Jessica Simpson Through the Years
(compliments of US Weekly)
So in case you haven’t heard, Jessica Simpson is fat now. I know a lot of people probably wouldn’t consider her fat, but by presidential decree, she’s fat.
So, this weekend I caught one of the tabloid shows, I think it was called something like Inside Extra Access Tonight or something like that, and they just made this huge deal of Obama calling Jessica fat. I think it’s funny of course, because he really didn’t, he was just stating what was on the cover of the magazine. But contrary to what some Obama apologists are saying he was making a joke at her expense.
And contrary to what Simpson apologists might say, she is fat. Is she humongous? No. And the tabloid show interviewed a string of other celebs who gave the whole schpiel about how beautiful women come in all shapes and sizes, blah blah blah. And they did the whole riff on the problem with Hollywood is that it make regular women think they have to look like a magazine cover and bravo for Jessica Simpson for breaking that trend and being comfortable.
Let me clue you in on something. Jessica Simpson isn’t a regular woman. Regular women have jobs and IQs over 14. Jessica Simpson is famous for two reasons, and neither of them are her singing or acting ability. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say she can’t sing. I actually think she’s a surprisingly decent singer. But I’m not really a fan, per se. No one is. Singing brought her to the dance, yeah. But it’s her tits that made her homecoming queen.
Jessica Simpson’s job is to be superhot. That’s what she does for a living. A normal woman can look great being a size 12 (what she reportedly is right now, which honestly is by no means obese or anything), but her job is to be a size 2, which is what she was not very long ago. And when you gain that kind of weight, especially when you started off that small, well, that’s called getting fat.
And Jessica is not ok with it. Don’t fool yourself. People who are ok with criticism don’t launch into speeches on stage about how they have the love of their life and that person makes them feel beautiful and so does God and God is all that matters, etc., etc., etc. People who are ok with their weight don’t suddenly bust out the the Daisy Dukes after 4 years, but cut a longer pair than they’ve ever worn before and take to baggy t-shirts. That’s not feeling “ok with it.”
Trust me, I’m fat right now. I mean, I’m skinnier than a lot of people I know who I wouldn’t really consider fat, but I’m not comparing myself to them. I’m comparing myself to what I looked like when I was in shape and I don’t look like that right now. So I need to lose weight to get back there. And until I do, I wear shirts in the wrestling ring. That’s all I’m saying.
So yeah, while I commend all you Hollywood types for coming to Jessica’s defense, (Carmen Electra, Ashlee Simpson, Kim Kardashian, and Heidi Klum), give me a fucking break. I don’t see any of you going up five dress sizes in a year.
So in closing, yes… she’s fat. The president says so. And whatever the president says goes. Jessica Simpson is fat. Blowjobs don’t count as sexual relations. Mission Accomplished.
lol He didn’t call her fat, and I don’t think he’s making a joke at her expense….I think he’s jabbing the tabloids for even covering it. Who cares.
She does look overweight to me…..And I think that quick of a gain is unhealthy. I’ve heard though that she’s now a size 6? Which is insane. I’m a size 8, and I’m skinny for a Brigid. Even if she’s a size 12, I was a size 12 a year ago and I was never overweight.
You’re right though….It is her job to look hott.
So let’s address the real issue. What the fuck is she wearing lately. With all that weight she’s gained? Show me some boobage!
He was definitely poking fun at her offense, but yes, also the tabloids, and even his own. The implication was “hey, I’m president of the United States of America, and Jessica Simpson’s weight gain is more important than me.” which is kind of a direct dig at himself, but ironic because he clearly believes that he’s actually more important than she is.
And yeah, her outfit choice was also amazingly unflattering. What was she thinking? What I didn’t mention is that Kim Kardashian also made a big deal about how great the outfit looked, which was really funny because she said it while wearing a designer dress and standing on red carpet at some media event.
I was thinking she looked like size 4-6 before, and more like 10-12 now.
But then again, I really suck at guessing sizes. If the person looks healthy and happy, who cares?
That belt/momma-pants outfit though… omg wtf? Us lifelong plus gals know a belt can create the idea of a waist, but attempting to *cover up* a belly with a belt that’s what, 8 inches wide? just say no…
The “size 2” thing comes from her Dukes of Hazzard days. It was widely reported at the time. Her “regular” weight is definitely above that. So 4-6 may be reasonable. And 10-12 could be reasonable for her now as well. But as stated in comments elsewhere on this post, women’s sizes are so cracked out from manufacturer to manufacturer that that doesn’t really mean much.
