Article: Baby, Give Me a Kiss

I'm sure anybody reading this knows what Girls Gone Wild is. But, not many people know that it is run by one of the biggest douchebags ever: Joe Francis. This guy should not have money. He thinks he's this huge entrepreneur who's great at marketing material to horny guys. The man did not even entirely come up with the idea of Girls Gone Wild. He was a producer for Real TV and just happened to find out that many guys were attracted to their annual "Spring Break Edition" of the show. He took the idea, made his own company, and now everybody knows about it.

Since then many have come forward saying they were too drunk and did not really want to be filmed. Joe doesn't care. Some girls have been proven to be minors caught on tape. Joe doesn't care. Some girls have came forward saying the crew, including Francis, have been participating in extracurriculars. Joe doesn't care. Well thats not entirely true, as you will see in the article. He has a bazillion lawyers to protect his ass if such charges see the light of day. He's become that powerful.

But, enough about my bitter hatred for the man. This is about LA Times reporter Claire Hoffman's feature piece about Francis. It follows him and his crew as they stop in nightclubs and lure drunk girls to the back of their buses. No, it's not one of those stories. This article paints Francis in a bad light. And here's the kicker, I don't think Hoffman went there with the intent to bring the guy down. It just kind of was thrown at her. Or...as you will read, she was thrown by him.

I took a narrative non-fiction class my senior year that dealt with stories kind of like this. Narrative non-fiction is essentially real stories that are written in a novel-esque style. We read books like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Tracy Kidder's House. We also read several articles such as this. One of the things you really are not supposed to do is put yourself in the story. It happens occasionally, but you just aren't supposed to. Here, Hoffman sort of has to include herself. Hoffman does a great job of painting Francis as a creepy, aggressive, and unfortuantely powerful young man who seems to elude any attempt to prosecute him. The article may be a little long (hey, it's a feature), but its a mighty good read.

I hope you like...

"Baby, Give Me a Kiss"