How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior

by Laura Kipnis

Book Overview

Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche: what we condone, what we punish, where we draw the line, and why. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases: a lovelorn astronaut, an unhinged judge, a venomous whistleblower, and an overimaginative memoirist.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805089799
• ISBN13: 9780805089790
• Release Date: August 2010
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books
• Length: 209 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant critique of the media and the self-help movement

"How to Become a Scandal" by Lauda Kiplis is a highly original study of America's complex relationship with scandal. Discussing four well-known episodes from recent history, Ms. Kiplis deconstructs the events from the perspective of a highly educated person who is well-versed in the social sciences, psychology and of course, ethics and good humor. Providing valuable insights on nearly every page, Ms. Kiplis' entertaining and thought-provoking book is sure to please an educated audience. Not unlike Zygmunt Bauman's analysis of postmodernism in The Art of Life, the four events presented by Ms. Kiplis expounds upon our dual roles as both consumers and producers. Ms. Kiplis illuminates a process where public displays of humiliation are consumed by audiences who are anxious about which behaviors might be culturally-acceptable; even as social roles are continuously produced in an era characterized by continuous change and uncertainty. While all four case studies have much to offer, I found the final case study to be the most interesting. Here, Ms. Kiplis brilliantly critiques the self-help movement, as personified and championed by Oprah Winfrey, for its self-serving production of insecurity as a means to exploit audiences for profit. On that point, Ms. Kiplis accords special recognition to the writer James Frey for his unabashed manipulation of his memoirs to advance his own career, finding a deliciously ironic kind of reality at work in Frey's penchant for dishonesty. I highly recommend this exceptional book to everyone.

charming book for sensible people

I wasn't sure how I would like this book but I must confess that I loved it and could hardly put it down once I started. It's not long and is a great casual read. I must admit that I don't follow gossip and scandals and really don't care for that type of news but reflecting on these super, crazy scandals is fun and the author keeps it entertaining throughout. I loved this book enough to pass it on to someone else but not just anyone. This books will go to someone I know will actually read it as opposed to leaving it by the bed or on the table and forgetting about it.

Probably should be required reading Hollywood, DC and New York

This is a well written overview of the "Fame Monster" mentality is so pervasive now. While scandal has always sold, in the last 15 years or so, the public seems to relish in horrid/lurid/sad/unfortunate actions, and consider it to be real "news". In reading this excellent book, one can come to the conclusion that some ( if not many ) truly go out of their way to craft a story that will get them the Andy Warhol 15 minutes of FAME, that is all important. ( Andy would have LOVED this book). Many recent (and not so recent) stories are covered, but the Linda Tripp coverage really got me. Constant coverage of what was perceived to be an unattractive person ( they must all do bad things! How DARE you to not be good looking? ) , and later showcased a plastic surgery/designer makeover mocked by the press, and people in general. Anything to be on-camera. The Monica Lewinsky coverage brings up a memory or two, as does the trashy story about the NASA astronaut who went berzerk. The book is telling, and shows a shift in our culture. Just like reality-tv that frequently shows people at their worst, we tend to gravitate to low-brow "issues" to perhaps "remind" ourselves that we are "better" than others. There is a never-ending supply of people who want to share on TV, YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook or whatever to get PR. The book is an easy read, and compelling for all the right reasons. Facinating, and ugly in equal parts. For some, it will be a textbook for getting attention, for others, a cautionary overview of what NOT to do. Without question, I read every page in one sitting, and you will too. Outstanding in every way. One of the most interesting books of the season. Provoctive,and makes you THINK.

Engaging and Wonderfully Well-Written

What a pleasure it was to turn the pages on "How To Become a Scandal." I can't praise Laura Kipnis enough for her funny, smart, flowing, pithy, compassionate, pointed writing! It's all that and more. At first I thought it was going to be one of those books filled with someone's dirty, tawdry laundry, after which I would feel soiled by the proximity. Instead, I felt appreciative, uplifted, wiser. You can't ask much more of a book than that, especially when you add into the description entertaining, and sometimes fascinating. Kipnis has the ability to extract the pithier, more telling facets of an event in someone's life, arrange them together in a coherent shape and offer them to the reader, bringing them one level above their birth into the realm of myth, psychological revelations and sometimes spiritual light. Here's how good a writer she is: one of her writing habits is the 50+ word sentence; there are many of them, yet the reader does not get lost or confused as they travel the lengths of every highlighted noun, each motivated, explicated action and all of the fascinating, revealing adjectives. You are in the hands of an expert driver of words. Each case that Kipnis takes up, sorts, condenses and squeezes under her, may I say, 'literary' microscope, is dealt with in very fair terms. She is not afraid to find empathy and compassion for even the most severe of the transgressors who interest her, say ex-astronaut Lisa Nowak, yet escapes falling into the saccharine over it. Even if you have no further interest in the subject (I was going to skip the Linda Tripp chapter), you are drawn in and discover an entirely different way of looking at that debacle. She knows how to draw conclusions from outside the circle, taking the supposed "ugliness" of Tripp, for example, and raising it to the high art of psychological face-reading, authenticity and feminine preoccupations, then ends up telling us how to be beautiful. This is a sweet little book that will make a solid contribution to your self-awareness and to social mores as they exist today, and in the process give you much to laugh and think about.

Salacious, witty, and insightful

Who doesn't love scandal and yet hate it as well? Who hasn't ever watched a news story on television and cringe for the person involved, and yet...you can't stop watching? Kipnis's book dissects some well-known recent scandals from a double perspective. First, how can reasonably intelligent people do such things without realizing how it might look to others? Second, why do we like to watch these public implosions? Each of the scandals she selects for analysis is almost an archetype of self-destruction, the details often so bizarre that just that demands its own kind of attention, such as the judge creating two alter egos to harass and then threaten an ex-girlfriend. Her eye for the telling details is sharp, her prose witty and yet just the right tone to be able to swing from social commentary to applications of Reik's philosophy without being jarring, or, conversely, too heavy or ponderous. It's a short book, but packed with juicy details, conversational fun, and social insight. I literally read this in one sitting, I was so captivated, and what's more (and my evaluation of a great book rather than merely a good one), I've found myself chewing on her ideas, watching the news in a different way, and wanting to talk about it with my friends.