Talk:Elizabeth Wurtzel

Plagarism Accusations
Wurtzel was, prior to writing "Prozac Nation", fired from The Dallas Morning News for plagarizing another writer's work. I hadn't known this before and I think it should be included in this article because she's supposedly a journalist, and we should be made aware of a journalist who is a known plagarist.

Here is a link to an article that discusses the plagarism incident http://themediamob.observer.com/2006/03/the-liars-club-an-incomplete-history-of-untruths-and-consequ.html

And here's the excerpted section of the article dealing w/ Wurtzel:

The Accused: Elizabeth Wurtzel

Crime Against Journalism: Plagiarism

Rap Sheet: In 1988, Wurtzel was accused of lifting passages from another writer's work in her work in The Dallas Morning News. (See: Beg, Borrow, Or..., by Dwight Garner, Salon, July 22, 1996.)

Plea: None.

Sentence Fired from The Dallas Morning News.

Afterlife: After her firing, Wurtzel managed to become the music critic for New York, The New Yorker, and publish the memoir Prozac Nation in 1997. (That book also faced accusations of fabrications). In 2004, Wurtzel was accepted by Yale Law School.

Hollywood Ending: The film version of Wurtzel's Prozac Nation was made in 2001 but didn't appear in the U.S. until 2005 when it went direct to cable.

I agree this needs to be in here. I added it and hope it will remain. See http://observer.com/2006/03/the-liars-club-an-incomplete-history-of-untruths-and-consequences/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdus5678 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

9/11 Comments
The comments Wurtzel made regarding 9/11 are listed on the Prozac Nation page (as a possible explination as to why the movie was not released in theaters), but I feel they belong on the author's page. I don't want to turn this into an anti-Wurtzel page (and keeping in mind that many other writers/actors/etc. have publicly said stupid things about terrorism/Sept. 11) but the fact is she caught a lot of flack for saying this. Wurtzel being an "outspoken" person, should be held to what she says.

Here is an excerpt from the Prozac Nation article's section on the 9/11 controversy

[Wurtzel] was quoted in a February 16, 2002 article by Jan Wong titled, "That's enough about me, now, what do you think of me?", for The Globe and Mail in Toronto:

[About 9/11] My main thought was: What a pain in the ass... I had not the slightest emotional reaction. I thought, this is a really strange art project... It was a most amazing sight in terms of sheer elegance. It fell like water. It just slid, like a turtleneck going over someone's head... It was just beautiful. You can't tell people this. I'm talking to you because you're Canadian... I just felt like everyone was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me... I cried about all the animals left there in the neighbourhood... I think I have some kind of emotional block. I think I should join some support group for people who were there... You know what was really funny? After the fact, like, all these different writers were writing these things about what it was like, and nobody bothered to call me.

Law School
"harvard law school so says her website"

That was her original school. A Google on +"Elizabeth Wurtzel" +"Yale Law School" shows she is now attending Yale.


 * Is it note worthy that she works at Boise Schiller? Or that she failed the July '08 bar exam?

http://gawker.com/5090905/elizabeth-wurtzels-name-missing-on-bar-exam-pass-list —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.188.199.11 (talk) 15:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Eliwurtzel.jpg
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BetacommandBot 15:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Comparisons with Plath and Sexton
"She has been compared to Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath but generally the comparisons are flat, and Wurtzel's work falls far short of the literary merit of the two earlier poets." This is backed up by a source to one review. The opinion of one reviewer should not be stated as fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.135.225 (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

latest addition by nominal actor
this is a highly contentious account of wurtzel's guardian article, which argues that nothing can explain the virulent reaction to gaza, not criticism per se; and it misrepresents her as saying what she quoted Derrida as saying, in order to derive the bizarre conclusion that she's a jewish supremacist. hopefully it will be corrected by someone without a chip on his or her shoulder. RIchard Landes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.157.80 (talk) 15:05, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I cut the paragraph, as the reference has almost nothing to do with the assertion in the paragraph, and as such, it appears POV. If there's a reference where she actually advocates "Jewish Supremacism" rather than quote Derrida describing his life in the Jewish ghetto(! - how does this get conflated into her opinion - do we attribute on wiki to historians the random musings of those they cited in painting a picture of a time period?), it can go in. Similarly, if there's a reference where she actually says all criticism of Gaza is due to anti-semitism, that ought to go in. What she actually says in the article previously cited is "'with all the troubles in the world, with the terrible things that the Chinese do in Tibet, and do to their own citizens; with the horrors of genocide committed in Darfur by Sudanese Muslims; with all the bad things that Arab governments in the Middle East visit upon their own people – no need for Israel to have a perfectly horrible time – still, the focus is on what the Jews may or may not be doing wrong in Gaza. And it makes people angry and vehement as nothing else does. The vitriol it inspires is downright weird.'" She's saying the vehemence and prevalence of the criticism is antisemitic, not the criticism itself. Feel free to read for yourself and check.

