The Worst Thing Ever Written

[Phantasee]

Note: read on Vice to see the accompanying pictures that help the Photoshop section make sense.

Esquire's Interview with Megan Fox Is the Worst Thing Ever Written

The cover story of this month's Esquire is an interview with Megan Fox by Stephen Marche. And, though I haven't read every single thing that has ever been written, I can say, with confidence, that it is the worst thing that anybody has ever written. Ever.

It's fucking LONG, and I know you're busy, so here are the worst things about it.

THE WAY THE WRITER DESCRIBES HOW ATTRACTIVE MEGAN FOX IS

Megan Fox is good looking. There are various photos of her throughout the article that back this up. But just in case it's not clear, the author breaks down her beauty in a number of riiiiiiiidiculous ways. Including:

"[Her skin is] the colour the moon possesses in the thin air of northern winters."

"Megan Fox is a bombshell. To be a bombshell in 2013 is to be an antiquity, an old-world relic, like movie palaces or fountain pens or the muscle cars of the 1970s or the pinball machines in the basement. Bombshells once used to roam the cultural landscape like buffalo, and like buffalo they were edging toward extinction."

"The symmetry of her face, up close, is genuinely shocking. The lip on the left curves exactly the same way as the lip on the right. The eyes match exactly. The brow is in perfect balance, like a problem of logic, like a visual labyrinth. It's not really even that beautiful. It's closer to the sublime, a force of nature, the patterns of waves crisscrossing a lake, snow avalanching down the side of a mountain, an elaborately camouflaged butterfly. What she is is flawless. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her."

The symmetry of her face is "genuinely shocking"? I'm imagining the author arriving for the interview, seeing her face for the first time and leaping back, letting out an audible gasp, "God, Megan, I am SO sorry! It's just your face... It's so..."

"Symmetrical?" Megan will have asked, forlorn, "I get that a lot... *sigh*".

THE WEIRD AZTEC METAPHOR THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE

"Deep in her house, Megan Fox and I are discussing human sacrifice. I tell her about an Aztec ritual practiced five hundred years ago in ancient Mexico during the feast of Toxcatl, when the Aztecs picked a perfect youth to live among them as a god. He was a paragon, beautiful and fit and healthy, with ideal proportions...

"The sacrifice's year was filled with constant delight, I tell her. He danced through the streets adorned in luxurious clothes given to him by the master, decked in flowers and incense, playing magical flutes that brought prosperity to the whole world. He had eight servants and four virgins to attend to his every need and could wander wherever he pleased. But at the end of the year, when the feast of Toxcatl came around again, the perfect youth had to smash his flutes and climb the stairs of the great temple, where the priests would cut out his heart and offer it, still beating, to the sun.

"Megan Fox is not an ancient Aztec. She's a screen saver on a teenage boy's laptop, a middle-aged lawyer's shower fantasy, a sexual prop used to sell movies and jeans.

'It's so similar. It totally is,' she says quietly.

At the end of the year, the beautiful youth had to go up by himself. He had to go up willingly. That was part of the deal.

Now she is shaking her head. "Not everyone understands that that's the deal," she says.

Megan Fox will not go willingly to have her heart cut out."

I understand that what occured the day of the interview probably wasn't all that interesting. I'd imagine he sat opposite her while she talked about whatever movie she was contractually obliged to talk about. And then he had to find a way of making that seem interesting for five whole pages. But SURELY, any rational person, upon typing the sentence "Megan Fox is not an ancient Aztec" would think 'Wait, maybe this is a bit much? Perhaps I should take a break and have another try at this in the morning.'

And let's just forget, for a second, that what he wrote doesn't actually make any sense at all, and concentrate instead on Megan's reaction to it. She fucking AGREED with him! Horrifying.

MEGAN FOX BELIEVES THAT BEING FAMOUS IS WORSE THAN BEING BULLIED

"'I don't think people understand," she says. 'They all think we should shut the fuck up and stop complaining because you live in a big house or you drive a Bentley. So your life must be so great. What people don't realise is that fame, whatever your worst experience in high school, when you were being bullied by those ten kids in high school, fame is that, but on a global scale, where you're being bullied by millions of people constantly.'"

When I was at school, there was a kid who everyone picked on because they thought he was gay. One day, a bunch of older kids dragged him into the PE showers and forcibly inserted a broom handle into his ass. Pretty sure he'd trade lives with you, Meg.

