Thoughts on Sliders in Random (Page 4 of 4)

I was recently astonished to discover that Kari Wuhrer's 1999 interview on Conan O'Brien is widely reputed to be the most awkward interview he's had to date. I'd seen it, but didn't realize how infamous it was to the general public. Kari came on to promote her album Shiny, and emerged after Conan had interviewed Steven Wright, a wonderfully low-key and subtle comedian who had made surreal comments such as quietly explaining that as a summer camp counselor, he felt it was his role to explain to children that he and they were all going to die, a conversational version of his standup comedy persona, performed to great amusement from the audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK-bV0-AFsc

Kari was next, bounded on stage, and insulted Wright: "I figured it wasn't a difficult act to follow," she said after squealing loudly at the camera. "We talked about this before," she said, gesturing at Wright. "He knows I just can't stand him." She then gave Wright a hard stare and said, "Aren't you retiring?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qLH4AlLc8U

Kari, as a hyper-performative person without much subtlety, was not content to simply acknowledge Wright and was somehow deaf to the audience's cheers and laughs for Wright. She decided that insulting Wright's talent and presence was her way forward. She somehow perceived him as the weak one to target and dominate. Her inability to read the audience was telling.

The audience had no reaction to Kari; only Conan and Wright's responses triggered laughter, and this absurd attempt to present herself as more appealing or enjoyable than Steven Wright is apparently one of the most-mocked moments in talk show history where the general audience found Kari delusional in thinking her unsubtle mugging for the camera and abrasive presence was superior to Wright's talented performance. She even came off as a bully.

27 years, Kari has done a podcast interview on Flaawsome Talk and once again, Kari seems to have a less than plausible impression of her talents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX15vQMc6ok

There is a lot of interesting stuff in Kari's comments about how she used nudity as a shield; how she had a photographer as a teenager who was a respected photographer who took her first headshots but then started stalking her and moved to her hometown to follow her around; how MTV underpaid her; how she was so worried about her physical image for so long but at 58, it's became irrelevant; how her limited social media profile makes it hard to get back into Hollywood; how she's done well enough financially to semi-retire and raise her three children. All that is fascinating. The part about her first photographer stalker her is so disturbing and sad, and it really explains a lot.

Then, in the second half, Kari becomes delusional. She declares that actress Blake Lively cares more about the lifestyle of a famous actress than acting and that Lively's lawsuit against Justin Baldoni is unfounded because being complimented is not harassment, somehow missing the suit being about Baldoni hiring a PR firm to flood social media with smears against Lively and also admitting that she has never met Lively (and therefore is in no position to speculate on Lively's inner thinking). She then trashes Sydney Sweeney's career saying Sweeney "ruined" herself by getting political, despite Sweeney still working while Kari has not been on a callsheet since 2018. (That said, I don't really know their work.)

At this point, however, Kari declares that Julia Roberts has never done impressive dramatic work to show her acting talent because she is too focused on her public image, somehow missing Roberts' numerous dramatic accolades for STEEL MAGNOLIAS, PRETTY WOMAN, SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY, ERIN BROCKOVICH, and CLOSER.

Kari then declares that Ryan Reynolds has a career of endless flops and never done any work of note that demonstrates that his career is viable or that he has real acting talent, somehow overlooking Reynolds' global popularity as a witty, metatextual hero in the DEADPOOL movies in which he conveys mischief, rage, charisma and grief while wearing a costume that obscures his face.

She at an earlier point declares that Harvey Weinstein was always fine with her, with zero consideration for how that would sound to Weinstein's survivors, nor does she consider that Weinstein set his sights on bigger targets than an actress with a small role in THE CROSSING GUARD and whatever Dimension Films direct to video cash-ins she was starring in.

I assume that Julia Roberts will not be tossing and turning over how the star of HELLRAISER: DEADER thinks Roberts has never had an impressive dramatic performance. And I imagine Ryan Reynolds will not lose too much sleep over how the lead of two direct to video PROPHECY sequels thinks his career is a failure.

However, I'll observe that Kari once again exhibits, as she did 27 years ago, a disdain for comedians and comedic craft; an attitude that drama is the only measure of talent; that drama is histrionics without subtlety; and she seems to have conflated trauma with experience and experience with insight.

This unearned superiority complex is precisely the undercurrent of characterization that Kari infused into Maggie Beckett and I think it reads onscreen and it's why SLIDERS fans in this instance react pretty much the same way as the general audience to Kari Wuhrer: they find her abrasive, caustic, arrogant and insufferable.