An open letter to Scott Rudin

cc: Anne Thompson, Variety

Dear Mr. Rudin,

you don't know me, and I don't know you, but if I read Anne Thompson's latest Thompson on Hollywood report in Variety correctly, you and I have a common enemy.

(Caution: "salty" language, and surmises and schemes that could be considered paranoid, follow)

Let me begin at the beginning. A couple of days ago, I was trolling around the internets and I came upon—via Americablog, a political website—Out magazine's ranking of the 50 Most Powerful Gays in America.

The founder and proprieter of Americablog, John Aravois, was number 19, one behind you, Scott Rudin. At number 17, one ahead of you, was blog gossiper Perez Hilton.

"Holy shit," I said to my wife from my desktop. "They ranked fucking Perez Hilton ahead of Scott Rudin on their 50 Most Powerful Gays in America list? Whoa, Scott Rudin's not gonna be happy with that. Also, that's complete bullshit. Could Perez Hilton have gotten The Queen made? I mean, yeah, he could have, if you take certain words in the previous sentence out of italics. But you get my drift..."

My wife commiserated. But ultimately, it wasn't my, or her, problem. You, Scott, (we figured) are a big boy and able to take care of yourself.

Powerful Gay

But then today Anne Thompson's less-than-sanguine analysis of the closing of the print version of Premiere and the challenges facing the Premiere website appears in Variety. And Anne, bless her soul, enumerates all the entities Premiere the website must compete with. "Rotten Tomatoes.." she begins, and goes on and on and on, and then goes on further, "not to mention bloggers such as Perezhilton [sic]..."

I read that and I stopped dead and I thought, "What the fuck? Now, aside from all my other problems, I gotta worry about competing with Perezhilton, or Perez Hilton, or however the fuck he spells his name?"

[N.B.: when we said "'salty' language' we weren't kidding...and now for the paranoid part]

I further thought, "I haven't looked at that dipshit's website since I stopped visiting Pink Is The New Blog, after an intervention! I'm prepping a Q&A with Alain Resnais for the Premiere site in a couple of weeks...but now I've gotta think about PerezfuckingHILTON, and what its readers might think of what I do? What do you want from me, God?!?!?"

Less Powerful Crazy Person

And that's when I thought of you, Scott Rudin.

I know you're more powerful than Perez Hilton. I mean, I've kept myself pretty clean as a critic the past almost ten years or so, but I still hear things, and I'm impressed. Appalled, but impressed. Which means, among other things, that I know that you know that you're more powerful than Perez Hilton.

Never mind his damn presidential campaign poster.

Mr. Rudin, you and I have mutual friends (you know who they are). We can crush our enemies like the bugs they don't know that they are. I mean it. Gimme a call.

Yr new pal,

Glenn

Comments

[Aaron Aradillas]

I was going to ask your opinion of the Thompson story, but I guess, to quote Elliott from Hannah and Her Sisters, "I have my answer."

[barkbark]

AWESOME! Anne T can kiss (ick) your ass.

[Filmbrain]

I can't wait for Perez Hilton's piece on Resnais. It's going to fucking rock!

[Anne Thompson]

cher glenn,
vous avez raison. perez hilton et glennkenny@premiere.com, ce n'est pas la meme chose. pas de tout. I was amazed that perezhilton--a blog I too rarely see--gets more monthly unique visitors than ew.com!!!

votre cher amie, ANNE

[G.Kenny]

O, je comprends, et bien sur. C'est le nature de la monde dans nous vivrons. Pour tout ca—Perez isn't gonna kill me sans un combat. Et vous should feel the same way.

[David C]

Anne Thompson must be full of it, because she dosen't write "fuck" as often as you do. A sure sign of a true hipster.

[Sasha Stone]

That's a hilarious rant. I too have to prevent myself from checking the evil Perez (I truly believe he is bad for our society at large) but pink is the new blog is the best! I love that Trent because he at least is a human being. I have some more hideously addicting gossip sites for you: OH KNOW THEY DIDN'T and POP SUGAR. Ugh.

Finally, Perez *is* a powerful gay for one reason and one reason only: he is making his mission to "out" gay people. He corners them, forces them out of the closet - and people fear him. I guess that makes him powerful?

I happened into Coffee Bean on Sunset one morning, which is where PH does his blogging and there he was, little guy with pink hair sitting in the corner. And I thought, wow, so that's the evil empire right there. Bizarre, this American life. BIZARRE.

I have been an internet person going on almost ten years. I used to love it. Lately it's becoming so ugly I don't know if I can stand it anymore. For the first time I can imagine life without it.