And yeah, the outfit choice was just awful, but that’s why I added the daisyduke comparison pictures on this as well. She’s clearly put on some weight as well as making bad clothing choices. For the record, I kinda agree that the outfit was the bigger sin.
Call her fat to her face.
I recently had a conversation with a friend complaining about what fat is and isn’t. She’s a skinny little thing in her 40s whose never been anywhere close to fat and she was tossing the word around like skinny people do, not really realizing what it feels like to be called fat to your face. To have people laugh at you and call you names, my personal favorite from middle school was ‘bubbo-buns’… that one really stuck around. I had to tell her that it stung to hear her use that word because I have vivid memories about it that really hurt.
Although you may be be comfortable on your relatively anonymous blog, dishing out judgments about what hot people’s job are, you should realize how ignorant you come off. The most tellingly ignorant part of this post, Mav, is where you express shock that she’s a ‘surprisingly decent singer’. The implication being that anyone as hot as she used to be doesn’t need to be any good at anything else to hold your interest. Maybe gaining weight is her strategy to get sex-object fixated people like you to listen to her voice instead of staring at her tits? God forbid.
Putting on a spare tire and feeling like you aren’t the athlete you once were doesn’t even come close to knowing what’s it like growing up fat. When someone calls you that to your face it means its all that they see about you. Its not an adjective, its who you are, and nothing else matters about you. I don’t presume to understand the black experience in America because I’ve lived in a community for the last year where I am racial minority. So until a dickhead comes up to your face and puts you down the way us real fatties have been you don’t have a right to pretend like you know our shame. And unless you have the temerity and hatefulness to call Jessica ‘fat’ to her face stop snickering about her and tossing labels whose import you clearly don’t understand.
p.s. Obama rules
Re: Call her fat to her face.
Yeah… Maverick you insensitive dick. You are watering down the meaning of the word fat. Save it for the people who really are fat.
(anonymous: I think that was the gist of your argument, right?)
Re: Call her fat to her face.
heh… my apologies. I am an ass.
Re: Call her fat to her face.
Lots of stuff to respond to here:
First of all: you assume that I wouldn’t say that to her face and I’m hiding behind some anonymous blog. Umm, clearly you don’t know me at all. I’m all about taking credit for my opinions. I tend to be “a little” nicer when I say them in person than when I write them here, but I definitely will still share them. I’ve been writing very opinionated commentary on the internet for 17 years, and lending my opinions in comments to other people’s posts, and I sign each and every one of them. I certainly don’t comment anonymously, as you’re doing here.
Second, no, I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to grow up fat, and no I never would pretend to, as you make a great comparison about not knowing what it’s like to grow up black, but that wasn’t the point. Jessica Simpson doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up fat either. I even said, that she’s not really fat. Not for a regular person. But, unlike a regular person, Jessica Simpson has made a career out of the way she looks. Her father/manager announced to the world that we should worship her for her chest when she 18 years old. And she wasn’t picked to play Daisy Duke because of how well she could sing. You don’t get to flaunt your body in front of the world for 10 years and then suddenly put the cat back in the bag. If you want to gain weight, that’s fine. But you can’t do it and expect people to not comment on it.
No, I wasn’t at all implying that skinny people couldn’t sing. Not was I implying that fat people can’t. Christina Augliera is far skinnier than Jessica EVER has been, and I think she has an amazing voice. While never being “obese” Mariah Carey has fluctuated in weight throughout her career, and she has the widest octave range of any person living on the planet today. Aretha Franklin is currently huge, and her voice is amazing. Weight has nothing to do with how you sound. My comment was more that some people seem to think she’s a no talent carbon copy pop singer, and I disagree, she’s actually got a surprisingly decent voice. BUT, that’s not why she’s famous. She’s famous because she has a decent voice and tits that “look like she’s hiding two midgets in there.” (Again, quoting her father/manager).
Finally, I specifically stated that there’s people far bigger than her that I wouldn’t classify as fat. But we’re not talking about them. We’re talking about her. And to pretend that she hasn’t gained weight is silly, and to pretend that it doesn’t effect who she is, even more so. Being a pop star is about more than your ability to sing, and Jessica of Newlyweds fame was pretty clear to point that out. She can certainly change her mind now, if she wants, but she can’t pretend that she has always felt that way, because she hasn’t. And she can’t pretend that it’s not news to suddenly change your entire image, because it is.
Re: Call her fat to her face.
Total tangent here – Mariah Carey actually has like a 3 and a half to 4 octave range, which is impressive, but not the 8 that gets thrown around. And she has amazing whistle tones. The person with the actual widest vocal range (in the Guiness book and all) is a Brazilian pop singer named Georgia Brown. I encourage you to look her up on Youtube. I don’t particularly care for the timbre of her voice, but the fact that a human being can make those tones is jaw-dropping.
