If you have stood within 100 yards of a magazine rack lately, then you are already aware that America has a ludicrous infatuation with Jessica Simpson’s weight, as if yo-yoing weight is an unheard-of phenomenon, or even newsworthy.
I am not a fan of Jessica Simpson. For that matter, I am not a fan of any woman who plays the blonde bimbo card for her own popularity and acceptance, and therefore perpetuates an ancient stereotype that hurts all women. My low opinion of her aside, I look at these magazine covers and have to wonder why anyone with any semblance of a life or a brainwave gives a rat’s ass what Jessica Simpson’s weight currently is!
I’ve never understood the hunger for celebrity gossip or how those magazines sell any copies. Whose brain is so easily tantalized that shallow details of people famous for drug rehab stints or binge shopping makes for can’t-put-down reading material?
Jessica Simpson certainly didn’t seem to mind the publicity about her body when she starred in Dukes of Hazzard or any other photo-op that conveniently caught her in a bikini and uber-inflated lips, so it’s hard to sympathize with her selective wish for privacy if she has gained weight (or if photos are simply taken at bad angles and exaggerated, something I am sure our press would never dream of doing). Still, I am left wondering why anyone gives a damn.
Maybe other women revel in her supposed weight gain to feel better about their own weight struggles. Maybe it’s just pettiness that we enjoy seeing celebrities suffer even a tiny taste of what the common person does. Maybe people are just fascinated with stupid crap because it requires less energy than thinking about anything more significant than the numbers on Jessica Simpson’s bathroom scale.
In the grand scheme of things, what does anything about Jessica Simpson’s life, or any celebrity’s life, actually have to do with your own life?
Interesting that the only celebrities’ weight struggles who catch media frenzy are women. Female celebrities whose abdominal region is not sufficiently concave are accused of having a “baby bump”, and despite all of Oprah Winfrey’s accomplishments, the media circles with a blood lust around her waistline. Ultimately I’d say the ones with the true problem are those salivating over such “news” to the neglect of a world filled with far more interesting things.