Queenpins · Prada · Dog the Bounty Hunter
Plus, Doppel-Holmeses
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The coupon industry is worried about Queenpins. The crime comedy — which is, as previously noted, based on a real Arizona coupon scam ring — drops on Friday. So far, its reviews are hovering around lukewarm, but lobbying group the Association of Coupon Professionals says it’s still worried that the movie could inspire a slew of copycats.
In a press release I can only assume Sarah received because she’s a veteran clipper, the ACP said that “its members will be closely monitoring program redemptions and increased calls to consumer affairs lines” after the film is released. It also shook a finger at the comedy with a webinar called “Coupon fraud is no joke!” in which “industry coupon fraud experts and retired Detective Sergeant David Lake (Phoenix P.D., Ret.), the Case Agent responsible for resolving the $40 million coupon crime that inspired the major motion picture” explain that despite how fun Queenpins might make coupon scams look (?!?), it’s really really not.
“The release of ‘Queenpins’ confirms coupons' place in today’s pop culture,” ACP Executive Director Joe Morgan said in the release. “Unfortunately, a hobby this popular that involves financial gain is going to attract a criminal element. That’s why the ACP is more vigilant than ever about coupon fraud. We want to discourage anyone who might be tempted to try to game the system by emphasizing that the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted is extremely high.”
The release (which you can read here in full) definitely sent me on a flight of fancy in which casino owners host webinars to explain why Ocean’s 11 isn’t actually cool and an actual baby explains why Baby Driver is a bad name for a heist film.
Do you think the ACP really thinks that people are going to see Queenpins, then follow in the footsteps of Robin Ramirez, Marilyn Johnson, and Amiko “Amy” Fountain, who allegedly dedicated years of their life to build a complicated coupon resale scam that — at its peak — took in about $2 million per year? Or was this just a handy news hook to get their name in the news? Beats me, but I’ll tell you right now, if I’m going to copy a crime I see in the movies, it’s going to be one where I get to wear a cool designer outfit and maybe a wig, not one where I have to print shit out and sell it. — EB
Speaking of cool designer duds…Fashionista is using American Crime Story: Impeachment as a hook to talk about how “what everyone wore over 20 years ago also plays an integral role in our recollections — especially for the actual people involved.”
According to ACS:I costume designer Meredith Markworth-Pollack, central figure/producer Monica Lewinsky “has this incredible memory. She could remember the brands and where she bought these pieces," which informed how characters were clad in the series.
The piece (with the click-worthy headline “Modern History is Told Through Kate Spade Bags and a Prada Backpack”) details the lengths Markworth-Pollack’s team went to find period-appropriate clothing that matches everyone’s memories of the events, including visits to the Real Real for Hillary Clinton’s (Edie Falco) wardrobe and the quest for vintage Armani suits to reconstruct to fit Clive Owen as Bill Clinton. It’s a fun read for anyone who remembers 1990s fashion and never dreamed they might be doomed to somehow repeat it. — EB
Paid Best Evidence subscribers are privy to even more Impeachment: American Crime Story coverage — and for only $5 a month, so could you be. Starting this week, in-depth reviews of shows like ACS:I and movies like Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman became subscriber-only benefits, dropping every Wednesday.
The best thing is that folks who subscribe automatically get access to our entire two-plus-year archive of content, so there’s loads to consume in addition to the weekly set of reviews of current and classic true crime content. That means that even if you already subscribe, giving BE as a gift offers way more than the weekly reviews.
Still not convinced? Well, then, I’ll leave you with a single, mysterious still from this week’s issue. If this doesn’t sell you, nothing will. — EB
People dressed like Elizabeth Holmes are crowding the courtroom where her trial is being held. The news comes from Dorothy Atkins, a reporter at Law 360 who is tirelessly tweeting the trial. According to Atkins, the San Jose courthouse was so packed with media on day one of the trial that “Holmes arrived at 1:30 am - likely to avoid all these cameras.” By 6 a.m., she says, Bad Blood author “John Carreyrou is here, eating a muffin.”
Things get more interesting at 7:09, when she said that she met “three women in front of me in line with blonde hair wearing black business suits. When asked why they’re here, one replied ‘we’re fans,’ and they declined to comment further.” The trio made it into the courtroom for the trial, Atkins said.
Atkins’s tweets of the first day of arguments can be found here, and are snappy, smart, funny, and human. So far, she’s my favorite Theranos trial tweeter, but these are early days yet. — EB
Dog the Bounty Hunter’s alleged racism has split his family apart. The former TV star and vocal supporter of cash bail — a system widely believed to target historically and systemically marginalized communities — had hoped to launch a new reality show about his supposed criminal-busting exploits last spring, but the series was canceled before it ever came to air.
The cancellation comes 14 years after the personality (real name: Duane Chapman) first came under scrutiny for his 2007 use of a racial slur against his son’s Black girlfriend. Chapman apologized at the time, saying that “I am deeply disappointed in myself for speaking out of anger to my son and using such a hateful term … I should have never used that term. I have the utmost respect and aloha for black people — who have already suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred.”
But here we are, in 2021, and now Chapman is claiming, “I thought I had a pass in the Black tribe to use [the slur], kind of like Eminem.” This, in a surprisingly hard-core interview with Entertainment Tonight, in which HipHollywood founder Kevin Frazier pushes Chapman to say that “The brothers” gave him the alleged “pass” during a 1970s-era stint in prison.
"To say a racist name doesn't qualify to make you a racist,” Chapman told Frazier, who responded, “If you use that word, if you use it in your regular everyday life, it makes you a racist.”
Frazier isn’t the only person suggesting that the carceral-system proponent might have some tendencies toward bias. According to the producers of the canceled-before-it-aired show, Chapman “used racial and homophobic epithets to attack young African American kids who star with his daughter [Bonnie] in UTV’s The System, a show that profiles police misconduct and follows protests against white supremacy in policing.”
For his part, Chapman claims that Bonnie is “being brainwashed,” explaining that “I have three men on my staff that are gay.”
It’s a claim that Frazier rebutted by saying that “proximity does not mean that you are not racist or homophobic,” a good message for every “but some of my best friends are” defense.
The way Frazier approached the interview is laudable, especially when compared to how the media handled the claims of racist abuse against Chapman in the past, and there’s an argument to be made that as a supposed officer of the court, Chapman needs to be held to a higher standard than garden-variety racists.
(There’s also an argument to be made that anyone who is surprised that Chapman is a racist is a sillypants, and that the decades we’ve spent viewing him merely as a figure of entertainment as opposed to a symbol of a vile and oppressive system means that we’re the brainwashed ones.)
Still, if ET can get Frazier in the room with seemingly “forgiven” alleged racists like Mel Gibson or Hulk Hogan, I am so there for it. I mean, Pay Per View level there. Until then, his conversation with Chapman is pretty decent, and available to watch here.— EB
Want to make the next big true-crime sensation? Australian YouTube person Paul E.T. has a step-by-step that shows, with a lot of humor, how cookie-cutter a lot of the current crop of Netflix true-crime docs are.
To illustrate his point, he created a trailer for a pretend true-crime yarn called The Bread Loser, about the theft of some toast. It’s no American Vandal or “Serial: Christmas Surprise,” but it still kind of nails it. — EB
Friday on Best Evidence: A discussion thread TBD!
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