Re: Call her fat to her face.
You know, I’m not sure if she does or not. According to wikipedia, she personally only claims to have a 5 octave range, though they state that like many other singers her range is actually much wider than that. Anyway, whether she was or not wasn’t the point so much as I was saying that if Simpson were capable of coming close, her weight wouldn’t be anywhere near this much of an issue.
Odd coincidence, Wikipedia also quotes the Village Voice saying: “the new r&b demands a greater range of emotional expression, smarter poetry, more from-the-gut testifying, and less unnecessary notes than the squeaky-clean and just plain squeaky Mariah era. Nowadays it’s the Christina Aguileras and Jessica Simpsons who awkwardly oversing, while the women with roof-raising lung power keep it in check when tune or lyric demands.”
Re: Call her fat to her face.
That was my post Mav, forgot to login, and I know that you can be a less of a dick in real life. Like it or not your blog is relatively anonymous because its just your circle of friends on the little playground of livejournal listening in and its to them you peddle your ‘frank’ views on how to insult people by being judgemental. Whether you’re a bully in a schoolyard or a shock jock on satellite radio its still not cool to think you get to be the arbiter of labels because you’re willing to offend people for attention.
Your point about Jessica’s changing body shape and public expectations for sex appeal seem valid if typically shallow, but promoting the blunt and derogatory labelling of people as ‘fat’ is crappy. Joking about President Obama endorsing this usage is pretty galling too since the words he read off the magazine cover were about battling weight, not about making a joke at her expense let alone hurling insults like you do.
By the way I would posit that Jessica’s natural body shape is not likely represented by her appearance in the Duke’s movie. I heard her workout and diet regimen to achieve that figure was bordering on insane.
Re: Call her fat to her face.
more lots of stuff to respond to.
My issue isn’t being called a dick. Honestly, like you guessed I do that quite intentionally, and if you’d have simply said “Mav, you’re being mean” I would have laughed it off and made some smartass comment like I did to above. But I think your claim that I am being anonymous is untrue. If anything I’m simply unpopular. If US Weekly were goodly enough to give me a column in their magazine I would have said the exact same stuff. For the record, I’m a bit more popular than “just my friends.” I have the logs to prove it, and I don’t know everyone who commented here. But that isn’t really of issue either. At essence I’m an opinionated asshole, and I like expressing those opinions, not because I really want to change anyone’s opinions on anything, but quite the contrary, I like hearing what other’s opinions are. I find it interesting and enlightening to know how people, such as yourself, disagree with me and why. Sure I could just express my crazy opinions on stuff to Steph and other people I see every day in real life, but its far more interesting to see how people I don’t know, or people I do know, but never see because they up and moved to Hawaii, feel about certain topics. Without blogging about it, I’d never know how strongly you feel about the subject and that would suck. That’s the cool thing about the internet. In the old days, someone like me would only get to do something like this if they were lucky enough to be a shock jock on satellite radio (or whatever). But the internet gives me the ability to get some of the same feedback that Howard Stern or Opie and Anthony would get without being lucky (or talented) enough for someone to give me my own show.
Next point. See the thing about Jessica’s weight isn’t really an opinion of mine. And in fact, I don’t even really care if she’s fat or not. If you pay attention I even hinted in the post (and said explicitly in some of these comments) that i actually think she’s still quite attractive. If I met her in a bar, I’d probably say she was hot. But I didn’t meet her in a bar. She’s a person on TV. A person who’s entire career, for better or worse, is based upon the way she looks. You made the statement that maybe she did it on purpose to get more people to pay attention to her voice instead of her chest. But do you really believe that? If she did that, she wouldn’t have worn the (poorly chosen) outfit she did. She’s done it her whole career. You and Jessica are both musicians. Do you really and truly believe that she’s more famous than you because she’s a better musician? Because her music is more accessible? Or is it something else? I’d argue that the reason Jessica Simpson is a millionaire and you’re not is because she has a more marketable body. Just about every single outfit she’s worn in public in the past ten years has been carefully cultivated to say “look at me world! I’m skinny and have big tits!. By all accounts, even her sister’s, she exaggerates the dumb bimbo routine because that helps her career as well. Ask yourself, can you even name five Jessica Simpson songs without looking them up? Three? Even one? I’m not responsible for making the world think that she’s nothing but breathing, walking, talking T&A. She did that herself. On purpose. And now that the image isn’t quite there, she has to deal with the backlash.
