It’s a Whale of a Tale

You have to try to put yourself in Maris Sidenstecker II’s place to understand why her feelings were harpooned when she opened the February issue of Esquire.

“Charlie Manson Saves the Whales” blared the headline on a story about how Manson is positioning himself as an environmentalist.

Sidenstecker co-founded the Venice-based group, Save the Whales. She sees nothing witty about the jarring juxtaposition.

“When I saw it, I cried,” she says. “Having his picture with ‘save the whales’ is so disheartening and disgusting. The story had nothing to do with Save the Whales.”

Exactly the point, says Esquire Managing Editor Ellen Fair, who thinks Sidenstecker is somehow missing it:

“The title is entirely ironic and the point of the piece is that we, too, are appalled that Charlie Manson is aligning himself with the environmental movement. It sounds like the people at Save the Whales have become so focused on their work that they have lost their sense of humor.”

Sidenstecker says her attorneys are “talking” and the group has issued a statement decrying the magazine’s choice of words.

Fair urges Save the Whales to respond in Esquire’s letters section. But she is unrepentant about the headline. “It gets people’s attention, and that’s the point. It makes people go ‘Huh?’ and then giggle and then presumably they read the piece and realize that not only does he have nothing to do with saving the whales, but he still has quite a solid little infrastructure in place that bears continuing observation in our opinion.”