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HOLLYWOOD, INTERRUPTED: Insanity Chic in Babylon � The Case Against Celebrity

By Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 394 pages (ISBN: 0471706248)

HOLLYWOOD, Interrupted is just the book for entertainment junkies who are regular readers of E!, Hello!, Ok! and a whole load of other punctuated titles. Its authors are veterans in the E-business, with just the contacts and grit to dig up the dirt on those who orbit the celebrity kingdom, weathering possible lawsuits and threats from insulted media darlings and Hollywood's pure gold babes.

The book begins with the premise that Hollywood has become the Sodom and Gomorrah of the 21st century, with its spoilt A-, B- and even C-list stars; snake-oil salesmen (e.g. those who try to leech the stars of their millions by setting up billion-dollar alternative retreats, New Age religious centres, and selling glamour pills and body jobs, to name a few); power-lusting and money-hungry top executives; media mafias, and wannabe hangers-on who usually appear uninvited at parties as props, sex service providers or boot-lickers.

According to Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner, everyone and anyone who gravitate towards the golden land wants a share of the pie, even if it's just a mite. While the book begins as a fun read, one cannot but suspect their intentions.

The style is gossipy and often, the content turns into an incessant rant against a system built round a bunch of selfish and self-absorbed people who think that everyone should pay attention to what they have to say, while their private lives, which become fodder for more ranting, leave much to be desired.

It seems that the further you get into the book, the harder it gets to decide where the personal neurosis of the subjects ends and where that of the authors begin. While you might find out as much about the celebrities and their highly irregular ways, you are also forced to wade through pages of personal politics as Breitbart and Ebner ram that down the reader's throat even as they diss their subjects.

An example would be how they keep referring to Tom Cruise as "heterosexual Tom Cruise" in almost every other sentence (a reference to some questions regarding his sexuality during his divorce from Nicole Kidman). It becomes tiring after awhile. Another is their rather one-sided portrayal of left-wing celebrities.

It seems that while the authors are happy to metaphorically lynch their celebrities and leave them open to hostile scrutiny, they are willing to soften their hard-line approach when dealing with Republican-friendly stars. While their qualification that most so-called left-wing supporters are hypocrites is not far wrong, their handling of the chapters on this (The Left Wing) leaves much to be desired and basically exposes their political gripes.

But there are many interesting chapters less marred by personal vendetta. The first of the seven parts of this book discusses the family values of Hollywood folk, and is an interesting exploration of the conflict between traditional values and those controlled by entertainment-based capitalism. The authors then interview people who worked for these VIPs to get the intimate details.

They also explore the education system which the Hollywood progenies are subjected to, and discover many flaws in a system that creates a group of socially inept, neurotic and demon-haunted individuals, as well as some of the more questionable practices that seem to border on nonsense and perversion.

All that, despite parents having to pay thousands of dollars for their kids' schooling. There is an entire chapter dedicated to discourse on the sexual peccadilloes of some famous names, as well as the case of Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss. The most disturbing chapter is that which details how those attached to the rich and famous can get away even with the most cold-blooded crimes.

The second part of the book talks about the underworld of drug abuse, illegal prescriptions from thousand-dollars-an-hour quake doctors, and molly-coddled celebrities in rehab centres which specially cater to them. In other words, they have the same problems as everyday Janes and Joes, but they have an easier time overcoming them, especially with the people around who are willing to make their troubles go away - in return for favours and money.

With a few caveats, the book is still a worthy read if you are really interested in the activities of those who pander to the public view, and their social impact on the world at large.