-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4410700,00.html
}}}>Begin
Chelsea's no sex symbol
She's bright, the daughter of a former president, and attractive (sort of). But Chelsea
Clinton is no sex symbol
Shane Watson
Friday May 10, 2002
The Guardian
We're used to swallowing plenty in the cause of image enhancement. Let's see:
lately there's been the Nicole and Robbie are-they-or-aren't-they moment (As If);
Dido continues to feign as much working class attitude as you can muster when
you're called Florian etc; and Naomi had a recent stab at notching up some
intellectual points with that Bill Clinton photo op.
We know the rules back to front. If a person in the public eye is looking a bit short
on
adult appeal they get themselves nominated Rear of the Year; if they're somewhat
lacking in street cred they take a well-publicised spin round the Notting Hill
Carnival;
and if they need a bit of an all-round leg-up there's always the walkout with Mick
Jagger.
There are currently more officially recognised strategies for manipulating public
profiles than there are people to take advantage of them and just how far the
publicists and marketing people are prepared to go is anyone's guess. Who's to say
that the whole Kylie bottom fixation wasn't dreamt up at a strategy weekend in the
summer of 2000? What if Madonna's people recommended "a major geographical
relocation, ideally to Europe," back in the mid-90s. ("Memo to senior advisers: see
scope for establishing Madonna as Europe- based mother confessor for visiting
American celebrities.")
However, there is such a thing as an image shift too far and when we get a whiff of
one we tend to be rather unforgiving, as is the case with the attempted sexing up of
Chelsea Clinton.
You know when the celebrity spinners have been thrown a really tough one because
straight off they panic and go in with the big guns. So it was that in January Chelsea
turned up in the front row of the Versace couture show, sandwiched between
Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna and, despite the makeover, cut the appearance of a
Heat magazine raffle winner. Since then she's been photographed in London with
Sophie Dahl, Destiny's Child, Kevin Spacey and pretty much anyone passing through
who counts as A list and fashionable.
Now the rebranding is supposedly complete with the publication of Vanity Fair's June
issue containing a celebration of Chelsea, the "sex symbol" and "the new JFK Jr" no
less. Chelsea is 22, apparently bright, certainly an Oxford graduate student and the
daughter of an ex-president, but one thing she emphatically ain't is a sex symbol.
This is not to say that she isn't attractive - although if she is then it's in that
special
way that people claim Camilla Parker Bowles to be, ie, only discernible in the flesh .
But to suggest she is the embodiment of our collective sexual fantasies is a bit like
calling her dad a moral giant.
It may seem harsh to jeer at the new improved Chelsea but what the hell. The rot
has to stop somewhere and when glossies start elevating women to the rank of sex
symbol just because they've got a couple of bodyguards and an "in" with Donatella,
that's when it's time to address the difference between power, connections and sex
appeal.
This one is surprisingly simple. Where men are concerned a liberal amount of power
and connections does magically convert into sex appeal in nine out of 10 cases, with
or without the traditional bonuses of reasonable looks and charm (see Bernie
Ecclestone's success with the opposite sex, or Bill's, for that matter).
Women, on the other hand, can be as well set up as Christina Onassis and still fail to
ignite the necessary interest (you may remember that Christina resorted to paying
her ex for sex - something that not even David Mellor was reduced to). There are, of
course, exceptions, but on the whole you'll find that being boring, pompous, sexually
inadequate and plagued with halitosis is no obstacle to the love of a focused woman,
whereas even the hint of a hairy chin is too much for most male fortune seekers.
In the same way a male sex symbol needs to be attractive but his personality
shouldn't ever be an issue. Female sex symbols, though, have to be fabulously sexy
to both men and women, and therefore gorgeous, and pretty much beyond reproach.
This explains why female sex symbols are in such short supply and Nigella is in such
demand. No one pretends that Gwyneth is a sex symbol (too whiney) or Madonna
(too sinewy) or Victoria Beckham (please). So why, pray, Chelsea? And if the need to
identify a new sex symbol among the ranks of the young, free and spectacularly well
connected is so overwhelming, then of course it has to be Zara Phillips.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
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