Simpson revives “˜dumb blonde’ image

For the first time in my life, I’m embarrassed to be a
blonde. I thought we flaxen-haired women had surpassed the stigma
of the vapid, shallow, mind-numbingly unintelligent girl.
Apparently, singer Jessica Simpson didn’t get that memo. It
seems she is still stuck in the stereotype, constantly playing into
the role of a life-sized Barbie with an equally lifeless
personality and intellect.

MTV created enormous hype over “Newlyweds,” a
prime-time show that follows Simpson and her husband, singer Nick
Lachey, through married life. I’ll admit it ““ I was
intrigued at first. Simpson and Lachey are young, rich, famous and
beautiful; I figured if I couldn’t live their life, I may as
well watch it. It took one half-hour episode to see just what I was
not missing. While sitting on the couch eating a can of Chicken of
the Sea tuna, Simpson exclaimed with an intensely shrill voice,
“Is this chicken or is this fish? I know it’s tuna. But
it says chicken. Of the sea.” I sat there slack-jawed and
wide-eyed, trying oh so hard to believe I had simply misheard
her.

Unfortunately, I had heard correctly. Simpson’s show is
more about her half-entertaining, half-dishearteningly
unintelligent dialogue than her marriage. Examining a stuffed
platypus she had won at a carnival, she ventured, “platypus?
I thought it was pronounced platy-ma-pus. Has it always been
pronounced platypus?” She wondered if bringing a Louis
Vuitton suitcase with matching handbag to go camping in Yosemite
Valley was “weird.” She refused to eat buffalo wings
because of her aversion to buffalo meat, not stopping to ponder
just where on a buffalo one might find the wings.

Is it possible for someone to seriously speak and act this
insipidly? Or is Simpson merely playing into the role she thinks
society has set for her?

I tend to believe the latter. MSNBC reported that
Simpson’s father, Joe Simpson, has been quoted as saying his
daughter is not actually as unintelligent as she seems; rather, she
is “playing into” her role of the typical dumb blonde.
When did our society suddenly catapult back into an era when women
were expected to be statues for decoration in a man’s
house?

Simpson claims to be portraying a Lucille Ball-esque character
for her audience. What she does not seem to understand, however, is
the difference between television and reality. Ball’s famous
character on “I Love Lucy” is written to be socially
inept and intrinsically curious. In reality, she produced her own
show and set the stage for future female comedians. Ball separated
her character from her personality. Simpson lets her role as a
stereotypical “ditz” seep into her true self. For her,
there seems to be no boundary between acting and being.

The real issue here is not how Simpson portrays herself. What is
of utmost importance is how she affects her audience. Composed
mostly of girls at an impressionable age somewhere between 11 and
16, her fans worship her. They go to her concerts dressed like her,
crave her signature on a piece of paper, and collect magazine
clippings about her. And it is not that much harder for them to
start acting like her, too. Pretty soon girls will unpack their
brown-bag lunches at school and wonder if their canned tuna is
actually chicken (of the sea).

I believe celebrities have a powerful voice in society. Whether
or not they have a desire to affect the public is not a question;
the very essence of a celebrity gives that person the ability to
reach out to masses of people at once. And quite frankly, it
frustrates me that someone like Simpson would use her celebrity
status to promote an image women have fought so hard to
overcome.

My friend has a poster in her room of 101 blonde jokes. Every
time I make a stupid mistake or trip over my own feet, people chalk
it up to my light-colored hair. Whether or not talked about in a
joking manner, the blonde stereotype is hard to break. When Simpson
purposely acts the way she does, she further instills the social
acceptability of judging someone on his or her physical
appearance.

Perhaps Simpson does not realize the affect she is having on
young blonde girls. Maybe she really just enjoys prancing about in
designer clothes, plunking down $750 on four pieces of lingerie
because she forgot to look at the price tag, and whining to her
husband because of their lack of live-in maids. Whatever her
motivation for her behavior, Simpson is reinforcing the image of
the young, dumb valley-girl. I feel Simpson has made a bad name for
blondes everywhere, and has made it even more difficult for
flaxen-haired women to overcome the stigma of their hair color.

Jensen is a first-year English student. E-mail her at
[email protected]. Send general comments to
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