Lewinsky shares her pain with HBO and an audience By ANN HODGES Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle TV Critic Monica Lewinsky stars in her own one-woman show Sunday. It's HBO's America Undercover. Go ahead and snicker. Whatever she gets for this, she asked for. Monica Lewinsky answers questions posed by members of a studio audience in Monica in Black and White. She asked HBO to do it, and HBO, of course, took that ratings bait like the cynical TV shark it is. After what's happened in this country since Monica and Bill, their messy affair looks even more tawdry. And, no, she still hasn't a clue what it did to this country. If you're expecting an apology here, forget it. This is not Monica-grows-up time. Lewinsky paints herself the victim, and the picture this program paints of former President Bill Clinton is not at all pretty. He's the villain, with Lewinsky's one-time pal Linda Tripp as the wicked witch. Chronological "headlines" raise questions about how that affair affected presidential affairs of state, foreign and domestic, as the media's Monica-mania ran epidemic. According to her, both the media and the man "done her wrong." Monica in Black and White is edited from 10 hours of Q&A's taped in three sessions in front of audiences of New York college students. That part, in black and white, is studded with news clips in full color, media in full frenzy, and the aforementioned headlines. The producers are Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who did HBO's The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Bakker) among other things. It's obvious why they, and HBO, did this: Sex sells. The question is, why did Lewinsky do it? Well, here's her answer: "I'm finally free to speak. Under the immunity agreement (time's up on that) I was not allowed to talk about Ken Starr and what I thought of Ken Starr. People's conceptions were so inaccurate. I felt like there was no better way to clear up misconceptions than to answer their questions." In the end, some of the people out front appear skeptical, but most seem to feel her pain. When two men speak up to inflict pain, several deluded women rush to her defense. Lewinsky, now 28, sits on the edge of the stage. Several times, she cries and leaves to compose herself. She never really says what she thought of Starr, but she complains it was "violating and embarrassing" when the Starr Report went on the Internet "for all the world to read." And she talks a lot about the day the FBI picked her up for questioning. They took her for dinner in a mall, and she slipped away to a phone to call Clinton's secretary. "That was so stupid!" she says. "All I could think of was, the president was giving a deposition (in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case) tomorrow, and they were setting a perjury trap for him. I thought, `He has to know.' " There are clips of Clinton's deposition, his "I did not have sexual relations" finger-waver and his "I have sinned" prayer breakfast. "I was willing to risk all for my love of the president, which was so (bleeping) stupid!" she exclaims. Ah, yes, the dress. Why did she keep it? "The same way people will cherish the sweaty T-shirt from a rock star," she says. In Lewinsky sightings from that high-profile time, she's smiling (her lawyer's orders, she says) and happily making the most of her celebrity perks: book deal, Barbara Walters interview and Vanity Fair glamour-girl photo treatment, one even wrapped in the flag. So has her celebrity been worth it? "I'd give anything to have my anonymity back," she declares. "I'm struggling and trying to balance what it's really like to love your anonymity, and to move on, I guess. And here I am sitting in front of cameras doing a show." Exactly. Somebody please tell her just to get a life.
You know, everyone bags on Monica, but I think she's smart. You go out and give any other guy oral pleasures, and it gets you nowhere. You hit up the pres. and lo and behold, THERE'S A FUTURE IN IT!!!!
Please for the love of God and all that is holy and sancred in this world...... tell me you are kidding!
From the article keeley posted: It gets better, folks, if "better” is the word. Fox officials confirmed Wednesday that both Darva Conger and Paula Jones have also expressed interest in participating in a possible future edition of "Celebrity Boxing,” while the network also has plans to approach Joey Buttafuoco. Worst...show...ever. Oh wait, I remember talk shows hosted by Chevy Chase and Magic Johnson that put this idea to shame. By the way, Old School, I love the thread title. You rock.
