Everybody hates the new Jessica Simpson cover of Vanity Fair, almost as much as they hate the story. To the Backlash Mobile!
- Entertainment Weekly says there isn't enough new insight into how she's battling the Epic Fat that has a stranglehold on her upper thighs. At least, not enough to justify the "You Call This FAT?" teaser on the cover. They also carp that she has no new movie or album pending. Why would VF waste their time with someone neither dieting nor newsworthy?
Valid? It's true! No insight into The Fat is revealed in the piece -- or none from Simpson's own lips, anyway. For that, please glance above the gum at every other glossy in the checkout stand. But if there are no cellulite revelations, whence the cover quotation marks? Is VF author Rich Cohen supposed to have uttered the "You Call This" bit? Or is the mag merely surmising our thoughts, omnisciently, as we marvel at the static cling of J.Simp's white goddess gown?
Vapid? Way to show your hand there, EW. We know you feel that there's no point in writing about an entertainer if you're not helping to shill their crap, but eek. Do you have to say it so plainly?
- Vulture over at New York's site has beef with the fact that no new ground is covered in the piece, which VF has entitled "The Jessica Question." For those of us who've followed the Family Simpson since the "Newlyweds" days, it's basically a 5,000-word snoozer of a background file on her journey from purity ring-wearing pop tart to country-crooning girlfriend of a Dallas Cowboy.
Valid? Yes, it's true -- Cohen never answers the question that Cohen posits, which is whether Jessica will reinvent and prosper into her 30s, or simply become a starlet whose apex came when she was on Vanity Fair's cover.
Vapid? We think the new ground is in Mario Testino's photos. Jessica looks elegant and poised -- quick, when was the last time that happened? Loosely swathed in a masculine bathrobe, with a gleaming platinum bob, she looks like a poolside Grace Kelly in "High Society." It's Conde Nastification. Like that time that Vogue got its uptown hands on Sienna Miller, and actually brushed her hair.
- MSNBC is annoyed at the inconsistency that a J.Simp cover represents -- this year in Vanity Fair covers, we've had Barack Obama, Tina Fey and Gisele Bundchen. Which one of these is not like the others?
Valid? Tina Fey on top of the world was a high point that the June cover doesn't match, nor approach -- it sopped equally to old-timey sex appeal (lusty pin-up!) and highbrow smarts (Balanchine's "Stars and Stripes," anyone?). Though Jessica's trademark curves pack plenty of the former, she's famous for an absence of the latter.
Vapid? Tell us: What is the difference between Gisele's and Jessica's cover? Both stories touch on the girls' respective relationships with major NFL quarterbacks. Both have little to no news peg whatsoever. Both women talk about the media's intrusion into their personal lives. Both make cover-worthiness out of their physiques -- Gisele perhaps moreso, as she's essentially in her birthday suit. But the model's cover was par for the course, while the singer's is silly and demeaning. Huh?
What do you think? And who would you have rather seen?
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