This post was never really about me calling her fat. Really, my point is more to combat her defenders who say “why is everyone making such a big deal of her weight? It shouldn’t matter.” The answer is because she made it matter.
[Continued…]
Re: Call her fat to her face.
[Continued from above…]
Obama’s comment. Was he calling her fat. Nope. I said that. But he was making a joke at her expense. His own as well. The crux of the joke was “OMG! Jessica Simpson put on a few pounds, well, that’s clearly more important than me being leader of the free world.” I brought him up to make fun of the people getting mad at it. Hence comparing it to Clinton and Bush’s edicts at the end.
The crux of it seems that you’re not so much mad at me pointing out that she gained weight and that can and should affect her career. You seem more upset that I specifically used the word “fat.” That’s fair. But really, as you already pointed out, I pretty much insult everyone when I’m ranting about them. I did the same thing when I wrote about Lindsay Lohan being too skinny a few years back, and that was even with me specifically attempting to tone it down a bit, since I happen to consider anorexia a more serious problem than a skinny woman putting on an extra 20 pounds. The thing is, what could I have said. I could say she was overweight. That’s a medical term that clearly doesn’t describe her. I could have said “less thin” each time, but that would make for an awkward read. On the other hand I can call her fat and make jokes about the president and that makes for an interesting read which opens up the window to much debate, which as I said was the point in the first place. And even if you were offended by this particular rant, you have to give me a little credit here. I’m not just writing my feelings. I’m writing to entertain, and by all accounts, I’m accomplishing that to at least some extent.
And yes, her size 2 Dukes body isn’t her natural size. I used that for greater effect. But she’s probably pretty naturally a 4 or 6 (as pointed out elsewhere here) and it’s pretty clear from the link I sent earlier that her recent weight gain was pretty sudden.
Personally, I think she looks better as a 12 than as a 2. Her in Dukes of Hazzard was too thin, and I think it made her face look sickly. Now probably an ideal size for her would be around an 8, but hey, I’m not at an 8 either 🙂
The “mom” jeans were definitely a bad choice, but she looks fine in the other outfit. You’re right about one thing though, I definitely don’t think she’s going to take this criticism well at all…I’m betting she’s back to a 2 within 6 months.
Yeah, the biggest objection I have to her (going by what I see in those tiny four pictures up there) is that she chose a really horrendously unflattering cut of jeans to wear.
If she’s really up 5 sizes, she looks -damn- good for it.
BTW, what the heck is that “size” measuring, anyways? My jeans range from 2 to 9, depending on the brand, and I bet dresses would be the same, if I ever wore any.
that I’ll grant. She does still look good for how much weight she’s supposedly gained. But yeah, women’s sizes are ridiculous. I’ll never forget taking someone shopping and having them be a size 6 in one store and a size 0 in another.
There seems to be a trend that the more expensive the clothes, the smaller the size. Yes, people apparently are happy to pay extra money to call their clothes a smaller number. Sizes have also dropped dramatically over decades. When I was a young teenager, I wore a 4 in most mid-range women’s clothes, a 0 or 00 in really fucking fancy stuff, and had some vintage 40s-50s wear that was something like a 12 to a 14. (Also note the whole “Marilyn Monroe was a size 14” urban legend. There are clothes that she wore in movies in museums. She was TINY.) Another amusing side-item to this is that most big brands of fashion patterns for sewers have never taken to the downward creep. When I occasionally buy patterns to use for myself, I think my measurements are in the range of size 20 by the patterns, and I currently wear something like a 10 in most mid-range women’s clothes.
At least there’s still bras and men’s sizing in pants that just go by the numbers. I’m highly unclear on what the deal is with numbered size.
Oh totally, that’s well established. And yeah, Marilyn was petite, but her breasts and butt were rather ample for someone of her size. And as you said, the sizes were different back then. But really, whatever. As I said, Jessica certainly isn’t “huge” now, so it’s all relative.
But yeah, women’s sizes don’t make sense. They’re made to make you feel better.
Actually, I kind of agree. I personally think she specifically looks better being thinner than she is now, but yeah, I thought she was a little too thin as Daisy. She looks great at her “normal” performing weight.
And yes, the mom jeans were just a bad choice, despite the fact that the Access Hollywood brigade has been defending those too.
And yeah, despite what she’s said in her rebuttals about being happy and beautiful the way she is now, you know she’s going to be shrinking back now.
There is no way on God’s green earth that she’s wearing a size 12, unless it’s some extremely mutant clothing label.
I know this because *I* am a 12 (yes, still, even though I’m 5 months pregnant) and I have sisters who range from size 4 to size 14 and poor Jessica is “oh so fat” at…looks like maybe a 6 or an 8.
