Many of us willingly play the bimbo card, Meghan. Just own it
THE Duchess of Sussex has released the latest edition of her Archetypes podcast, featuring the socialite and heiress Paris Hilton, in which she talked about how being typecast as a ‘bimbo’ on the US gameshow Deal Or No Deal had left her feeling ‘objectified’, judged purely on her looks and not her intellect.
Fair enough, I suppose. After all, her job as ‘briefcase girl’ No24 back in 2006 was not exactly what you might call mentally stimulating, although the skin-tight dresses, push-up bras and 5in heels the girls were required to wear might have been stimulating to viewers in other areas.
I can see how, as a young woman striving to be taken seriously as an actress, having to stand around on a stage, simpering and sucking in her stomach, might not exactly feel like the pinnacle of feminist achievement.
Then again, whatever Meghan may feel retroworking spectively about that gig, it played a big part in getting her where she is today.
Most women, if they’re honest, have played the bimbo card at one point or another in their lives.
When I was in my early 20s, fresh out of university and desperate to break into newspapers, I, too, had my Meghan moment.
AFRIEND told me about a certain pub in Fleet Street which was frequented by journalists, and so one Sunday afternoon we headed there for a drink. The place was chock full of what seemed very ancient men (probably actually in their 30s) in rolled-up shirt sleeves, knocking back pints, smoking as though their lives depended on it and calling each other exceptionally rude things.
Before long we were sharing a few packets of pork scratchings, and by the end of a very convivial evening I had secured myself a trial shift in the TV listings department of the Daily Mirror.
It wasn’t exactly the Daily Planet, but it was good enough for me as a foot in the door.
And, yes, I had to fend off the occasional over-familiar offer of help, but in the months and years that followed I learnt so much from those supposedly toxic examples of masculinity. Those were some of the most fun years of my life, a time when I would happily work late into the night just for the privilege of seeing these guys at work. And, yes, they did call me ‘darlin’ and ‘love’, and I did occasionally get a little too much of a whiff of their beery breath. But I knew how to look after myself, and besides, their bark was much worse than their bite.
Truth is, without them and their weakness for a young thing in a short skirt, I’d probably still be as a sales assistant. It was, as far as I was concerned, a very good trade-off.
And this is what annoys me about Meghan’s handwringing.
Why try to rewrite the narrative? Why knock something that she, and countless young women, have done since time immemorial? Why turn it into a drama? Why make yourself a victim, why be ashamed? Why not just own it, as the Americans say, and laugh it off as youthful opportunism. No wonder her former colleagues on Deal Or No Deal are a little put out about her comments.
As one of them pointed out: ‘If Meghan didn’t want to feel objectified, she could have chosen not to do the audition… that would have given another girl a chance.’
Quite.
And as the actress Whoopi Goldberg added: ‘That’s TV, baby. When you’re a performer, you take the gig.’
And this is my problem with so much of today’s post-#MeToo world. Of course it’s progress that women no longer have to fear men such as Harvey Weinstein, but not all of us are helpless victims of the casting couch. Many willingly play the game – and play it they do, much to their own advantage.
It’s the hypocrisy that gets me. Just as her podcast episode was released, the Duchess of Sussex appeared in an interview for Variety magazine, accompanied by a set of pictures very much intended to flaunt her not inconsiderable physical attributes.
No mention of ‘objectification’ there. Funny, that.
WILL Boris Johnson prevail? Stranger things have happened. And if he does, I can’t help thinking it will be a bit like the Bobby Ewing shower scene in Dallas: it was all just a weird dream.
Only, let’s hope that Boris keeps his towel on.
MY SON and his friends are traumatised. The price of Tesco’s Meal Deal – the staple diet of male teenagers – has gone up from £3.50 to £3.90. God forbid, they might now have to eat some real food instead.