SHE ALSO BELIEVES IN EVERY OTHER THING EVER

"Have you ever watched footage of a Santeria gathering or someone doing voodoo? You know how palpable the energy is? Whatever's going on there, it's for real."

"I have seen magical, crazy things happen. I've seen people be healed. Even now, in the church I go to, during praise and worship I could feel that I was maybe getting ready to speak in tongues."

"She would much rather be an archeologist exploring the ancient ruins of Israel and Egypt. 'I feel like there's stuff literally buried there and buried where the Maya were,' she says. Ancient aliens who gave rise to ancient civilisations on earth. 'I would like to uncover the secrets of the universe. In my fantasy.'"

"I like believing. I believe in all of these Irish myths, like leprechauns. Not the pot of gold, not the Lucky Charms leprechauns. But maybe was there something in the traditional sense? I believe that this stuff came from somewhere other than people's imaginations...."

"'Would you not be so much more interested in finding out that bigfoot existed than in watching a really good movie?... I believe in aliens... I am childlike in my spirit and I want to believe in fairy tales... Loch Ness monster — there's something to it.... There's the Bell Witch... What distracts me from my reality is bigfoot. They are my celebrities.'"

THE PHOTOSHOP

How many people must have seen that cover before it went to print? And not one of them said, "Uh, guys, her left thigh is shaped like a teardrop, she has a wrist a third of the way up her arm and her vagina is, like, a foot wide."

MEGAN'S UNUSUAL APPROACH TO ESCAPING FAME

According to the article, "Megan Fox doesn't particularly want to be famous anymore." Obviously, appearing on the cover of Esquire in your underwear to promote a new movie that you're starring in isn't the best way to go about this. But what about some other methods she's tried?

"She's tried to escape from her fate as a sex symbol. She starred in Jennifer's Body, a magnificent, delicious, criminally underrated parable about a bombshell who literally devours men."

"In December, in Judd Apatow's This Is 40, she plays a woman so gorgeous that the other characters cannot quite believe it."

And neither of those things made it so she wasn't famous anymore? Weird!

Also, "criminally underrated" – hahahahahahahahahaha.

THE WRITER THINKS AMY ADAMS IS NOT BEAUTIFUL

"Women no longer need to be beautiful in order to express their talent. Lena Dunham and Adele and Lady Gaga and Amy Adams are all perfectly plain, and they are all at the top of their field."

No longer need to be beautiful? Sorry to get all Jezebel, but can you imagine how warped your idea of women must be to think those women are what "plain" looks like? Yowzer.

THIS PARAGRAPH

This is an actual piece of text that was written about Megan Fox. As in, the star of Transformers 2 and Jonah Hex;

"There's no doubt that this transformation has been overwhelmingly excellent. But we're losing something in this process. Because creativity is, was and always will be sexual. Some of the very first works of art were figures of hugely fecund women dropped all over Europe tens of thousands of years ago. American movies expressed that great fusion of sex and art, too. They are magnificent pagan dreams, utterly profane and glorious. Such movies need bombshells. They need to consume beautiful flesh in their sacrifices. They need women like Megan Fox."

THE CLOSING LINES

Stephen Marche ends his monumental fuck up of an article with these lines:

"On the way out, I notice something I hadn't seen on the way down. In the hallway sits a tall pedestal topped by a red-and-gold Byzantine icon of a crucified Christ and rows of white candles. The candles are usually lit, she tells me, before she leaves to go upstairs to take care of her newborn son.

"His name is Noah. In the ancient story of the flood, Noah and his family are the only ones who escape the general destruction of the corrupt world."

Can you imagine how much the sub editors were laughing as they shovelled this tripe into InDesign? Didn't American magazine interviews used to be like this?

[Losonti Tokash]

I am fucking agog at someone describing Lady Gaga as "plain" in any sense of the word.

[Ziggy Stardust]

That is a ... pretty bizarre article to be sure. Oddly enough, the writer of that (Stephen Marche) isn't a bad writer, generally speaking (I've read some other essays and short stories by him, and they are all quite good). It seems like he just got too wrapped up in his metaphors and tried too hard to make it "literary."