P.S. It looks like she’s one of those women who puts on weight all in her midsection, which makes her look fatter than she actually is.
I’m not disagreeing with you that her job is to be super-hot, because, well, yes.
Also in her ass. When I was downloading images to make the picture for this post, I also had a choice of her butt in the Daisy Duke outfit vs. what she looked like on stage in the mom jeans. I just chose to go another way. She’s definitely put on a lot of weight there as well.
As I was saying with, women’s clothing having mutant sizes is the norm these days, sadly. I have dresses in my model closet that are size 12 that wouldn’t fit over ONE of your boobs, and yet, I could probably also find size 12 jeans that are too big for you. And especially when you’re looking at Hollywood designer clothing, it’s completely whacked out. Your general high couture designer considers Marilyn Monroe to have been a size 12 by today’s standards. Crazyness…
Women’s sizes are arbitrary, you label your clothes whatever size you want. And, each size tends to get bigger as time goes on, `cause women feel good about themselves when they fit into that size 8, and are thus more likely to buy it.
The exception are wedding dresses, which are standardized and are not subject to size inflation. Which causes some women a shock when they go to try on dresses.
Jessica Simpson looks like a trannie with a magnificent boob job.
heh… I hadn’t thought of her as a tranny before. That’s funny.
Right — they do vary a lot. But there’s usually a center around which a certain size swirls, except for the mutant outliers (usually high-end stuff).
yeah, but I don’t think it’s as “ususal” as you do. I think it’s more an aspect of not just high-end but personal style. Most people tend to stay at the same subset of stores and labels. So if you shop at 5-7-9 you’re going to get a different set of sizes than you would at Bloomingdales. I run into this a lot because I end up buying clothes at a different set of places for Steph than I do for my sister or for my models or for whoever I might be doing a makeover for back when i was doing them. Wet Seal for instance is notoriously bad at this. A lot of times the girls who work there will even tell you that it’s a 4 size shift (and usually to odd numbers) on a lot of their brands. And when you get to the lower sizes, it gets even more drastic. If you wear a size 12 in say Levi’s jeans, you’re probably an 7 or 9 at Wet Seal. If you wear an 8 in Levi’s you may be as low as a 3 or 1 at Wet Seal. Body Central sizes run a little larger than that, but smaller than American Eagle sizes. On the other hand, if you tend to shop only at Wet Seal or only at AE or only at Sears, you’re unlikely to notice as much.
It’s actually really funny to take a girl to wet seal and have her insist that she’s a size 10, and then have her try on a dress and it won’t even stay up on her.
Wet Seal, though, is a label that has its own shop, rather than a wide selection of labels.
Bloomingdale’s isn’t telling the labels that sell through there how to set their sizing; there are a fair few labels that do their own wacky sizing. (I’m a size 4 in James Perse, fr’ex.)
Comparing stores that sell only one label to stores that sell a wide array isn’t going to tell you much about what the actual normal variation (vs the outliers) in the industry.
In most of the labels sold in the US, I will wear either a 12 or a 14. I’m not saying that weird labels don’t exist, but sorting out by storefront rather than by whether the label itself has wacky sizing isn’t very useful for telling you what the main body of the industry is doing.
Lets forget Jessica Simpson . Im interested in your thoughts about what happened with Rhianna and Chris Brown over the weekend. Is there anything in the world dumber that invoking the wrath of Hova?
I have a co-worker with a sister in Barbados, and that shit’s all over the news there. If Chris Brown were to set foot on Barbados right now, they would kill the hell out of him.
Not to mention that she’s the prodigy of Jay-Z. It’s not just career suicide, it might quite literally be signing your own death warrant.
Yeah he should have given Nas a call. How do you forget hes the PRESIDENT of DEF JAM fer christsake…
Exactly.
Jay-Z is a little bitch. And even worse, his rapping skills are mediocre at best.
Ok, now you’re just being intentionally mean and hurtful…
*snif*
I think it’s tragic. Tragedy + Time = Comedy. I thought about writing about that last night as well, but I felt that I couldn’t do it “in character” without very insensitively commenting on how much I still wanted to fuck her, and it just seemed to inappropriate. See, contrary to popular belief, I do actually have a moral compass.
That said, for the record I think it’s awful. By all accounts, Rihanna would be one of the biggest “gets” alive today. And for the guy who got her to do that is just beyond stupid. For a guy to beat any woman is stupid, but when you’re an internationally famous superstar, beating on your internationally famous superstar girlfriend, in public, before the Grammys, which you’re both supposed to perform at, you’re just an idiot. Even Ike Turner had better sense than that.
