Year-End Lists That Fascinate? Hardly

This is the age of lists. As this year winds down, a fortnight of lists.

Tonight brings the thickly oozed “Ladies’ Home Journal’s Most Fascinating Women of ‘98” on CBS and “Biography of the Year” on cable’s Arts & Entertainment network, whose assembly line of oft-formulaic personal histories has become its signature. These shows follow last week’s “Barbara Walters Presents the 10 Most Fascinating People of ‘98” on ABC, and precede next month’s 25th annual “People’s Choice Awards” on CBS.

This list worship is driven by America’s weird fixation on awards, and specifically, awards shows. It’s partly the competition syndrome: Build a contest, and they will come.

But more significantly, a function of the star-power syndrome: Build a contest that dangles big names, and they will come by the millions.

Despite the prestigious-sounding mantles these shows bestow, they are essentially celebrity parades.

The compulsion to rank events, celebs and VIPs courses through the veins of all media, of course. As in People magazine’s just-out “25 Most Intriguing People of the Year” issue (Does intriguing outrank fascinating?), and Time magazine’s annual Man of the Year crown, being shared this year by President Clinton and his relentless Javert, Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

And talk about being fascinated? Like others needing to get a life, I was nervously on edge waiting for Walters to reveal the most fascinating person of 1998, a choice ABC seemed to have kept hermetically sealed in a vault so there would be no leakage until the host made the long-awaited disclosure to end last Tuesday’s ABC special.

The drum roll built suspensefully as Walters schmoozed her way through “fascinating” former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, “Ally McBeal” star Calista Flockhart, “Titanic” director James Cameron, comic Chris Rock, talk-show animal Jerry Springer, eternal astronaut John Glenn, embattled Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates, home run king Mark McGwire and movie superstar Tom Hanks en route to the year’s top-ranked fascinating person. On the edges of your seats?

Off came the veil, and it was . . .

Duh!

Bill Clinton.

There were 10 compelling reasons to have regretted watching “Barbara Walters Presents the 10 Most Fascinating People of ‘98”: Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb and, last but not least, really dumb!

The same deterrent applies to much of tonight’s third annual “Ladies’ Home Journal’s Most Fascinating Women of ‘98,” whose listees include Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.), Whoopi Goldberg, Sarah the Duchess of York, super singer Trisha Yearwood, TV’s Judge Judy and actresses Queen Latifah, Drew Barrymore and Camryn Manheim of ABC’s “The Practice.”

Tossing a bone to the relatively unfamous, at least this show also celebrates the bravery of Missy Jenkins, the 16-year-old whose paralysis from the waist down came from being shot last year when another student opened fire at her West Paducah, Ky., high school. No debate about her inclusion, nor with “Most Fascinating Women of ‘98” also noting Hillary Rodham Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, who qualify in bold capital letters regardless of what you may feel about them personally.

But the other Walters and Ladies’ Home Journal listees? Get outta here.

Rather than print Webster’s definition, I’ll stipulate that “fascinating” exists in the eye of the beholder, and that reasonable people could make a case for most of Walters’ and Ladies Home Journal’s listees.

Although much more fascinating than Glenn is how his crewmates were able to maintain happy faces when most of the media forgot he wasn’t the only one aboard the space shuttle Discovery. And Springer I don’t know about because I slept through his interview. If being self-serving equals fascinating, he makes it.

But Sonny Bono’s widow, Mary, earning a spot on the Ladies’ Home Journal list? She’s not even the most fascinating woman on the House Judiciary Committee. That’s easily Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who somehow managed to keep a straight face while making those loopy partisan speeches during the recent impeachment hearings.

And Barrymore, who’s also on tonight’s list? Host Mary Hart on Barrymore’s latest fling: “Are we to believe the rumors that this is it, Drew’s ready to settle down?”

And another of tonight’s listees, Manheim, who plays a lawyer on “The Practice,” but whose claim on being a fascinator comes from how she capped her acceptance speech at the 1998 Emmys? “This is for all the fat girls!”

Good for her, but what has she done for fascination followers lately?

Manheim also made the People list, as did Walters honoree Flockhart, whose own reputation as a fascinator results from her twiggy frame and this year’s media speculation that she suffers from an eating disorder.

“Rumors can be hurtful,” she told Walters, who then asked if she was “just naturally very slim.” Flockhart replied that she was.

That was for all the thin girls.

Nothing against Manheim and Flockhart--who are good actresses fortunate to be working in superior TV series--but their inclusions here are classic examples of actors being confused with roles they play: Their characters are fascinating, hence they must be fascinating. It’s the flawed premise on which many talk-show appearances are predicated. The performer is introduced, you expect something memorable, but zip, nothing, blotto. On to the next fascinating guest.

If anyone deserves credit here, it’s not Manheim and Flockhart, but David E. Kelley, executive producer of both “The Practice” and Fox’s “Ally McBeal,” who created and shaped the characters whose fascinating qualities have come to be associated with the women who play them.

Each of these actresses is transfixing, though, compared with Walters (and People magazine) listee Halliwell, who got famous as Ginger Spice and still looks like a carhop on roller skates.

After seeing her labor through this interview, I concluded that whatever they were paying Walters, it wasn’t enough. Especially when she asked the obligatory question about why Geri/Ginger left the Spice Girls, and got the usual non-answer. And then felt compelled to ask if some day she “might go back to the Spice Girls.”

The answer didn’t register. When you’re that fascinating, however, what you say doesn’t really matter.

* “Ladies’ Home Journal Most Fascinating Women of ‘98” airs tonight at 10 on CBS.