Reality Programming For Magazines

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June 1, 2001 by Dale Buss

Consumer titles are engineering celebrity challenges--Gwyneth Paltrow stranded on a desert island for three days or Julia Roberts on a blind date--as an alternative to standard starlet fare.

Call it the print version of reality TV--or just the next lurch down a slope that has already been made plenty slippery by magazines' seemingly insatiable appetite for all things celebrity. In the intensely competitive race to slap famous faces on their covers, consumer magazines are raising the bar on star coverage by staging "Survivor"-like events that seek to pique the interest of celebrities and readers alike.

That's why, instead of simply interviewing Jenna Elfman about her role on "Dharma & Greg," Marie Claire sent her on a real gig with actual firefighters. And Seventeen didn't just publish your run-of-the-mill Q&A with Mandy Moore, star of the television show "Mandy." The magazine set her up on a blind date.

"We're just trying to be innovative and do something that's original," says Glenda Bailey, editor in chief of Marie Claire. "Personally, I can't bear a celebrity doing exactly the same interview and giving exactly the same quote in every single magazine for a movie that's about to come out. We're trying to give our readers something interesting and unique to talk about."

Thus, Marie Claire helped kick off this new editorial genre a few years ago by sending actress Gwyneth Paltrow into isolation on a desert island for three days and nights, "[prepared only by] a training course in her backyard for five hours," as Bailey puts it. "She was instructed in basic survival techniques and given a rope and a knife ... and a camera." A rescue boat waited patiently offshore. The magazine featured Paltrow's "journal" and photos in a big spread.

Since then, Marie Claire has also arranged and written about a blind date between a real bookstore owner and actress Julia Roberts, reminiscent of the plot of the movie "Notting Hill." Last December, it dropped the three stars of the movie "Charlie's Angels"--Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore--at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, without tents, water, food or cell phones. The magazine then sent them on what amounted to a testy obstacle course that involved climbing mountains, moving through "stagnant" water and spelunking through caves. Each actress wrote about the experience for the magazine.

Seventeen set up Moore's tete-a-tete after the publication learned that she had not had time for a date in more than a year. The magazine also arranged to have actress Kirsten Dunst fulfill her fantasy and play one-on-one hoops against Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant.

"More demands are put on these stars than ever before," says Patti Adcroft, Seventeen's editor in chief. "And publicists are very concerned about their stars being overexposed. So we distinguish ourselves from the pack by making sure the celebrity isn't just a prop, that there's always a story. And the celebrities get into it, too, because they don't want to be used just as a prop, either."

At a time when the American public is seemingly fascinated with reality programming--and celebrity "wranglers" who specialize in obtaining talent for magazine spotlighting are looking for any twist that will get the famous to commit to their magazines over a competitor's--these "celebrity challenges" are proving irresistible. It's a means of breaking through the secret-service grip that most Hollywood publicists keep on their clients.

It doesn't necessarily translate to free access, however, and there are limits. We're talking about multimillion dollar personas here, so the celebrities, their agents and the magazines can't afford to take too many chances. Still, mishaps happen. Last fall, for example, Marie Claire plopped Brooke Shields into an igloo in the middle of Alaska and asked her to produce Thanksgiving dinner for seven people. "Her gas stove blew up, so we're very lucky that she's such a great sport," says Bailey.

Some editors, however, are less smitten with the idea of staging celebrity challenges. "Publicists will ask for anything that can possibly be asked for: writer approval, text approval, photographer approval, using a writer they have worked with before, guaranteeing that you won't mention their rehabilitation or secret girlfriend or secret boyfriend," says Mark Harris, assistant managing editor of Entertainment Weekly. And for Harris, photo shoots with celebrities prove "challenging" enough. "I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out what it takes to get Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini all together on a cover and make them all happy," he says.