ARTICLES
SHANNEN DOHERTY

UNKNOWN
FHM

Shannen Doherty has never left me cold, exactly; I quite simply never cared. Like many aspiring teenaged bitches in 1988, I appreciated (and still appreciate) her turn in Heathers as the green-clad, Melville-obsessed monster Heather Duke, but she was really just support for Christian Slater's overbaked Jack Nicholson impersonation and Winona Ryder cementing her now-ridiculed position as Hollywood's Muse of Edgy Filmmaking. Two years later, Miss Doherty joined the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210. I watched the show once, said, "Hey, it's that chick from Heathers," and then proceeded to ignore both the show and Miss Doherty for the rest of its ten-year run. Imagine my surprise, then, when I read Tony Romando's introduction to Miss Doherty's interview in the December lingerie issue of For Him Magazine. Apparently, by ignoring Miss Doherty and 90210, I had missed out on one of "the defining [televised] moments of our age." That's right, along with "the exploding space shuttle, Mr. Zapruder's 'Farewell, Mr. Kennedy' home movie, and the Reagan assassination attempt," the 295 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 have left an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of the nation. Yeah, Tony, when I think back on the defining worldwide events television brought me at the turn of the last decade, Brandon and Brenda Walsh moving from Minnesota to California is right up there with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Ceausescus getting Mussolinied by their former serfs in Romania. And linking the decidedly Gen-X triad of Reagan, shuttle, and Spelling with the 1963 assassination in Dallas? Whatever, you hack.

I should explain that For Him Magazine couldn't be further from holding a place on my list of must-read monthly magazines. Aside from Vanity Fair and the occasional Talk, I avoid celebrity blowjob rags like the plague. I particularly avoid the type of celebrity blowjob soft-core heterosexual porn offered by the recent explosion of "Lad Rags" -- pointless, tree-destroying crap like Maxim, Gear, and Front. And, of course, FHM, a newsstand blight across both North America and the United Kingdom best known for slinging barely-legal female "stars" like Majandra Delfino and Rachael Leigh Cook into pasties and panties and having them pose as if they're auditioning for G-String Divas. Or a bed in a Reno whorehouse.

(Full disclosure: at the height of 90210's popularity, I did purchase -- and save for all of eight months -- the Vanity Fair with Luke Perry posing on the cover with a very long gun. That issue has long since passed on to recycling heaven, but I still have the GQ from May 1993 with Cal Ripken, Jr., on the cover. I'm not made of stone, people. I just have some standards.)

Romando's fluff piece appears at the center of what I assume is the magazine's annual lingerie issue, FHM apparently attempting to build a brand as strong as Sports Illustrated's perennially-popular swimsuit edition. Unfortunately for FHM, Sports Illustrated seems to have more class in the proverbial cuticle of its proverbial pinkie than FHM could purchase for itself with the GNP of the reunified Germany. "LINGERIE SPECIAL," the cover screams. "A 20-page festival of intimate garments!" it goes on to promise. My stomach took that opportunity to promise me a twenty-hour marathon of retching should I actually buy the rag -- especially after I noticed another slug quoting "FHM's grandpa" as claiming to have "gotten scooty since Prohibition" -- but duty called. I plonked down my $2.99 and shamefacedly left the store. (I admit I was tempted to ask the sales clerk for a brown paper bag with my purchase, as I've caught the security guards in my office building sniggering over previous editions of FHM at the front desk while indulging surreptitiously in pocket pool. I'm just saying.) Miss Doherty herself graces the cover, threatening to pop out of a sheer leopard-print two-piece ensemble provided by Dolce & Gabbana. The accompanying tag urges me to "let Shannen Doherty put [me] under her sexy hex!" Thanks, boys, but if two months of Miss Doherty on Aaron Spelling's late-'90s version of Charlie's Angels-esque jiggle TV hasn't managed to convince me of her ample, um, charms, I doubt I'll be swayed by anything you have to offer.

I'd tell you more of the other contents of this issue, but I admit I skipped straight to Miss Doherty's section. After a couple of pages of Miss Doherty posing in "Donna Karen [sic] Intimates" and Tony's above-mentioned opening-paragraph atrocity, Romando goes on to wax nostalgic over his favorite 90210 moments, among them an accidental shooting death at someone's birthday party and a couple of other people getting arrested "for urinating on an Indian burial ground." And I chose to watch the glory days of Law & Order instead of this? What was I thinking? He goes on to fill me in on the early-'90s pop culture phenomenon I somehow managed to overlook entirely. "For a while, [Miss Doherty's] antics on the show with Luke Perry made them America's No. 1 couple, the subject of endless gossip and national fascination." I'd object again, holding up Julia Roberts's numerous marital woes of the era, the ratings for the Menendez and O.J. trials, and the newsprint devoted to Jeffrey Dahmer's Milwaukee antics as further proof that Miss Doherty and Mr. Perry were an easily-overlooked flash in the pop-cult pan, but you get my point. Romando does note that Miss Doherty made it through her days at Beverly Hills High to meet with "greater success than any of the regular cast, going on," he continues, "to star in the equally implausible WB hit Charmed," and I have to concede both points. Miss Doherty is the only one of that gang still pulling down a regular paycheck, and it is indeed implausible that Charmed lasted longer than a season. Before getting into the interview proper, Romando inserts one final ick-making observation: Miss Doherty, he claims, "still has the same trouser-troubling effect on the youth of America...Thank you, Hollywood." Thank you for giving me the mental image of teenagers nationwide whacking off to your magazine, Tony Romando.