The title of my blog post this week is a humble attempt to emulate Variety‘s famous “slanguage.”  I am sure anyone who has ever written for Variety is cringing at my efforts, but I mean no disrespect.  I have subscribed to the show business bible for over 20 years, because their coverage of the industry puts all other entertainment magazines to shame. And, I trust their reviews of films. The craft of movie reviewing has deteriorated in our contemporary era partly by the Internet, because everyone and their mother can post their opinions on movies and call them reviews, and partly because the industry uses quotes from critics to market movies. Reviewing for the Internet has helped turned movie criticism into a forum for personal opinion in which we learn more about the reviewer’s tastes than about the film, or a contest to see who can write the most humorous insults about a movie. Posters and ads for films that make use of review quotes  have blurred the line between legitimate reviewing and marketing hyperbole, which is to the detriment of true film criticism.

 I don’t always agree with Varity‘s critics, but I know the writers try hard to be objective by considering the strengths and weaknesses of the film and speculating on whether the target audience was reached and why. The critics seem well versed in film history and aesthetics, and they are solid writers. They focus on revealing pertinent information about the film, which is an approach I appreciate.

 Variety is famous for its slanguage, and part of the appeal of the 104-year-old magazine is the way the writers use Variety jargon in both the weekly and daily editions. The slanguage consists of several tricks or techniques. It exploits plays on words and puns, a tactic that works particularly well with rhymes. This is often done in headlines and opening paragraphs.  Those unfamiliar with show business often find it difficult to decipher what the headlines mean. When Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez costarred together in Monster-in-Law, Variety announced “J.Fo Will Pair with J. Lo.” More recently, a piece about a possible film on the Bernard Madoff financial scandal was titled “Wall St. Blot Ripe for Plot.”  Of course the most well-known example of this technique is the headline “Sticks Nix Hick Pix” from July 17, 1935, which was an article about rural audiences rejecting films about country life. Other lesser-known but equally unique headlines include:

 “Studios Sharpen Santa Claws” (October 13, 1997), which was about the competition surrounding holiday releases.

 “Walmart: Hicks Mix with Pix” (December 2, 2002), an homage to the famous “Sticks Nix” headline. I think this one mayhave been about Walmart’s decision to carry the hottest films on DVDs at reduced prices to bring in the shoppers. Sometimes I can’t figure the headlines out either.

 “Lizards Eat Arnold’s Lunch” (June 21, 1993), when Jurassic Park beat Schwarzeneggar’s The Last Action Hero at the box office.

 “Mad Dow Disease Afflicts Showbiz” (April 6, 1998), which was about the effect of the stock market on show business.

 “Jocks Itchy Over Costly Cup” (June 8, 1998). I can’t even imagine what this one was about!

 Another technique that defines Variety‘s slanguage is their tendency to eliminate words such as “a,” “an,” and “the,” particularly at the beginning of sentences, which gives the prose a staccato-like rhythm. An example from the January 4 issue offers a good example. In chronicling the overseas box office of recent Hollywood films, Variety had this to say about The Day the Earth Stood Still, “Performance in Germany was softer, where the film earned $2.8 million from 804,” meaning the film did not do as well in Germany, where it was playing in 804 theaters. 

Variety‘s editors are particularly proud of the magazine’s unique and arcane showbiz jargon, some of which their writers have invented. An excellent example is a headline in the December 15, 2007, issue: “HBO Co-Prexy Ankles.”  “Co-prexy” is slanguage for co-president, while “ankles” means to leave a job, because your ankles are the last part of the body to go out the door as you leave a room! Some slanguage is no longer used because show business has changed and some modes of entertainment have disappeared. I’ll bet few out there remember that a “wiggle opera” is a burlesque show, or that if you had a big announcement to make, you “screamed” it, probably because microphones were not a big part of show business back in the day.  If you had a major hit on your hands, whether it was in the theater or in the movies, then you had a “world beater,” because the world was beating a path to your door.  “Hoofology” referred to different types of dancing; “speaks” was a shortened version of speakeasies, which often hosted nightclub entertainment; and, believe it, or not, a “tooter” was a musician. So, you could conceivably know a tooter working a speak who was also an expert in hoofology.

 But, if you skim through the pages of today’s issues of Variety, you will still come across these terms:

 Long before teens began using b.f.f. and g.f.f., Variety was using b.f. and g.f.  to mean boyfriend and girlfriend.

 Biopic has become a standard term for biography picture, and I did not know until researching this post that Variety  invented it. Though it is commonly used, some are still not familiar with it. Over the summer, a local newscaster described the upcoming Dillinger movie, Public Enemies, as a “bi-opic” with the emphasis on the “bi.”

 Both boffo and whammo mean sensational, particularly in reference to stupendous box office success.

 Beertown, Beantown, and Chitown are Milwaukee, Boston, and Chicago.

 An ayem is a television morning show, as in “a.m.”

 If you want to buy a ticket to anything, then according to Variety, you are buying a ducat.

 A horse opera, soap opera, and sprocket opera are a western, a serialized radio or television series, and a film festival respectively. Variety coined the widely used term soap opera.

 If you watched the Golden Globes last night, then you watched a kudocast, which is slang for an awards show.

 While doing research for a film encyclopedia, I was completely stumped by a Variety review that announced that a movie “did not go over in the nabes.”  I could not figure out “nabes.” In my mind, I was pronouncing it “nobs” and then “nah – bees.”  Finally, I realized that it was short for neighborhoods, and the sentence meant that the movie was a sophisticated, controversial film about urban life and it did not play well with family audiences who generally lived in real neighborhoods.

 The Mouse House is the Disney Studio.

 Mitting means applause, which I assume derives from the term “mits” for hands.

 A term I can’t figure out the derivation for is skein, which means a television series. 

To terp is to dance (from Terpsichore), and a terper is a dancer.

 While a sitcom is a situation comedy, a zitcom is a comedy series about and for the teenage audience.

 A friend and colleague, Alissa Simon, writes reviews of foreign films for Variety, and I asked her what it was like to handle some of the slanguage. Apparently, it takes a bit of getting used to, and she confessed that if the writers don’t remember to use “helmer” instead of director, or “scribe” or “scribbler” for writer, then the editors will do it for them.

 Using and understanding the slanguage is a sign of the Hollywood insider, so readers of Variety feel like they are part of the business, part of the club. It also makes reading about financial information, statistics, ratings, and other economic and business information more interesting.  And, for us scribes who consider ourselves crix, Variety‘s solons continue to offer boffo info on the biz.