Thursday, December 21, 2006

Sweet things from Montana, so young and willing

So Donald Trump, the male equivalent of Paris Hilton in that his worth is both imaginary and derived by his questionable epitomizion of the stereotypical male role (supposedly his finances are not as rock solid as he asserts they are every time he pulls out Trump Checkbook, Trump Wallet or Trump Bankruptcy), has decided not to fire Miss USA. Donald is one of the most unlikable people on the planet, so I will go so far as to agree with Rosie O'Donnell, how is he "the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America[?]"

That is all besides the point though, the real story is that Tara Conner, Miss USA, was almost fired for drinking, sneaking guys into her shared Trump apartment, testing positive for cocaine (hey, we have all been there) and making out with Miss Teen USA in public!!! So, she went from being someone I have no interest in, to my dream girl. Unfortunately, the party is over because she is (wait for it...) checking into rehab.

By the way, there has to be something that checking into rehab won't get you out of.

"Officher, I-I-I-m shorry, I-I-I wahsh driv-v-vin-g tuh rehab."
"Yeah, I killed her, but I checked into rehab right afterwards."
"Honey, It was just a hooker, and I'm checking into rehab."

Well anyway, enjoy your break Tara, you deserve it. I would give my first born to have been at the party where Tara made out with Katie Blair, who is exponentially hotter than her senior counterpart. Honestly, this story is so hot that I don't even need the pictures (and there must be some out there somewhere), just hearing it makes me go lightheaded.

Before: Aw... Poor thing doesn't even look hot.
After: All better now. Yah Donald!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

They're bring Sexy Back

I was in despair last week because I had forgotten to watch the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which generally is the best showcase of gorgeous women this side of- well, the Victoria's Secret Catalogue. Fortunately, they reran it last night and I blocked out some time to be a creepy voyeur.

To my surprise, the show was disquieting and decidedly un-sexy. I struggled to figure out the common theme among all the things I hated about the show, but the theme of the show was "What it is like to be a Victoria's Secret model" and that theme is resistant to deep thought. However, I do have some observations.

It is remarkable how gay the event is. It is like an incredibly expensive drag show. Everything is either campy or glam, but either way it is over the top and fabulous. The girls are wear big hair, glitter, diamonds and campy costumes. The music consisted of Justin Timberlake, electronic remixes of pop songs and a huge choir. The last drag show I saw was less of a parody than this.

The show strives to fulfil fetishes, especially kid fetishes. The themes of various "acts" were angels, stewardesses, Scotland (think leather and buckles) and most bizarrely, growing up (over a carnival remix of Kelis's "I'm Bossy", though the song before that was the more appropriate, "When You Were Young"). They had models dressed only in bras and panties walking down the runway in in garish colors dragging a pink comforter, carrying pom-poms or graduating. The idea was to sell the Pink Line, which markets to undergrads, but the conjunction of child imagery and sexuality is um... disturbing.

In even worse taste is the state of the models. Besides the few models I recognized (
Adriana, Gisele, Alessandra, Ana and Karolina... ok so I recognized a lot of them, but there were 27 models total so I am only 18.5% a loser) the models began to look like anorexic adolescents or freakishly elongated aliens. The look for runway models is 90% leg and abs, with a big smile and bigger hair as the cheery on top (like I said, drag show). The problem is that most of the girls are stick figures wobbling on chicken legs and emaciated frames and the big hair can't hide pre-teen faces. Is it too much to ask for models that don't look like high school freshman who just spent some serious time on the rack?

The show pretends that it is about anything but dudes looking at girls they will never attain. So to fit their loose "We are regular people, see how we live" theme, they jam the show full of gimmicks like interviews with the models and a hidden camera (if they would have taken the camera into the bathroom then they would have hit three of the four "unacceptable" perversions: bondage, kids and water sports, leaving out bestiality). So instead of just watching hot models, we were forced to sit through grainy bouncy footage of nothing. Literally, nothing. The camera never focused on anything of interest and the shot of "What it is like to walk down the runway" became grainy blown out lights bouncing with the model's strut. The interviews were full of annoying "Idiot says something uninteresting and then laughs in pretend embarrassment" moments. Adriana Lima, one of the hottest women in the world for my money, destroyed the illusion by opening her mouth and being vapid and self important. What was I expecting, right? Since she recently reported that she was a virgin, I guess she is from the Paris Hilton school of public relations. Which is to say, lie because no one can prove different.

