We鈥檙e absolutely going to love Greg Gutfeld. Unless it turns out that we hate him, obviously. It鈥檚 unlikely there鈥檚 going to be a middle way. He鈥檚 just one of those people. Likewise, it鈥檚 unlikely we鈥檒l be able to avoid him - as we speak, whole herds of TV producers and booking agents will doubtless be falling over themselves to snap him up as a guest.
We are surely only a matter of weeks away from his first appearance on, for instance, Have I Got News For You, probably on Paul Merton鈥檚 team. Ian Hislop would probably see him as too much of a rival and come over all bristly.
Because Gutfeld is, of course, a magazine editor who thinks he鈥檚 funny. He鈥檚 one of America鈥檚 most notorious journalists, a serial controversialist who made his mark while the editor-in-chief of Stuff, a subversive take on popular culture that he propelled to number two in the men鈥檚 magazine market.
And as of this week, he鈥檚 over here, preparing to occupy the editor鈥檚 chair at Maxim. His mission is to do for Maxim what he did for Stuff in the US.
No easy task, despite all the hype last week from Maxim鈥檚 publisher, Dennis Publishing, about the visionary nature of Gutfeld鈥檚 cutting-edge talents. Bruce Sandell, the publishing director of Maxim UK, comments: 鈥淏ritish magazines are still working to a formula set ten years ago and [are] in a similar state to the US men鈥檚 market before Dennis Publishing re-invigorated the sector with the launch of US Maxim and US Stuff.鈥
Gutfeld himself was unable to talk to 北京赛车pk10 because he was locked away in a conference overseas.
His schtick, in a nutshell, is to take us to places that are odd or strange or dark. The praise lavished on him by the top brass at Dennis is perhaps surprising, given that Gutfeld is only here because his career at Stuff hit a rocky patch - he was bumped sideways, becoming the magazine鈥檚 director of brand development last year, when the management tired of his antics just at the point where circulation growth was beginning to stall.
It鈥檚 eminently possible that he鈥檒l be a big hit here - just as, in the past, we鈥檝e had intense affairs with other sardonic, wisecracking American cultural commentators such as Joe Queenan and PJ O鈥橰ourke. Actually, that makes it sound as if Gutfeld is a cuttingedge satirist, which would be slightly misleading.
He鈥檚 narrower in range and the targets he has pursued with the greatest relish in the past are largely confined to the ranks of Manhattan鈥檚 media set. He鈥檚 far more self-referential too. He comes across as a self-satisfied cleverdick who tells elegantly structured gags in the way that personalities from an earlier and more innocent era (a Bob Hope, say) would tell gags. Here鈥檚 one from his leaving do last week: 鈥淚鈥檓 really gonna miss New York. The stench of urine, the garbage thrown about, the rats. But enough about my waterbed.鈥
OK, maybe Bob Hope was a poor analogy. But Gutfeld is never
quite as dark as he thinks he is, or would like to be. Nor is it clear that darkness is what Maxim needs over here.
Pushing 40, Gutfeld still craves attention as an enfant terrible - he was fired from a previous job on
for an article pur
porting to confess a penchant for torturing kittens; and more recently he hired a crack team of dwarves to disrupt a publishing conference. When Felix Dennis relaunches Oz, he will be the man for the job.
Gutfeld is, in truth, not ideally suited to magazine journalism - because he often appears outraged at the way publishers recycle old ideas, formats, looks, even whole articles. At some point along the way, someone has to pluck up the nerve to tell him that, actually, this is one of the fundamental roles of magazine publishing.
A contrived sense of moral outrage was central to his schtick as he sought to stir things up on the Manhattan media scene. He conducted several celebrated vendettas via the good offices of his organ; and a surprising number of patsies fell for his gratuitous provocation hook, line and sinker. Last year, Art Cooper, GQ鈥檚 then editor-inchief, fumed that Gutfeld was 鈥渢he boorish personification of Nietzsche鈥檚 observation that 鈥楾here is nothing more frightening than ig
norance in action鈥欌.
Over here, he鈥檒l be astonished at the stupidity of the opposition. The publishing world in Manhattan still boasts some bright sparks - but men鈥檚 magazines over here have rarely experimented with anything outside of the predictable slapstick. His rival editors won鈥檛 get riled into hissy fits because they probably won鈥檛 know what he鈥檚 on about.
On the other hand, if and when the insults start flying, they are possibly going to be a touch more Anglo-Saxon than he鈥檚 used to. We, it has to be said, can鈥檛 wait.
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