Jessica Simpson Image:John Vanderhaagen
I am of that age now where many of the teen pop stars of my yoof have settled down with their second fiancé and are baking a new generation of child stars for Pepsi to sponsor and MTV to film as they make their way through life’s twists and turns.
This is fine. It’s a little odd, but only mildly odd because Britney et al tend not to text me up or anything so my mind spends time thinking about literature, DIY nail art and what I’m going to have for tea tonight. Plus it’s not a race guys and as it happens even if it was Britney, Christina et al are a little older than me so it’s all just FINE.
This is fine. It’s a little odd, but only mildly odd because Britney et al tend not to text me up or anything so my mind spends time thinking about literature, DIY nail art and what I’m going to have for tea tonight. Plus it’s not a race guys and as it happens even if it was Britney, Christina et al are a little older than me so it’s all just FINE.
The latest teen pop star to add to the brood is Jessica Simpson. Jessica Simpson. You know, not Britney, not Christina. American singer. Blonde. Virgin. Ok the point is she totally was of that school of turn of the millennium singer and now she’s pregnant.
Pregnancy, I imagine, can be many things. It can be beautiful, exciting, nauseating, boring. Lots of things, dude you’re growing a human in your womb – it must feel anything could happen. But before the resultant infant, it seems pregnant celebrities must bare their bump on a magazine cover.
In a tumescent nod to Demi Moore’s 1991 Vanity Fair cover on which she shocked the magazine buying public by posing nude, whilst pregnant. In 1991, when a pregnant woman’s fashion choices were still tent masquerading as a dress or confinement.
For Demi not to be in a maternity mu-mu was quite different. Now stars up and down the list seem to feel a pregnancy is wasted if they don’t do their Demi style nude shoot. From Now magazine fodder to Elle cover stars they’re all baring their expanding stomachs and we all nod and say ‘uh-huh, like the Demi shoot, I know.’
Of course these stars have all escaped the curse of the stretch mark; Jessica Simpson appears to not even have a popped bellybutton. Whilst some women don’t get stretch marks in pregnancy it seems odd that Britney, Christina, Claudia, Cindy, Eva, Mariah, Myleene etc etc all avoided even a tiny skin tear.
This is the joy of Photoshop and it’s not going away any time soon. Yes pregnancy’s a beautiful thing blah blah blah- but guys, there are rules.
It is all part of the sanitised peek into pregnancy we allow ourselves.Unless we’re feeling a little gory, then we like to watch One Born Every Minute. But just one or the other. We only can deal with a pregnant woman arching her back in a sexy pose, or in the throes of child birth.
That’s slow progress, that’s 21 years for a naked pregnant stomach to be acceptable and only under strict conditions. It must be sexy, with quotes from the owner printed alongside it about how she’s never felt sexier. Or it must be being prodded and poked by midwives to the sound accompaniment of screams and regional accents. Either way only on TV or in magazines, not real life, good grief! It is still progress and no one finds a flaunted pregnancy so shocking as in 1991.
So why bother? Why continue to print images of stars ‘Doing a Demi’? Pregnant celebrities are rarely promoting any new project, aside from the impending spawn. It’s an easy story that will sell and maybe drum up higher offers from the bidders after the first photo of mother and baby. But otherwise it’s not going to create the publicity storm the exclamation marks awarded to the cover lines. It just makes me read “it’s a girl!!!!” in a slightly more breathy way in my head.
No, we need to move this along a bit. This formula is tired. We haven’t quite made it to full term (hah) on varying shapes and sizes of an expectant belly but we’re on our way. So let’s get moving on to the next step. What kind of reaction would the image of Jessica Simpson breast feeding her new-born get on the cover of a magazine?
More than just a pregnant (it’s nearly the end now I promise) pause I expect.
Squeamish Kate
Pregnancy, I imagine, can be many things. It can be beautiful, exciting, nauseating, boring. Lots of things, dude you’re growing a human in your womb – it must feel anything could happen. But before the resultant infant, it seems pregnant celebrities must bare their bump on a magazine cover.
In a tumescent nod to Demi Moore’s 1991 Vanity Fair cover on which she shocked the magazine buying public by posing nude, whilst pregnant. In 1991, when a pregnant woman’s fashion choices were still tent masquerading as a dress or confinement.
For Demi not to be in a maternity mu-mu was quite different. Now stars up and down the list seem to feel a pregnancy is wasted if they don’t do their Demi style nude shoot. From Now magazine fodder to Elle cover stars they’re all baring their expanding stomachs and we all nod and say ‘uh-huh, like the Demi shoot, I know.’
Of course these stars have all escaped the curse of the stretch mark; Jessica Simpson appears to not even have a popped bellybutton. Whilst some women don’t get stretch marks in pregnancy it seems odd that Britney, Christina, Claudia, Cindy, Eva, Mariah, Myleene etc etc all avoided even a tiny skin tear.
This is the joy of Photoshop and it’s not going away any time soon. Yes pregnancy’s a beautiful thing blah blah blah- but guys, there are rules.
It is all part of the sanitised peek into pregnancy we allow ourselves.Unless we’re feeling a little gory, then we like to watch One Born Every Minute. But just one or the other. We only can deal with a pregnant woman arching her back in a sexy pose, or in the throes of child birth.
That’s slow progress, that’s 21 years for a naked pregnant stomach to be acceptable and only under strict conditions. It must be sexy, with quotes from the owner printed alongside it about how she’s never felt sexier. Or it must be being prodded and poked by midwives to the sound accompaniment of screams and regional accents. Either way only on TV or in magazines, not real life, good grief! It is still progress and no one finds a flaunted pregnancy so shocking as in 1991.
So why bother? Why continue to print images of stars ‘Doing a Demi’? Pregnant celebrities are rarely promoting any new project, aside from the impending spawn. It’s an easy story that will sell and maybe drum up higher offers from the bidders after the first photo of mother and baby. But otherwise it’s not going to create the publicity storm the exclamation marks awarded to the cover lines. It just makes me read “it’s a girl!!!!” in a slightly more breathy way in my head.
No, we need to move this along a bit. This formula is tired. We haven’t quite made it to full term (hah) on varying shapes and sizes of an expectant belly but we’re on our way. So let’s get moving on to the next step. What kind of reaction would the image of Jessica Simpson breast feeding her new-born get on the cover of a magazine?
More than just a pregnant (it’s nearly the end now I promise) pause I expect.
Squeamish Kate
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