Golden age of fakery

by Nathan Rabin
January 27th, 1999

Recently, Hollywood has been rocked by several scandals that have threatened to disrupt the public’s image of the entertainment industry as a bastion of integrity. With that in mind, The Onion A.V Club presents this guide to a group of charlatans whose actions could permanently tarnish Hollywood’s good name

Riley Weston

The Players : Felicity staff writer Riley Weston and Brad Sexton, Weston's ex-husband and manager.

The Hype: A year ago, Weston was hailed as a 19-year-old prodigy who possessed an ear for the way young people talk and a finger on the pulse of her generation. Before leaving Felicity, she was flooded with offers, including a lucrative deal to develop and write youth-oriented TV shows.

The Big Lie: Weston was, in fact, an embittered 32-year-old actress whose biggest pre-Felicity role was as a flighty high-school girl in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit.

Tentative Outcome: Weston's career has stalled, perhaps permanently. The development offer has been rescinded, and Weston is currently seeking employment.

Frat House

The Players : Frat House directors Andrew Gurland and Todd Phillips.

The Hype: Frat House, a documentary about hazing on college campuses, won the Grand Jury Award at 1998's Sundance Film Festival. Gurland and Phillips were deluged with offers and praise, and they sold the film's rights to HBO.

The Big Lie: In light of recent allegations that Gurland and Phillips faked much of Frat House—among other things, allegedly recruiting vetran frat brothers to "play" freshmen—HBO has refused to air the film.

Tentative Outcome: HBO won't air Frat House, but won't give it back to the filmmakers to self-distribute. Gurland and Phillips' credibility as documentarians has been immeasurably damaged.

She's All That

The Players : She's All That director Robert Iscove and screenwriter Lee Fleming.

The Hype: She's All That has been hailed by its publicists as a "hilarious new comedy about sex, style and popularity along the lines of Clueless, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles."

The Big Lie: While you'd never know it from its ad campaign, She's All That is not a cinema-verite-style documentary about the mating rituals of young people, but a film in which actors recite lines from a script while an off-screen director controls their "performances." The songs that play throughout the film were allegedly placed there by a "soundtrack coordinator" whose job is to assemble profitable soundtracks.

Tentative Outcome: In spite of the rumors and controversy surrounding the film, Miramax still intends to release She's All That to theaters. Iscove and Fleming have defended their film as "a work of pure fiction," going so far as to point out that She's All That derives much of its plot from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.