows on TV. I love the black humor and ad hoc interactions with her round table. Mainstream TV has always pussy footed around most controversial topics. They take themselves way too seriously.
I just wish there was a clone of her that I could date!
I still laugh at the sketch she did on "Girls Behaving Badly" when she approached a barfly while pregnant trying to get
him to jump in bed with her.
Keep the laughs and commentary coming.....we certainly need it!
TG in FL
Chelsea, I love you. Caryn nailed it in this piece. You're too good at what you do, but I fear the next step up. You deserve everything good that comes to you. I used to date women like you and they were incredibly sexy even if they kept me on edge, all the time. Can I go with your troupe on vacation next time?
Chelsea Handler is only 34? Wow, guess the sneering, drinking and sleeping around really ages you.
Peskime - cattiness is not cute!
Calling another girl ugly does NOT make you any prettier - just so you know!
She's a gen-x Don Rickles in a dress. I've seen her show once or twice and wasn't captivated. She does look a decade older than she claims she is, just an observation. It's really ironic how you're defending a woman who makes a living hurling insults at others. LOL
Well, peskime, you're a little late on that one. Chelsea has already addressed this with her own self deprecating wit more than once. A similar comment from Hilton got a "feud" started and Chelsea was women enough and ballsy enough to still have him on for an interview and discuss it. Make a note - insults work best when the target hasn't already used them on as jokes on themselves.
You might need a new television or something. Chelsea is really beautiful.
=) i'm sure you know.
Thought she was closer to 44.
Maybe she gets that bitter sneer
from spending her Jersey
youth at Livingston Mall
inhaling pretzel fumes
and hair spray, while her friends
went to Short Hills.
She's funnier than Leno.
Sophia - cattiness isn't cute!
In fact, it's pretty damned ugly!
How would YOU like it if Chelsea ridiculed YOU on the internet?
Oh, wait...she's famous - and you are NOT.
So that's not gonna happen!
In any case, insulting people is not pretty.
Greg;
Chelsea's entire act is built on "cattiness". She can take it. Why can't you?
@Gregory
You're kidding right?
Chelsea's schtick is insulting people.
Love all those ANGRY, ANGRY capitalized words.
Looks like someone is having a Hissy FIT.
I said the woman was funnier than
Leno, and the Jersey reference
is all about "The Mall" experience,
including big hair, and pretzel shops,
so butch up Mr. Sssssensitive.
As a 41 year old married guy raised on generous helpings of Dave Letterman, I have to say that I really enjoy Ms. Handler's show. It has a freedom and irreverence that is mostly missing from the network's late night shows. Though Jimmy Kimmel can sometimes cut loose and Dave still has his occasional night of brilliance, there is a degree of sameness to all of these programs. Chelsea Lately is a nice antidote.
Im not an avid watcher of her show but I must say, when I do catch it, I have never been disappointed.
Caryn,
Why disparage Aubrey O'Day for posing in Playboy "to raise her self-esteem?" Some people buy books or pay therapists to help them do that - I admire Aubrey's business model.
Because it's ironic. Objectifying one's self to raise self esteem is like going on Sharon Osborn's charm school reality show to prove to yourself you're a lady.
Don't be so snooty! If "one's self" is a beautiful object, one has every right to be feel good about that, and monetize that happy circumstance if desired.
Besides, what have you got against Sharon Osbourne? She's an über-babe.
CHEW-AAAY!
If she's 34, then -- as they say at the Kentucky Derby -- she's been ridden hard and put up wet.
chelsea killed last night on leno. she takes no prisoners, and that is the attraction of her act.
i especially enjoyed her share and tell about the weekly practical jokes she pulls on ted. however, watching the video of one of her latest scams with him kinda made me cringe - he didn't look pleased at all to have been taken in. i do wonder how long the relationship will last before the one getting punked has had enough.
that said, good article caryn - always a good writer, loved your work at the NYT. and the analogy of a 30s woman to chelsea is brilliant.
p.s. you might have wanted to mention elayne boosler - who was doing similar stuff in the 70s/80s with a more decided pro-woman edge.
The thing that really sets her apart from those men is that she is actually, you know, funny.
John Stewart's whole "show a clip & make a cutesy surprised face" thing combined with his sanctimonious bleating to people like Jim Kramer about the economy make me want to hurl.
Handler is fresh & quick, silly, but spot-on. I even liked her first E! show, "The Chelsea Handler Show."
You must be kidding...she would have NO show if she wasn't hooking up with an E executive...
Looks like I'm in the minority here, but I have a hard time watching her show, so I don't..sometimes I will catch a glimpse when I'm channel surfing). I think that she is one of the ringleaders in this current atmosphere of 'mean-ness' in the media.
To me, she is mostly not funny...she comes off as so mean spirited and nasty. I find it sad that she is gaining in popularity.
Comedy is one thing, but taking the snark and maliciousness to the levels she does is just unnerving to me. Go ahead and call people out for being jerks...but the personal level she takes things to is just low and ignoble.
Also..I was shocked to see that she is only in her young 30's...I thought for sure that she was in her mid to late 40's! Maybe I just don't find her attractive because of her nasty personality...but she definitely looks way too old for her age (and I don't have sour grapes...people thought I was still in high school when I was her age).
This was exactly my impression of her. Her snarky personality is reflected in her face or maybe she spent too much time with baby oil at the beach, either way, she's not terribly appealing.
She's a hoot
and she is 34
she's tells it like it is, calling some of those reality show VH1 dudes assholes cracked me up
I never miss her show
I think she's quite witty. I've always enjoyed her show. If you want snarky, go check out dlisted.com. It makes Chelsea seem congenial.
I always thought it was a Trandler.
I demand a chromosome test.
HughMunn -- someone wants to get in touch with you about a book proposal
Wonderful.
They can reach me at:
atop40225@mypacks.net
If Lance Armstrong has to be tested for steroids, then Chelsea Trandler ought to undergo a chromosome count.
Thank you.
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