[The Vortex Empire]

"The symmetry of her face, up close, is genuinely shocking. The lip on the left curves exactly the same way as the lip on the right. The eyes match exactly. The brow is in perfect balance, like a problem of logic, like a visual labyrinth. It's not really even that beautiful. It's closer to the sublime, a force of nature, the patterns of waves crisscrossing a lake, snow avalanching down the side of a mountain, an elaborately camouflaged butterfly. What she is is flawless. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her."

Really, someone who has had plenty of expensive plastic surgery has an unusually symmetrical face? Shocking!

[Ford Prefect]

Megan Fox is not I repeat not an ancient Aztec.

[Havok]

You can't create symmetry in a face like Megan Fox has. You can follow her looks back pretty damn far and she has always had striking symmetry. Unfortunately her brain isn't very symmetrical, but I knew that when she married that douche from 90210.

[thejester]

That's funny cause GQ's Beyonce interview also got panned, but for different reasons. I dunno, this reads like either it's a silent protest at having to do film promo work, or he's 100% convinced he's a throwback to some golden age of Hollywood journalism. Probably the latter.

[Stark]

You can't create symmetry in a face like Megan Fox has. You can follow her looks back pretty damn far and she has always had striking symmetry. Unfortunately her brain isn't very symmetrical, but I knew that when she married that douche from 90210.

Are you a master of Megan Fox Faceology? How far back do I have to follow her looks to reach the inner mysteries?

And Phant seriously this reads like everything else I've ever read in a waiting room magazine. At least she didn't CLAIM to be an Aztec and restricted herself to nodding along to sycophants and complaining about how hard it is to live in incomprehensible luxury.

[PeZook]

On her opinions: well, she's a celebrity with kooky views and delusions of relevance and oh fame is so hard whininess. Truly a sensation.

But the author, man, it sounds like he was high while writing that.

[DaveJB]

Really, someone who has had plenty of expensive plastic surgery has an unusually symmetrical face? Shocking!

Unless she was getting plastic surgery when she was legally too young to do so (though granted, that wouldn't surprise me) any work she's had done is probably comparatively minor. Compare this photo of her from ten years ago to a more recent one, and she doesn't actually look all that different.

[Phantasee]

I don't quite get it aren't most people's faces symmetrical??

[Phantasee]

Megan Fox is not I repeat not an ancient Aztec.

This is my favourite part.

[Civil War Man]

I don't quite get it aren't most people's faces symmetrical??

Most people's faces are symmetrical to a degree, but almost everyone has small details that throw off the symmetry. One ear might be slightly bigger than the other, or the nose is slightly crooked, or one eye doesn't open as wide. Then natural wear and tear like scars, burns, and moles add to the asymmetry.

[Havok]

I don't quite get it aren't most people's faces symmetrical??

Not the way you think. Take pictures of people's faces and turn them upsidedown.

[Havok]

You can't create symmetry in a face like Megan Fox has. You can follow her looks back pretty damn far and she has always had striking symmetry. Unfortunately her brain isn't very symmetrical, but I knew that when she married that douche from 90210.

Are you a master of Megan Fox Faceology? How far back do I have to follow her looks to reach the inner mysteries?

Yes and 2004.

Or it could be that I spend quite a bit o time studying faces and such as I draw people a lot. That said I noticed it the first time I saw her in that silly Lindsay Lohan movie.

[Stark]

They should have sent you to the interview. You wouldn't have confused her face with a wave, no would you have expressed her symmetry in terms of something assymetrical.

[Scrib]

That Aztec metaphor would have been poignant if it wasn't A) so overwrought and dramatic

and B) Not written by a fucking celebrity journalist, interviewing a celebrity, probably for some project, for a magazine that makes money off celebrities. Talk about feeding the beast. I don't mind the fact that celebrities complain about the voracious press and public because they're rich, I mind that they do shit like this, encourage this sort of media attention for their own profit and then turn around and bitch when it gets out of control. And now I have to fucking take it from some fucking journalist interviewing celebrities? What the fuck? Don't draw attention to yourself dude.

[CarsonPalmer]

Wow.

I can't add anything to what else has been said other than that Amy Adams is fucking gorgeous, so who knows what the hell he's thinking there, either? And what a gratuitous shot to take at those three, anyway.

[Mr. Coffee]

Wait... Megan Fox is still a thing? Guess it was a slow month at Esquire.