I'm sure the cut paragraph was simply an honest misreading, but we should make sure to look carefully at people's words before summarizing them, especially on such hot-button issues. Better for everyone concerned. -YCubed (talk) 15:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Just modified the new clearly POV paragraph that replaced the cut one with a paragraph that actually quotes Wurtzel (as the rest of the controversy section does for each topic), so her meaning cannot be misconstrued. I'm pretty sure the new paragraph is even-handed and more informative, as I list more information and quotes. -YCubed (talk) 16:38, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed some things, perhaps temporarily
I removed the following stuff, perhaps temporarily. These two extended quotes appear to be juxtaposed in order to make it appear that she changed her story about her emotional reaction to September 11th. But depending on the meaning and context, it is possible that these two quotes are not actually contradicting each other. In any event, the main point is that there is a core claim here that "controversy erupted" - but did it? I see no source (not even unreliable ones) that there is actually a controversy here.

"Controversy erupted over comments that Wurtzel, who lived near the World Trade Center in New York, made about the September 11 attacks. Initially, in an interview in October 2001, Wurtzel had stated: I remember sitting in my apartment and when the first tower fell and the ground shook and one of my windows blew out and there was all this horrible gray and brown dust blowing into my apartment, and I was on the phone with my college roommate, who was calling from Washington basically to say, "Get out of your apartment. You just have to get out of your apartment." And I screamed really loud while I was on the phone with her and I just kept saying, "I'm going to die." And I later spoke to her and she said she's never heard me sound so afraid. And I think it was because for the first time in my life I felt like, you know, in actual danger... As of right now, all it is one horrible, horrible day in the history of this city and this country. We don't know yet what else is gonna happen. But I do think people our age are pretty philosophical about this stuff. Maybe it's just a refusal to believe that anything terrible is going to happen. I mean, maybe that's my problem. Maybe that's what I sound like.

However, on February 16, 2002, during an interview with Jan Wong entitled "That's enough about me, now, what do you think of me?", for The Globe and Mail in Toronto, she was quoted as saying: My main thought was: What a pain in the ass... I had not the slightest emotional reaction. I thought, this is a really strange art project... It was a most amazing sight in terms of sheer elegance. It fell like water. It just slid, like a turtleneck going over someone's head... It was just beautiful. You can't tell people this. I'm talking to you because you're Canadian... I just felt like everyone was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me... I cried about all the animals left there in the neighborhood... I think I have some kind of emotional block. I think I should join some support group for people who were there... You know what was really funny? After the fact, like, all these different writers were writing these things about what it was like, and nobody bothered to call me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.240.131 (talk • contribs)


 * I also intended to get into the article and do some damage to this WP:SYNTH-violative attack piece. But it was placed on my watchlist and I forgot about it. Thanks for the removal. I fully agree that per WP:BLP, this type of synthesis has no place in the article. There are a few more problems with the article and I intend to get to them as well. -- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 23:50, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Penguin Lawsuit
Apparently Wurtzel's publisher is suing her to recoup an advance, made against her next book, which was paid in 2003. I CBA to edit the article right now, but maybe someone else is interested in improving this article - News article at The Smoking Gun — Preceding unsigned comment added by Strolls (talk • contribs) 18:58, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

"hideous picture"
Blonde1967 (Elizabeth Wurtzel). I saw your concern about the "hideous picture" in your edit summary. Such concerns are typically discussed on a talk page such as this. There are a number of options regarding the picture. If you are reading this message then please reply here and then we can start. --Wlmg (talk) 13:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

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