Way to muster the moral outrage there — the way I was raised, hitting women is wrong, not “stupid.” And it isn’t wrong because she’s a good “get.”
Speaking of hitting women, shouldn’t you be blogging about this?
Finally, the only significance Jessica Simpson has in the cosmos lies in jinxing Tony Romo. And therefore I think we should be nothing but emotionally supportive of her, no matter what.
Hitting women is just as wrong as hitting men. A wise man once said, “If a woman is man enough to throw a punch, then she’s man enough to take a punch.”
Agreed, in principle. In practice, it is more wrong to hit someone weaker than you are, and, like it or not, women are not typically physically as strong as men. I’d agree with you 100% if we’re talking a gun fight, but we’re not.
Of course, I have to admit some ignorance of the principals and the situation here. For all I know, she’s a black belt ninja, and he’s a 95 lb. weakling who hasn’t signed up with Charles Atlas yet, and she was threatening to launch a nuclear salvo at the White House if he didn’t stop her. Which would change things. But I kind of doubt it.
Are you talking about Rihanna and Brown again? Yeah, he’s way bigger than her. By all accounts she apparently is pretty demanding and clingy on him. At least that’s what some of the papers are saying. I dunno if that’s true or not, and I don’t know how bad it got, but I’ve always been a firm believer in physical abuse is worse than emotional abuse. I don’t care if someone yells at you at the top of their lungs and says horrible things about your mother, you don’t get to hit them. No matter which gender they are and no matter which gender you are. And seeing as how I doubt he was defending our nation from the terror of Rihanna, I’m inclined to think he was out of line too.
yeah, that’s true. Am I against violence against women? Yes. I’m actually against violence against anyone.
“We teach peace, not pieces”
–
Word. I’m a man of peace.
It’s great to say you’re about the peace, and against hitting people smaller/weaker than you. If that’s what you mean, say “I don’t start fights” or “I don’t hit people smaller/weaker than me.” Don’t say “I don’t hit women” then backpeddle about how it’s not about gender.
(This is not directed at you Jameel, clearly; I’m just making a general statement.)
I’m not sure I totally understand the point here.
See, now you’re asking me to seriously address an issue, which really isn’t what I do here. And which is exactly why I ended up deciding NOT to write about it.
So, let me clarify. Hitting anyone is “wrong.” Man or woman. Hitting a woman less than half your size, even more so. You’re a guy, and if a woman twice your size gets in an argument with you and decks you, that’s wrong.
Hitting an internationally famous popstar in front of witnesses is “stupid.”
The reason I pointed out the whole attractiveness thing is that this is going to end badly for Brown not because domestic abuse is bad. As Steph pointed out after the superbowl, half of the guys in that game seem to have charges of domestic abuse (she was kinda sickened by it when she was reading about it). But they more or less get away with it. Do their time, or pay their fine and we don’t care about anything other than the fact that they can make a 100 yard TD interception. No, the reason I point out the attractiveness is because that’s what is making the world take notice. Supposedly, a woman is beaten by her husband every 9 seconds in the US. As big a Rihanna fan as I am, I actually consider the millions who you never hear about WAY more tragic than the one famous one that you do.
Worse, what really bothers me is that I fully expect that rather than Jay-Z and the Barbados Mafia rubbing him out, like I joked, she’ll forgive him. Her PR people will say it’s not that bad and try to cover it up and damage control. Maybe he’ll get some token anger management consoling. Sure, that’s her business, but it’s going to send an awful message to all the other abused women across the country. And people will die. it sucks.
But didn’t ask for my opinions on domestic abuse. He asked for my opinions on the Rihanna/Chris Brown situation. So I set my general opinions on abuse aside and tried to approach what made their situation special objectively. This is a story, not because she’s abused, but because she’s abused and she’s currently one of America’s biggest sex symbols. And that’s what I was commenting on.
As for the Jericho situation. I actually don’t talk all that much about wrestling here. It just didn’t seem relevant because he’s really not THAT big a celebrity in the grand scheme of things (he’s huge in the pro-wrestling world). If I were going to talk about a controversial celebrity blow-up, then Christian Bale is the one that it’s in vogue to pick on right now. From the video he looks like a total ass. From the backstory that’s floating around (which is written in the More Info section of the youtube post, which probably no one ever reads), he was probably quite justified in defending himself (though I think he went overboard)
To Quote Gladstone from Cracked.com…
My thougts, as best encapsulated by another blogger:
“No one is saying that chubby women are worthless. But everyone is saying that no one cares about worthless women who used to have good bodies. And don’t think this is confined to women. Do you think Keanu Reeves would still get work if he let himself go? Oh really? When’s the last time you saw Val Kilmer in a summer blockbuster? So the key here is don’t be useless. And set your sights higher than Jessica Simpson. Emulate women who have, you know, done something. And the great thing is, if you do that, you won’t have to worry about your dress size. And you won’t have to run to your MySpace page crying about the mean things blogging scum like me have said about you.”