Monica was on Larry King last night,but I didn't stop to hear what she had to say. So who do you guys think will win ? I would guess tanya because she is a mean b****...but amy has the prison experience hmmm
More for the LA TIMES...check out the highlighted paragraph near the end. The Media Wink, So These Two Don't Go Away By HOWARD ROSENBERG Just as Lewinsky returned to TV via her scheduled chat with CNN's Larry King on Thursday night, in advance of Sunday's HBO documentary "Monica in Black and White." You know how it is in this business. Her people talked to HBO's people, and voil¿br> Lewinsky is shamelessly profiting from her co-starring role in what became a national calamity. But so is HBO for agreeing to present this one-hour-and-40-minute video memoir, a project she proposed, and for which she has been paid an undisclosed sum. "I would do anything to have my anonymity back," she insists here while acknowledging the incongruity of that with seeking the camera. She can't have it both ways. Here's how this works: HBO's agenda here is to induce viewers to watch this shoddy number. To that end, it benefits from Lewinsky's notoriety in exchange for a fee and exposure that she hopes will improve her image and surely also draw attention to her line of handbags—just as her appearance with ABC's Barbara Walters several years ago was timed to publicize her book, "Monica's Story." In other words, everyone here has a vested interest. That includes the now-entrepreneurial Lewinsky, who owes her celebrity—and everything flowing from it—entirely to getting chummy in the Oval Office with philandering Bill Clinton in an episode that disgraced him, contributed to his impeachment and wounded the U.S. He's at least as culpable, but she's the one with a documentary. Much of it is a tawdry rehash of the controversy surrounding those sexual liaisons that Lewinsky had as a government intern in her mid-20s, and the near constitutional crisis that ensued. This encore also includes excerpts of those reliably titillating Lewinsky-Linda Tripp dialogues, along with bits of Clinton's 1998 deposition before Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. In new footage, Lewinsky also criticizes her treatment by Starr's office. Taped during a three-day period last spring, her interview portions consist mostly of her answering questions from college students and others at New York City's Cooper Union University. And the affectionate reception she gets—loud applause, someone shouting out "We're on your side, Monica," and even laughter when she talks about helping Clinton cheat on his wife—is as much a comment on those in the audience as on her. Did they check their values at the door? Just what did Lewinsky do to earn their admiration and become their heroine? She gets one of her biggest laughs as she recalls telling Clinton "I have a crush on you" when first meeting him in 1995, and him then inviting her into "the back office." The presentation by filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato is in artsy black and white, and staged with 27-year-old Lewinsky sitting on the edge of a stage while pouring out her story (seemingly wanting to blame everyone but herself for her former predicament), with manipulative mood music edited in for dramatic effect. Yes, let's make Monica a tear-jerky melodrama. As she did with Walters, she breaks down and weeps several times, and at one point leaves the stage to regain her composure, returning seven minutes later to more applause. If Lewinsky is contrite, she doesn't show it. "I do have remorse," she says at one point, but adds that her "stronger affinity" is for her family and friends, not for Clinton's wife, Hillary, now a U.S. senator from New York, and the couple's daughter, Chelsea. "I'm not going to take equal responsibility for his family," Lewinsky says. "They made their own choices as well." Choices? Which ones does she have in mind? Similarly, Lewinsky rejects being known as "the home-wrecker who came to Washington with an agenda," suggesting that she is the true injured party, and that if not for a previous fling with a married teacher she says exploited her, she would not have been "comfortable" being intimate with Clinton. There are two exceptions to the adoring crowd. Lewinsky appears taken aback when a man asks how it feels to be America's oral sex "queen." Another says: "You made this more about you and your pain and not about your agency in having all this happen. You are not an unwitting, silent, passive person who got caught up in something much larger than you were." A woman defends her, telling her no one "should judge you." After pausing, Lewinsky gives her own response, telling her accuser, "I'm just fuming." Yes, sure, all the way to the bank. "Monica in Black and White" premieres Sunday night at 10 on HBO. The network has rated it TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17).
My money's on Amy for sure. I mean, she SHOT someone point blank. Tonya had to hire a goon to slap Nancy with a pipe -- that's nothing!
I thought it was pretty interesting. One thing's for sure...Linda Tripp is a ****ing b**** who deserves to die alone.
I didn't say you said she deserved to die, I just pointed out that she may be dying and that you may get your wish.... such as it is.
I'm sure they will. Of course, she probably didn't betray their trust and tape intimate phone conversations either.
Saw it last night. The exchange with this guy was the best part of the whole thing. He said the whole thing seemed like a 1-sided "fluff piece" (duh), and she thought she was very clever asking why he came then. He let her know that he was hoping there would be an honest discussion of the issues, and then launched into the whole monologue excerpted above. Really, for the most part Monica came off sounding like a conceited, weepy dumbass, and the audience coddled her for the entire show.
