Well, to be fair, if Britney had just tried to commit suicide once and wasn't driving around all night every night and losing custody of her kids and being confined to a mental hospital more than once...

She may not have so many covers. It's hard to compare her treatment to that of Owen Wilson who had one incident, although quite severe.

I want someone named Ken Sunshine to be my agent. Just because when Sunshine calls you, it MUST be good news!

Sorry, back to the real topic...

For the first time in 10 years, I didn't renew my subscription to People because I was so offended at their Britney covers.

Why do we mock women for their trainwreck lives and laud men for their talent while shrugging off their indiscretions?

Because no one ever came up with a female equivalent for "Boys will be boys."

I don't want to read any of this shit, regardless of who they put on the cover.

I used to subscribe to US magazine because I enjoyed the 20 minute escape it gave me. But I didn't renew when it recently expired because I started to feel guilty about feeding the paparazzi frenzy. I admit it's hard to look away from all the covers in the grocery store but at some point you gotta decide not to participate in the feeding frenzy.

Two points here: Heath actually died, Amy did not; Britney is photographed by paps constantly, while Owen is not. The coverage imbalance is reasonable, though the overall AMOUNT of coverage is not.

I'm happy read about anyone's misfortune, my schadenfreude is non-gender specific.

Some of the blame lies with the stars like Britney who seek out the attention and actually call the paparazzi to come take their picture.
If male celebrities started getting out of cars giving us crotch shots, you better believe I'd start buying tabloids.

@JessicaLovejoy: How about Samantha Jones from SATC? True she IS a fictional character...but I have not met anyone that says a single bad thing about her.

I was just raging about the exploitation of women by gossip rags at the grocery store this weekend after seeing that US Weakly cover shot of Michelle.

I guess it's just me, Ms. Min, but that type of exploitation turns me off and ensures that I will NEVER purchase any of these publications - especially yours.

Sensationalism sells. Look at evening news. Look at Fox News. Or CNN. I think it's a general trend of ordinary people wanting to see other people suffering so they can feel better about themselves -- "Hey look, it doesn't just happen to me!".

@SarahMC: That's why I flip through it while I'm in line then put it back. But then I always feel guilty like I'm stealing or something. Just not guilty enough to actually pay for it.

I really, really hate to sound like I'm defending Janice Min and her ilk here -- because I really do not mean to be -- but Heath Ledger had just died from a drug overdose; Amy Winehouse is alive (at least at press time). And Britney Spears is significantly more famous than Owen Wilson ... although the argument also could be made that her fame, at least of late, is very much related to her ubiquity in tabloids. I completely agree with the sentiment here; it's just that these examples don't strike me as parallel.

Well, not to mention Heath Ledger was DEAD and the video that was released was from 3 years ago and was taken by someone spying into the window of the apartment he was in. It was completely irrelevant. He wasn't driving around LA in his underwear and going to Rite Aid to show the paps he was purchasing a pregnancy test. While I agree the gossip mags have taken it way too far, sometimes it just seems like Britney, LiLo, etc. aren't doing much to avoid the attention, mental illness or not.

@Political Party Girl: Ha ha, I'm the same way! The BF needles me, "C'mon, just put it in the cart," and I refuse. I'll read that shit, but I won't pay for it.

I remember when I saw No Country my friends and I were taken aback that there was literally not one single female role. Not one. And I mean, that's cool I guess, whatever - it just made for a bit of a weird movie.

@JessicaLovejoy: Sure they did - "The girls have gone wild!"

@NefariousNewt: yes. seeing others suffer gives us some sort of gratification. Its sick but true.

Because that's what we've always done. What?

I agree with this to an extent, but it's also true that Heath Ledger had his fair share of sensationalist covers (I can't remember which, but one put the fact that he was a doting father in ironic-seeming quotation marks) and that nominated right alongside "No Country for Old Men" is "Juno," which is one of the strongest women-centric films I have ever seen. So....

@jenndavo: Exactly! Grocery stores, the doctor's office, hair salons... that's where I do my crappy magazine reading.

I cannot read these magazines or even watch more than a few minutes of Extra without rolling my eyes and clucking like an old lady. If I go longer, I start to feel nauseous. It just makes me feel really, really perverted, and not at all in the good way that I like. I think I'm getting old.

@BritneyCanadaWhore: Well, No Country had the wives of Tommy Lee Jones' and Josh Brolin's characters, and the mother-in-law of Brolin's ... I was more struck by the almost total absence of women in There Will Be Blood. In fact, about an hour into it, I was thinking, "Okay, I'm watching a movie ABOUT OIL ... and there are like .4 women in it ... and I'm wildly entertained by it. What in fuck is happening?"

If anything I was happy that No Country toned down the interminable male-romantic caterwauling of the novel.

@BritneyCanadaWhore: firt of all, maker's mark...yum.

and while not main roles, what about tommy lee jones' or josh brolin's wife?

@Political Party Girl: The gym is the best place for crappy magazine reading. All the latest issues for free and you can read the whole thing. I'll usually grab a Newsweek too, but I doubt I'm fooling anyone.

amy winehouse didnt die from her crack smoking.

second. i love thoes magazines. i read them all the time except i refuse to buy one if it has a cover like 'celeb celulite shocker' anything that picks apart people and thier bodies i wont buy. cause thats whats making half of the girls in the country have an eating disorder.

look at nicole richie. she totally got all skinny and scary looking becuase the media would always compare her to paris and how stick like she was.

