And to many foreigners--particularly foreign men--she embodied America in a literal way, too: in a brassy blondeness that people in repressed cultures marvel at. It is no coincidence that the places in the world where women such as Ms. Smith are the most popular are typically those with which the U.S. has the worst diplomatic relations.She is us?
For all her gaudy excesses, there is in some of us--or there ought to be--the urge to treat Ms. Smith gently. Hers is a pathetic story, of ersatz celebrity, dead children and the pursuit of money, sex, drugs, weight loss and validation-through-litigation. That this pursuit was so thoroughly unembarrassed is a comment not so much on Ms. Smith's personal aesthetics as it is on human folly, U.S.-style, taken to its logical extreme.
February 13, 2007
"Anna Nicole Smith embodied America... its overabundance; its exploitability, and its propensity to exploit."
Tunku Varadarajan writes:
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22 comments:
wow...YET ANOTHER take on Anna Nicole...I was afraid a day would go by ....
wow...YET ANOTHER snarky comment by hdhouse...I was afraid a day would go by ....
wow... YET ANOTHER comment on hdhouse's posting style...I was afraid a day would go by ....
What a worthless article. Anna Nicole Smith is fascinating because she is nothing like us at all. She lived a life that was extraordinaryly strange.
What you see is what you get. Now let me see how you propose to get it.
This line reminds me of a car by the side of the road with fancy rims and a sign: for sale, $800 million or b.o.
My inner Anna Nicole doesn't want to go to work today. She wants to pop a Xanax or six and watch tivo in bed.
I think she's very representative of the cliched America that many people buy into. And I think the fascinated contempt that many Americans held for her is quite representative of how many view America.
However, I don't think that Anna Nicole Smith embodied the America that most of us aspire to be part of or that most of us love.
Look at all the pixels taken up with commenting on the Marcotte thing. She's the equivalent of a person that puts smilie faces over her "i"s, but says doodie poopie at the dinner table thinkin' she's edgy. To a devotee of blue words, she can't even swear properly. To a normal person, she just sounds like a person that used to write raving fourteen page double spaced screeds to the editor of a supermarket coupon flyer about oppression, man.
Look at how good this writing is you linked to. It's like another universe.
Its ok Madison Man. It appears Susan's boobenvy got the better of her.
Ditto, Sloan.
She is "not us" and certainly not the "object of a fierce popular fascination." Her cheap suit entourage constantly foisted her presence upon us whether we wanted it or not. She produced nothing of artistic merit. Would Marilyn Monroe or even Anita Ekberg (not an American bombshell) have needed a sleazy reality show to keep us watching?
This opinion writer, like most others I've read, is fascinated by certain parts of her body. Get over it...them, and let her rest in peace. May her daughter have love rather than the "fascination" of pundits like this.
Whatever it was that Anna Nicole had going for her she had it in copious abundance. Elsewise she'd never have gotten as far as she did, and she got quite a ways from where she started. The woman upended reality in more ways than one. That makes her fairly unique. She is compared to Marilyn Monroe, which is fair too.
I wondering how long this goes on before Howard K. Stern becomes as disliked as OJ.
An attorney who has only one client, who is at the scene for two overdose deaths, who rushes back to the Bahamas to mug an infant he claims is his child, then declares the grandmother will never see the child so long as he is alive, then sells an exclusive, weepy interview for $1 million.
What's next?
Joe Baby--I think before its all over you will be able to dislike even more potential papa's--number five surfaced today according to drudge: one of her ex-bodyguards.
I fear that the male gender is not covering itself with glory or tastefulness in this sorry spectacle.
"repressed cultures": is that a reference to American men?
Sloanasaurus:
What a worthless article. Anna Nicole Smith is fascinating because she is nothing like us at all. She lived a life that was extraordinaryly strange.
But Sloanie papi, don't you see?
It's a good article insomuch that it attempts to explain to Americans, why people like Paris Hilton, Pamela Lee Andersen, and Anna Nicole Smith are important in their image-making of America.
You may see dumb blonde bimbos, and they do too, but they also see women who have become millionaires, live the charmed life of Reilly, are admired or hated but not ignored, and though at times they self-destruct, they do so on their own terms.
If that doesn't sound like wish fulfillment projection in the Middle East in a nutshell, I don't know what does.
There is a reason the simpleton Borat was written to fall in love with Pamela Lee Anderson, and not with Hillary Clinton.
Cheers,
Victoria
"their image-making of America" = foreigners.
wow... YET ANOTHER comment on hdhouse's posting style...I was afraid a day would go by ....
To defend this troll's posting style is beyond the pale.
I understand sharing a person's politics and not wanting him to be silenced/ridiculed on a blog, just because he is controversial.
That's the reason you haven't been targetted for abuse on Althouse, Madison Man, since you lean strongly left.
A reason, obviously, that wasn't the impetus for Susan writing as correctly as she did, above, because it's not the politics here that grates.
Ask yourself, why aren't you targetted for this type of commentary?
The difference is, you're not a malcontent troll who just comes to post vitriolic snarkiness and clog up the commentaries of this blog.
You can take this suggestion to you, and either love it or lump it, as you will, but if you defend the indefensible, you will be the poorer man for it.
Cheers,
Victoria
I wrote a long piece on my blog about Anna Nicole Smith today. She's weird, but I think she represents a trend in terms of the breakdown between men and women in marriage. However, I think she has taken this breakdown of trust to a logical extreme.
oh oh Victoria...slip our leash did we dearie?
Uhm, America is NOTHING like Anna Nicole Smith.
It never married a sugar daddy (though Fance did try).
It has lived far more than 39 years.
And America wears a "C" cup at best!
vbspurs said...
wow... YET ANOTHER comment on hdhouse's posting style...I was afraid a day would go by ....
To defend this troll's posting style is beyond the pale.
I understand sharing a person's politics and not wanting him to be silenced/ridiculed on a blog, just because he is controversial.
That's the reason you haven't been targetted for abuse on Althouse, Madison Man, since you lean strongly left.
A reason, obviously, that wasn't the impetus for Susan writing as correctly as she did, above, because it's not the politics here that grates.
Ask yourself, why aren't you targetted for this type of commentary?
The difference is, you're not a malcontent troll who just comes to post vitriolic snarkiness and clog up the commentaries of this blog.
You can take this suggestion to you, and either love it or lump it, as you will, but if you defend the indefensible, you will be the poorer man for it.
Cheers,
Victoria
wow... YET ANOTHER endless, mind-numbing forty-seven page long blurb from victoria, who day in and day out thinks her uppity, doctorly opinions are welcome, relavant, superior, not coma-inducing... I was afraid a day would go by...
fear not ploopusgirl...victoria was obviously born with both a silver spoon and a silver pen in her mouth or up somewhere.
i took special note of "clog up the commentaries". that was a hoot.
The Victorias of the world like their little lives neat and orderly. and it isn't smuggness and uppityness that drives her bilge, its inferiority and recognition thereof.
as noted, the little dearie just slipped her leash and ran after that car a little faster than usual.
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