If She Were Childfree Would It Still Have All Gone Right?
27 08 2007I thought this story just dripped with stereotypical drivel. I think it was supposed to paint Heidi Klum as someone to emulate, maybe even to envy. But I could be wrong. If so, exactly was is the point of this gushing piece?
Multi-million pound modelling contracts, Emmy nominations, a hot husband, a brood of kids – where did it all go right for Heidi Klum?
So reads the headline. By the time I read to the end I was wanting the puke bucket. I knew I would be. This is an article that should have been under entertainment or perhaps “waste of space”. It pretty much relates to less than .5% of the female population,does nothing to advance women, instead implies that everything going right definitely includes a brood of kids. Unfortunately, there are many young girls who would give their eye teeth to be like this tiny minority, to whom being a model is the ultimate career. To them Heidi Klum is an icon.
Generally, interviewing a model or any celebrity for that matter produces little more than a yawn. I haven’t yet heard one who had something useful to say. But I was interested in the Times article, because looking at it from a childfree perspective I was betting it wouldn’t be too far in before they mentioned Heidi Klum’s kids. Even models have more cred if they’ve produced a couple of cute kids, the ultimate for women, right?
It was the third paragraph where we got to hear the blurb about child 1 – the youngest:
“By For her latest trick, she is modelling handbags for the high-street accessories brand Accessorize. On set at the shoot, Klum’s mother – wearing rolled-up jeans, a T-shirt and a pair of Birkenstocks (from her daughter’s collaboration with the company) – shows up with Klum’s youngest child, Johan Riley Fyodor Taiwo Samuel, born in November. “How’s my little bunny?” Klum chirps in slightly German-accented babyspeak, drowning the buggy in her blonde locks. “What a cute bunny.”
Listen to all the cues there… supermodel isn’t so super so as not to have cute baby. A key accessory.
The writer goes on to say it’s “almost shocking… but charming when she “chats freely about her three children during lunch.” Charming because she is “as beguiling as the “blonde bombshell next door?”
Later on we hear how, as well as modelling with Victoria’s Secret, hosting Project Runway and hosting Germany’s Next Top Model, she “manages to raise her three children, keeping up a hectic schedule.” Yep, she may be boobs and a smile, but she’s popped out the kids and is a mommy so her halo is intact.
“After a string of high-profile musician boyfriends, she had her first child with the Euro-playboy and Formula One boss Flavio Briatore. Then she fell in love with the soulful crooner Seal, and popped out two more kids.”
Great. What an achievement. And what an example to all those girls who want to be just like her. Now those girls yearning to be models just like Heidi can be assured that they can still pop out the babies along the way and have the hot husband and the jet set lifestyle.
Then we have this:
“ The next phase of Klum’s life will keep her legend alive. “Being a mother has changed my life completely,” she says at the shoot, alternately cutting into her schnitzel and looking at herself intently in the mirror, making sure her new fringe is in place and the fried food hasn’t smudged her lip liner. “Before, it was all about me. Now it’s about the children.”
I wonder whether the writer would have been quite as gushing if Ms Klum didn’t have kids, was childfree. Somehow I don’t think so. But it seems as long as journalists can write about the kids, they can overlook the fact that, as one commentator aptly put it:
“… they are really doing what women are meant to do - take other people’s husbands, get drunk…, do drugs, promote a sex image to young girls, promote themselves as sex objects and complain that men do not treat them with respect!! Of course the latest craze is going to jail, the ultimate glory.”
As for her husband being hot… no. He sings OK, but hot he most certainly is not.
The article made me recall this link that Christine sent me a few weeks ago: The Kat Corner. I found it decidedly more refreshing.
Technorati Tags: childfree
oh my dog, i know the biggest Heidi Klum worshipper EVER. If she could be any celeb in the world, or meet any celeb in the world, it would be Heidi friggin Klum. And D. (my friend) is already so gorgeous it pisses me off, but as far as she’s concerned Heidi is like, THE epitome of human beauty. Whateva. I guess D.’s going way out of her way to emulate Klum because she has a 2 year-old daughter and another one on the way (two kids, two daddies, ahem). Oh well, at least D.’s boytoy is way hotter than Seal.
Strawberry - The thing is.. I am looking for the gorgeous - and I can’t see it. It’s crazy that already beautiful and perfectly healthy girls are going to aspire to… this. Probably starving themselves in the process. I had to laugh when they wrote that Seal was the hot husband…lol.
Um, when I read the first paragraph of your post, Britgirl, I thought you were talking about the Hollywood Madam. Guess I’m out of touch with the supermodel, supermoms!
Whew, thank goodness!
I laughed at the hot hubby bit too. Yeah, right!
Seriously, though, the whole article left me feeling queasy. I bet that if Klum were childfree, the writer would find a way to mention it and imply that her life was lacking as a result.
As for her looks, if we all had an army of stylists, makeup artists, hairdressers, personal trainers, etc we’d all look fantastic!
I hate celebrity moms. They suck balls, and not in a good way.
“Oooohhh…Heidi is so beautiful and skinny after baby! Look, Brit’s just like us with her babies and frappachinos. Wow! Who would have thunk Catherine Zeta-Jones could be so beautiful while (or after) pregnant!”
Like the talentless crop of busty brunettes and anorexic blonds isn’t annoying enough, then they start spooting out children to get MORE FACE TIME on the tabloid covers. Gah, it’s all a made up, air brushed illusion of a fake life, then they have to add kids to make it even more annoying…er newsworthy.
The sad thing is that too many women forget that celebritys do not live real lives. Of course Heidi Klum et al can have a buttload of kids, and still look great, and still have their fabulous careers, bla bla bla. But that’s because they have the best personal trainers and round-the-clock nannies, hell, they barely raise their own kids…the nannies do. Real women are usually forever ruined (body-wise) by pregnancy and have to actually do all the work with the kids, not just play with them until its time for the nanny to change the diaper.
SM - The even sadder thing is that such an article was in the Time - a supposedly “serious newspaper”. I can understand it being in rags like People, Hello or OK Magazine or similar celebrity rags. But talentless, tasteless tottie in - the Times? Is nowhere safe?
Feh… lol, I never thought of them having a kid to get more face time on the tabloids. But it’s true. Seems all they have to do is pop one out… and not necessarily be even fit to look after it - and they’re on the front page of the latest celebrity rag gushing at how “movverhood has changed their lives…” Hard to believe that there’s anyone who cares, but apparently people are buying these mags…
I dismissed the whole article as unaltered shlock . It made me gag. I conclude that the writer must be one of the “brainwashed” who think children “complete” relationships and who derive an income from tailgating “celebrities”. {shaking head in disgust}