Anna Nicole Smith - Return of the Blonde Monster
Published February 11, 2007
I suppose there are people much more deserving of compassion than Anna Nicole Smith, but I can’t think of many. That sounds condescending, though I don’t mean it to be – she was, as so many people have pointed out, a “girl who came from nothing” and managed to make “something” out of herself. Perhaps she’s an example of the American dream, as some suggest, and she might even warrant an entry into that fucked-up club of Great Blondes that she was so desperate to join … but to me she’ll always remain a vicious caricature of all she aspired to become.
There have been some attempts the past couple of days to portray her as some sort of wounded bird that we secretly loved and publicly mocked. But you and I both know that’s bullshit. Anna Nicole Smith was never a beloved American icon – at best, she was a cautionary tale.
You know those clips of American Idol in which the rejects stagger out of the audition room sobbing that they “wanted to start out famous” and are now shattered that they have to “go back to being a nobody”? Well, Smith was the one who went on and did it. She became famous (used to be called "notorious" in the old days) without having much to back it up, unless you count fake boobs and marriage to a rich old man; and used that fame to further her "career".
And her career was… herself. She appeared on the cover of Playboy: an upscale version of what she used to do with her body in the pre-Howard Marshall days. She got brief glimpses of hope – she replaced Claudia Schiffer as the face of Guess jeans – hopes that flickered on and off throughout her life. But they didn’t last, and Playboy remains her foremost achievement. In many ways, it was the perfect vehicle for her – you didn’t know what she sounded like, what was going on behind the scenes. All you saw was that voluptuous mirage of the glamorous blonde pouting back at you.
It was apparently a lesson she took to heart as you can see in footage – whenever a camera’s on, she can’t stop flaunting her body; the moment it's switched off, a somewhat expressionless woman takes over. It all came to a head with that awful, compulsive reality series, The Anna Nicole Show. "Anna Nicole’" was originally a persona she created for a nobody with an eighth grade education from Texas. It ended up defining who she was as a person and what her life was all about.
- Anna Nicole Smith - Return of the Blonde Monster
- Published: February 11, 2007
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Writer: Amrita Rajan
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Comments on this articleComments
Of course I meant "everything" not everyting, I actually graduated and never got fake boobs...
That was EXTREMELY well written!!
Forget about the cynical moral gibberish, Anna's is an epic love story with a tragic ending.
Where love is concerned, nothing else matters.
ANS was a Bleached Brunette and the part she was playing was a Bleached Brunette. The self-created stereotype of the Bleached Brunette is the dumb slut and every Bleached Brunette voluntarily joins the group. They use the GOOD name Blonde to hide behind and they need to be outed and called by their own obviously ugly name; Bleached Brunette. That will put the brakes on their 'careers' and make them actually look at how ugly bleach-coloured hair really is compared to normal human-coloured hair. Then maybe they'd behave like normal people.
Dori - hey there is no judgment here... at least not until the sex tape with hugh hefner (blech!) emerges. thanks for reading! :)
Courtney - thank you!
Mohjho - erm, you need two people for an epic love story. Funny thing - I dont see a second person.
Carol - didnt mean to diss blondes. I know plenty of blonde people (natural and otherwise) who're very talented and genuine people.
You have a point when you say these women are (mostly) bleached brunettes, but thats not a secret is it? Everybody knew that, even back in the day when Jean Harlow was literally pouring bleach on her head but nobody cared even back then coz the final product sold really well.
Point is, those women - Harlowe, Turner, Lombard, Monroe, Mansfield, set up this blonde bombshell act that sold really well. But these women had something to back it up. But once they passed on, the machine needed something or someone to fill the void and what it picked up on was the image.
Blonde hair, big boobs, big smile, few clothes. Sadly, today the real actual women behind those things have vanished into the image. ANS is just an extreme example.
I agree with everything you said. Take away money from the equation and all you have left is a drug addicted stripper. Definitely nothing to admire about that. Pretty sad actually when you consider how much news it's gotten over the last several days. Genuinely talented artists die and they barely get a mention.
Unaccomplished and utterly pointles, it's unreal the attention she got. Gossip blunts the brain.
It is a fabulous piece of writing but reading it makes me feel really sad for Ms. Smith.
Penny Genovese made a huge ass of Trimspa & Anna Nicole & her husband Joe. She is as out of control as Anna, drugs, promicuous sexy with random strangers she used Anna & Trimspa for media attention.
Speaking of Hugh Hefner, the biggest slut of all...he's the one who's made a lot of these "tragic" bimbos what they are/were, and that's about all he's ever slept with. Without the yellow-white hair, big implants, and superficials attitudes these women possess, they wouldn't get any recognition; they'd be nothing.
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You said everyting I feel so succintly.. BRAVO! I'm a fan from now on....