On the music front we have an interlude from J.T. Justin Timberlake has emerged as the clear winner from his break up with Britney Spears. He has reached a point where a guy could conceivably like him and not get made fun of. That said, why have him in the show? To rope in the women (who would presumably be the target audience for a company that exclusively sells women's clothing) that otherwise have nothing to see in the field of starving T & A? Justin clearly can dance, but why dance like that? It is all pointless jerky motions that look like a million variations on the robot; it is highly skilled cheerleading instead of real dancing. Also, did he write (or whoever wrote it, Timbaland probably) "Sexy Back" specifically for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show? It is a little too neat of a fit.

The "climax" of the show was the final string of models in diamond bras came out to a winter theme over a huge choir singing in the background. Someone put together the obvious metaphor of diamonds and ice, since they needed some way to showcase the absurdity of a multi-million dollar bra. The best thing was the choir singing "Just a little more love, just a little more peace, is all we need." Say what? A song about peace while
diamonds of all things are paraded up and down the runway. Diamonds are worth far less than they cost, since their value is neither intrinsic or rare. De Beers suppresses small diamonds (1.3 billion dollars in present day worth withheld from the market in 1981) to keep the price of a relatively common rock high. That diamonds (with can be produced with superior quality in a lab, though diamonds that are made are considered "fake". What a metaphor for a Nip/Tuck industry) were juxtaposed against millionaire women whose value is derived from talents that are inflated by a similarly bankrupt system was too much for me to bear. So I ended up watching sports instead. Eat a sandwich and I will see you next year girls.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Dude, Si.com writers are pricks. (with obvious exceptions)

SI.com recently reported that an Asian Games silver medal winner had her medals stripped from her because she failed a gender test. However, unlike Helen Stephens, Shanti Sounderajan was not a "cheater". Stephens won the gold medal in the women's 100 Meter dash in 1936, setting a new world record in the process. She was accused of being a man, but the charge was denied. However, in 1980 she was killed in a robbery and it was discovered that she had male genitalia, despite living as a woman all of her life (my favorite professor in college recently wrote a screenplay about Stephens's life). Instead, Sounderajan is physically and mentally female, but genetically a little too "male" because she had a hidden "Y" chromosome.

Understand, this is a 25 year old woman who trained very hard and due to something completely beyond her control she is now losing her medal and further probably will never be able to have children. Beyond the fact that "gender" is very contentiously defined, everyone in professional sports are "genetic freaks" in one way or another. If indeed this genetic accident did give her some marginal advantage, how different is that from the fact that most of the NBA is in the top .001% of the population for height? Every woman competing in the 800 meters at that level is in the top 1% of the population in fast-twitch-slow-twitch muscle ratio and lung capacity.

Imagine if you had trained for years to be among the best at a very competitive field and in order to clear your name of completely ridiculous allegations, as she must have assumed they were, you submitted to a voluntary test. Only to fail the test due to no fault of your own, in the process losing your coveted job forever and to top it off, you become the punch line to thousands of jokes around the world. Including at SI.com, where the title of the article is "Dude looks like a lady." If you lost your career and your prospects of having a family, at least you wouldn't have to do it while enduring international attention and derision from idiots. If this had happened in America then gay rights groups would indubitably be up in arms both about Si.com's insensitivity and the unfairness of taking away her medal. In my academic writing experience, when referring to a transsexual person the chosen gender pronoun is supposed to be used. This is one of the most depressing stories I have heard this year and I wish Shanti all the best in the future and in her appeal.

Update: I notice that article is an AP article, so it is possible that the title is also AP. In which case SI.com is just the monkey throwing the shit around as opposed to the one creating it.