"she showed up wearing jeans and an old tshirt which was goofy in a sexy slightly deliberate way that reminds me that..." - made up celeb interview
Posted by in.a.tryptic.set at 5:15 PM
I just finished reading a GQ interview/profile/excuse for having someone to photograph/ on Jessica Alba.
She comes off as low key, sweet natured, trying very hard to be something more than just a tantalizingly sexy woman who seems plague by an public interest that doesn't stray far from "when is she going to do a nude scene"
The interviewer in his own description seems empathic to this, to the fact that the 'industry' keeps trying to put her into bikini's and yet the accompanying photo shoot seems to go in direct contrary to this empathy. The last photo of the piece is a medium close up of Jessica Alba in a white bikini top, holding a water bottle and dribbling water down her lower lip and onto her chest. What the fucking fuck?!?
It is a good photo, sexy, well shot, and Alba seems to nail the whole pseudo improvised, "i don't care" attitude of the shot but i still felt a mild revulsion towards it.
I'm a pretty straight shooter, i like calling things what they are and the rest be damned, so if you want Jessica Alba for a cover so you can put her in fucking bikini then for god sake don't fill an interview with empathy over her having to do the whole 'bikini thing'. Acknowledge that you too GQ are part of that 'industry'
In the end it got me thinking about the role of beauty. It's a old debate but frankly i'm getting a little bored with beautiful women who seem so aware of their beauty. I believe in the following quote that I've always heard attributed to Ingmar Bergman "beauty that is unaware of itself is the most beautiful"
and really, girls. women, any and all of you who are genetically blessed. How many times can you hear a guy tell you you're beautiful before you begin to crave something a bit more substantial, substantial even if it is still superficial, like...wow you're really elegant, or poised, or stylish, hell...even cool would seem an improvement on 'you have beautiful eyes'
Maybe i'm wrong, but i've dated very beautiful women and in most cases it wasn't me telling them they were beautiful that carried any weight, but the substance of conversation, connection, click that really gave the situation any headway. I love a pair of beautiful eyes, or a striking nose but both are really quite dull if it isn't in the context of a brilliant cackle. laugh, a witty remark, or a bit sincerity.
So while in reading this celebrity interview, a genre which gets more and more painfully predictable with each issue (notable exception of a recent GQ interview with Halle Berry)
I can't help but wonder why bother with the pretense of intimacy, why mention that Alba considers herself clumsy, or that she tugs at her shirt nervously, but that it also makes her shoulders look sexy. Why bother when the accompanying pictorial rarely ever reflects the superficial intimacy gleamed by the author for the interview?