@Her_royal_Highness: Yes, but it's because she's fictional. Who cares what a fictional character does? We can accept her, because she's not really threatening, because she doesn't exist. Real women who act like Samantha Jones are vilified. Look at all the bad coverage Lilo got when she was seen getting it on with multiple men in a short span of time.

@BritneyCanadaWhore: Yes there was. Kelly Macdonald's character, Josh Brolin's girlfriend. Not a huge player in the plot and not a particularly strong character, but she was there. But I do get your point about it being an overwhelmingly male movie and that making for a strange viewing experience - I mostly bring this up because I LURVE Kelly Macdonald and I want her to get her due.

@BritneyCanadaWhore: What about Josh Brolin's wife in the movie?

Don't blame the Coens....blame Cormac McCarthy,who wrote the book that the movie is based on.

That picture of Michelle and every picture taken by a stalkerazzi that they probably caught because they were skulking in that persons bushes, peeping through their windows,practically on top of the celeb and their child, etc etc...make me hate myself, simply for looking. There is a difference between that poor woman or a child being stampeded by paps following his/her parents and a sympathetic-but-mostly-repulsive camera whore like Britney.

I read that article yesterday (from the NYT)...nothing enlightening or honest in the mealy-mouthed shit excuses offered.

Britney vs, Owen, NO COMPARISON. You cannot even TELL me that Britney's ongoing antics don't warrant more attention than Owen Wilson's single suicide attempt. The day Owen is beating a pap's SUV with a a golf umbrella, switching bikinis with strippers, and telling reporters to "Suck it snort it lick it fuck it," then call me, we can talk about it.

Neither is acceptable, neither is good, but sexism is more OK than racism. The former has eons of tradition, and the latter is no longer seen as acceptable. Human history has had few (yet shiny and fascinating, occasionally fabulous) examples of females in charge - or even partially in charge - and not getting shit heaped on them OR killed. And for whatever stupid reason, because we have to cut down the tallest blade of our own girlgrass, we have to probe every little movement in some sister's downfall.
Ain't right: don't hate the player, hate the game.

@AthertonMerriweather: LOL...love the male crotch shot suggestion! They're always so damn proud of their little packages.

@ruth_less: @virginiawoolf: @marie123: @MsDirector: My bad dudes, I was totally talking about There Will Be Blood and put No Country by mistake. All Blood had was the momentary appearance of some female family members, who didn't have speaking parts.

Actually, Britney was intially genius with her manipulation of the media to give herself lots of press. Her mistake was taking it to the extreme, now we are tired of it, and have turned the channel. I expect the next time I will really see her again is when she signs up for the next "Surreal Life", or some other really bad reality show(on VH1 or Oxygen) with the likes of Gary Coleman, Chyna, or the epitome of a fool, FLAVOR FLAV!!

@marie123: I've only read two Cormac McCarthy books, and both of them lacked any strong female characters. Maybe he has some women in his other books...I don't know. It really turned me off to reading him. Though I still do like The Road a lot.

Also, you know who I blame for this shit, right?

@BritneyCanadaWhore: Yeah - women are just accessories to the men in a good number of movies. But women are still interested in stories about men (while men aren't interested in women's stories).

@BritneyCanadaWhore: RIGHT, I know...it's like, there was just Mary, and she maybe said a SENTENCE in the entire movie.

God, that movie disturbed the shit out of me.

@AthertonMerriweather: Seriously! Who is going to be the "ballsy" one to start that trend?
Come on Brad, nothing says "giving back" like a gratuitous man crotch shot.

@BritneyCanadaWhore: Well, you know women, always nattering on. Taking valuable screen time away from men screaming about milkshakes and such.

i defently dont believe everything i see or read in thoes magazines either. like the cover with scarlette jo-however you spell her name, where they are trying to figure out if she got sergery on her face. You can tell that she didnt, and that she just got a better make-up person.

@ruth_less: Ha ha!!!

Heath died, Amy didn't -- so what? I'm sure Heath had his own Amy Winehouse-esque benders before the actual overdose that no one knew about because the paps kept their distance from him. As for Britney v. Owen, I have to admit it's hard to pull a comparison there. I'll say this: When Owen tried to kill himself, at least there weren't HELICOPTERS involved.

I find the whole "women want to read about other women's troubles" argument WEEEEEEAK. How do they know this? Did they poll women to find this out?

And I'm sorry, but I don't consider going to Rite Aid to buy a pregnancy test an obvious ploy for attention. If you call the paps beforehand to tell them where to find you? Yes. If they're just hanging out or following you as you go about your bidness? No. Famous people can't go to drug stores? They have to pay someone else to do it for them? That's fucked up.

@rocknrollunicorn: I know I'm getting old, because this weekend as I walked through my neighborhood, which is seemingly swimming in idiotic undergrads these days, I actually uttered the phrase "Youth is wasted on the young."

@TruculentandUnreliable: I was on edge the entire time, I think because of the soundtrack. It'd be all clickety-clickety-clickety-click-click-clickety-clickety-click-REHREHREH and he'd be like, walking calmly across a field and nothing would happen. I just didn't know how to feel.

Everyone has been pretty quiet on Kristen Dunst's and Eva Mendaz's rehabs.

@ruth_less: hahaha. at that point in the movie i was thinking to myself, "what the fuck am i watching and where did this movie go?"