Thursday, February 14, 2008

Leave Vicky alone.

So last night when I was all grudging on the blue skirt, I had the TV on while I was getting ready to go to the gym.

I ran across this gem: What’s Eating Victoria Beckham.

It’s a “documentary” on BBC America all about Posh Spice’s transformation from normal-sized wannabe starlet to crazy skinny fashionista who doesn’t smile.

This was a great opportunity for a thoughtful discussion about women’s body issues, the personal choice to do your thing or relent to society’s expectations, and the impact of beauty-driven body changes on women’s health.

Instead, it was a sleezefest of former boyfriends, former Spice Girl handlers and even former dermatologists and dentists dishing on Posh’s ongoing body image issues.

They dished about what she would eat and when and how the Spice Girls all had food issues. They ragged on about how she has always had bad skin, but it’s better now because she’s obviously getting lots of dermatological treatments. And the friggin’ dentist talked about all the work she’s had on her smile, even though she never shows it.

No wonder the poor woman is starving. She’s like a zoo animal. We’re both horrified and fascinated. We forget that she’s a real woman.

I wonder if she forgets that, too.

I must admit that last summer, I loved Victoria Beckham: Coming to America. She was sort of a fembot doing stuff like wearing heels to throw out the first ball at a Dodgers game.

But she was hilarious at a lunch with a group of Beverly Hills society matrons – she found the entire experience so bizarre that she got drunk. Good thing, too – one of the women did a dolphin call impersonation. I’d need a drink, too.

But the saddest thing was that Posh’s two best friends were her makeup artist and her hairstylist. Her entire world is literally her appearance.

Victoria might be an incredibly well-adjusted person with a scary metabolism and a strong dedication to her public persona. Coming to America made her sort of human.

But What’s Eating Victoria Beckham was morally wrong. An entire hour of television picking apart the details of someone’s physical appearance and rhapsodizing about what may or may not be going on behind it was just sick.

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