Re: To Quote Gladstone from Cracked.com…
Exactly. I wouldn’t even say she’s untalented. She’s actually a pretty good singer. Not an amazing one, but pretty good. But she’s not good enough to have gotten where she is on her voice alone (as opposed to say Mariah Carey or Aretha Franklin, both of whom I think could have gotten there without being hot). I’m not even saying that being hot isn’t a talent. I think it is. I don’t think it’s useless. What I’m saying is that being hot was her MAIN talent and now that’s gone. Frankly, she’s not even unattractive. Despite the poor choice outfit, I actually think she’s still kinda pretty. But she’s not currently hot enough that MTV would have given her a TV show or she would be cast in Duke’s of Hazzard.
Re: To Quote Gladstone from Cracked.com…
She’s an OK singer. If she was a good singer, we wouldn’t even be having this debate. No one cared when Barbara Streisand got bigger because she could still sing. “Singing” was what got Jessica in front of the recording equipment, not what kept her there.
And being hot is like being lucky. It isn’t useless, but it is extremely disposable.
I am sure she still looks great naked. And yes, the outfits make her look like hell.
My guess: this is weight from a pregnancy, either current or past tense.
Re: To Quote Gladstone from Cracked.com…
Yeah, that’s my entire point. I used Aretha Franklin as my example. She used to be a great skinny singer, now she’s a great fat singer. Jessica didn’t make her career on her voice though.
And yes being hot is lucky, but there’s stuff you can do to maintain it, and whether that failed or not, the issue is pretending it isn’t an issue. Obviously it is.
And yes, she probably still looks great naked. But that wasn’t the issue. Most guys aren’t actually fucking her, or even seeing her naked, so all she has to sell is her visual image and that’s not there right now.
Re: To Quote Gladstone from Cracked.com…
To Clarify:
1) Hot isn’t the same as lucky, but they are similar in that they are disposable. I didn’t mean to say you are lucky if you are hot. What I meant is that you can’t bank on havign a career with eaither, becasue you can’t really gues show long either will last. Yes, you can do things to maintain hotness, but you never know how you will age, how the plastic surgery will look, etc…
2) The “looking great naked” was more a comment on the idea that she is still attractive, just not in those jeans. Compairing how she looked in a bikini on The Dukes of Hazard to how she looks in those jeans now is apples and oranges.
As stated before, when you are famous for what you look like, then any decline in that will attract attention, even if it isn’t that big of a decline.
Re: To Quote Gladstone from Cracked.com…
1) Fair. That’s kind of my whole point here. No matter what she says today, Jessica certainly made a calculated risk with the way she’s constructed her career thus far. That risk paid off and made her millions. Now she has to deal with the consequences.
2) Again, I totally agree. For the record, that’s why I showed a picture of her in the jeans from Dukes as well as the cut-offs.
Right, the point isn’t whether the person in the mom jeans is attractive or not. The point is has she hurt her marketability by turning into that person from who she was before.
It’s her job to look hot but she can only be hot as a size 2,4,6 or whatever really thin size she was when she played Daisy Duke?
Wow.
can a person only look hot at size 2? No. There are lots of women of all sizes who are hot. Can Jessica Simpson? Well, I don’t know. But she doesn’t look that way right now. That’s the issue.
Mav! That kind of commenting is why so many women have self image issues, and women who have those issues aren’t going to hear what you think you are saying.
actually, you’ve got it backwards. The problem isn’t what I think I’m saying. It’s what you think you’re hearing. I never said that a non-petite woman couldn’t be attractive. Quite the contrary, I said I think that Jessica IS attractive currently, and even said I know people much bigger than her (or me) that I find attractive. I can’t be responsible for every misunderstanding that someone makes. And while it could be argued that I’m an ass for being intentionally mean spirited in what I say, as I said before, that’s also what makes me interesting. I could have posted a very simple “I think it sucks that celebrities are mad that the media is making a big deal of the media saying Jessica Simpson gained weight, because she clearly did. And this matters because she spent the last ten years showing off how thin she was.” That might have been less offensive and it might have gotten the gist of my point across, but it’s not very interesting and wouldn’t have garnered any discussion, so why bother?
