Bloom lunges at Bieber but Miranda pulls the strings
THE battle that erupted this week between film star Orlando Bloom and teen popstrel and social irritant Justin Bieber was a feud played out not merely virtually, but physically.
Bloom tried to punch his pocket-sized rival after they crossed paths in a celebritypacked Ibiza restaurant. The ostensible cause of this altercation was Bloom’s ex-wife, model Miranda Kerr.
As Bloom stalked manfully away, Bieber (rumoured to have once been intimate with Kerr) taunted: “Say hi to Miranda for me.”
In the wake of this incident, he posted a picture of Kerr in a bikini with a symbol of a crown next to it; later still, a picture of Bloom weeping. Kerr, never one to miss an opportunity for self-promotion, responded by issuing a picture of herself with her child, swiftly followed by an image of her sporting jeans, topless, in a bath.
This is not the only skirmish Kerr appears to have inspired. The model was the inspiration for a street brawl three months ago between billionaire businessman James Packer (son of media mogul Kerry) and TV executive David Gyngell, his former best man and comrade of some 35 years. Packer was reported to have been left with a black eye, swollen cheekbone, and damaged teeth. Kerr made no comment, not even via the medium of topless shots.
Who is this enigmatic goddess, whose attentions inspire testosterone-fuelled feats? Is it a sign of power that she reduces men to such Neanderthal wrangling, or testament only to a status as mute, Instagramming object?
Miranda May Kerr, 31, is an Australian model who came to global prominence as one of the Victoria’s Secrets “angels”: women paid to train like athletes in order to retain lithe yet curvaceous forms with which to model underwear.
Kerr is foremost among this hotly fantasised-over celestial host, not only in looks but in manipulating and marketing said status.
Her face may be a rhombic tribute to Euclidean geometry, her body that svelte, yet strainingly pneumatic form our culture most fetishises. However, it is the way in which she sells herself as an object of desire that remains most compelling.
In 2010, an Australian banker was caught gazing at explicit images of our heroine in the background of a television interview. The clip went viral, the banker was suspended, and an internet campaign was launched on his behalf. Kerr cannily gave him her blessing. Not only did he retain his post, the incident prompted a 100% increase in the number of Google searches for her name.
In more wholesome vein, she markets herself as the dimpled embodiment of girl-next-door vitality, advocating a tree-hugging yoga, kale and coconut oil lifestyle, and has published a self-help book queasily entitled Treasure Yourself.
Kerr might seem vapid with her selfies and smoothies. However, in making herself into a beautiful blank slate upon which men can project their desires, she sees the folly of male ways and knows how to work such folly to her advantage. If 21st-century culture is looking for its postmodern Helen of Troy whose face launched a thousand ships — a kitschy cartoonish, but self-knowing simulacrum — it has founded it in Kerr.