My cousin has gotten me into Chelsea Handler, whose entertaining gossipfest airs nightly on the E! Network. She's sort of like a blonde Parker Posey. I wasn't sure at first, 'cause it struck me as more shrill, brittle, bitchy celebrity gossip, a la Perez Hilton, and don't we have enough of that already? But unless I'm mistaken, I think Chelsea and her co-commentators are a cut above. I think it's because even though it's still shallow celebrity gossip, it somehow avoids being as mean-spirited and juvenile as Hilton and others of his ilk. It's a little more mature and sophisticated, and even though they ARE being bitchy and dishy and dissecting the minutiae of famous peoples' lives (a parasitic occupation if ever there was one), you sense that beneath the shallowness they're really just having a good time and not taking any of it too seriously. Or maybe I'm deluding myself, and there's really not much difference, in which case I'll just have to add "Chelsea Lately" to my ever-present list of guilty pleasures.