For the record, I don’t for a moment believe women have self-image issues because of stuff I say. They’re much more likely to have self-image issues for stuff Jessica Simpson did and said. I certainly didn’t spend the last 10 years parading my size 2 body with 34D breasts around on national publications. Jessica Simpson did. She made a conscious decision to make a career out of her body, and now she’s dealing with the ramifications of that.
For the record, and just to throw fuel on the fire. *I* don’t have a problem with Jessica Simpson did. I think that it’s totally legitimate to make a career out of whatever gifts you have. If you’re hot, work with it. If you’re smart, work with it. It’s human nature to be compare yourself to the physical. I find that fascinating. You (or a person, I don’t necessarily mean you specifically) may feel bad about yourself because you don’t have Jessica’s “superhot” body. But do you feel bad about yourself for not being as smart as Marilyn vos Savant? For that matter, do you feel good about yourself for being smarter than Jessica? Why not? Jessica’s lack of intelligence is just as well publicized as her figure.
In fact, if I had written a rant about how Ashlee Simpson and Tony Romo shouldn’t claim Jessica Simpson is smart when she’s clearly dumb instead of what I wrote, would you have been nearly as outraged? What about if I criticized Anna Kournikova for not being as good a tennis player as she used to be. Or Neil Diamond for not being as good a singer? If none of those things bother you then it isn’t my fault for being critical of something. It’s that you consider looks/weight to be more important that intelligence, tennis ability or singing voice (or at least the criticism thereof). To put it another way, if I had criticized the decline of the New England Patriots this season over last year, you wouldn’t have cared at all, because you don’t care about football like you care about weight.
ok, now you have crossed the line. i saw neil diamond in concert this summer and he was just as good a singer as he has ever been. it was the best concert i have ever been to, partly because of his ability to put on a good show, but also because of his singing ability.
Heh…. now you sound like me when your boyfriend made the Jay-Z crack.
So Neil was on the grammys performing the other night. He sounded old. I’m not saying he wasn’t good. But he didn’t sound as good to me as Neil Diamond 20 years ago sounded.
I think she looks pretty hot in all those photos. If her goal is to be hot, I would say, mission accomplished!
well, it depends on how you define hot. In real life people’s tastes vary from person to person. One guy might like 5’4, 100 lbs. blondes and another guy likes 6’2 350 lbs. redheads. This is a good thing, because it means that everyone can find love/get laid if they look hard enough.
In real life, she could walk into any bar in America and get laid if that was her goal.
But I’d argue that Jessica’s job is essentially “be as marketably hot to as wide an audience as possible.” It’s clear that she’s better capable of doing that at size 2 than she is at a size 12. Otherwise, there’d be no issue and the magazines wouldn’t have bothered to put her on the cover.
If you identify her job as to be marketably hot to the mainstream culture, perhaps you’re right. I am certantly not mainstream culture.
However, I’m not sure I see that as her job. Her current job seems to be to be singing country music, which, as far as I can see, she can do at a size 2 or 12. I’m not a country music fan, but there are successful curvy women in that industry. Perhaps, at this point in her career, being a size two is not a priority.
I’m sure she’ll get some fantastic advertising deal with weight watchers or jenny or some other weight-loss corp if and when she decides to lose weight. It could actually be a great financial move – gain a couple lbs and lose them all for millions.
nah, she’s still a pop singer. She had a little crossover, but primarily she’s going after the top 40 crowd. And she doesn’t have the chops to get there on vocal talent or dancing ability and charisma, so the look is pretty important. And country music is basically pop music at this point too. Image is everything.
But her real job is being a celebrity. She’s a lot more famous for being her than she is for being a singer. Can you name three jessica simpson songs without looking them out? I know you’re not mainstream, but that’s not all. No one can. As opposed to Britney Spears, who you might be able to do that with even not being a fan.
By all accounts in the week since I posted this, she’s already started crazy weight loss.
You know, without googling, I can only name one Britney Song.
I am totally out of touch with the mainstream. . .
still better than you can do with Jessica, right? And I bet if you google and see like her five biggest hits you’d be like “oh yeah, I’ve heard that one” with most of them. I bet you wouldn’t be that way with Jessica Simpson.
It’s sort of like when I argued that one would assume the vast majority of people living in this country have seen Pamela Anderson naked.
Another way I’m out of the mainstream. I have not seen P.A. naked.
really? even on accident? I just kinda assume, that you’d be on the internet and happen upon a picture of her at some point or another. I was actually trying to make a point about mainstream pop culture. It was a while ago, but since you bring it up, I’d be curious to know what your thoughts there are:
http://chrismaverick.livejournal.com/247269.html