I have recently caught Paul sneaking around behind my back with POLITICAL BOOKS. I used the car he usually uses, and on the seat was a political book. Then I was looking for index cards on his bookshelf and saw several more. None of them are what I’d call mainstream politics. I hope he’s not cracking up on me.
I’ve often thought about what a marriage would be like if one person converted to a religion the other person had no interest in at all, or if one person converted away from a religion both had belonged to. I suspect similar disruption could be expected with political conversion, though in this case it appears to me he’s going more-extreme third-party rather than oppositional-party. More like if both spouses belonged to the same religion, but one of them became more extreme about it.
Well. Speaking of threats to marriage, my mom and I had an interesting conversation yesterday about female celebrities. I’ll start by saying that we’re aware that this discussion was based on:
1. our personal/subjective feelings/impressions
2. of the public images
3. (which may have very little connection to the actual selves)
4. of people we don’t know at all
5. and sometimes we aren’t even all that familiar with the public images either.
In other words, it’s SUCH an unfair discussion. But it was really fun.
Also, I should point out that this would be the same for MALE celebrities, but that we were evaluating the female ones because both of us are heterosexual and female. This silly game could just as easily be played as “Celebrity Men and Whether They’d Steal Other Guys’ Women” or “Celebrity Women and Whether They’d Steal Other Women’s Women” or whatever.
It started when I mentioned that I had thought of Heidi Klum as very different from most of the other Victoria’s Secret models, because she doesn’t look at all SULTRY to me. She looked like she is nice, and friendly, and would definitely go on to be a wife and mother. (Not that you have to be nice and friendly to be a wife and mother. Not that married mothers are nicer and friendlier. Not that the sultry models aren’t just as likely to marry/mother, and not that that would have to be connected/unconnected to THEIR niceness/friendliness. But I’m trying to convey a general feeling of traits Heidi Klum projected that I would not expect to see combined with Victoria’s Secret modeling.)
I was trying to think of a way to describe what I thought she was the OPPOSITE of, and my mom came up with the perfect example of Megan Fox. Megan Fox looks like she would seduce your husband just for the fun of it, using mean comments about you as one of her seduction techniques; then afterward she’d shrug and say it wasn’t HER fault if you couldn’t keep your man’s attention. While causing all this intense drama, she’d continue to tell everyone that she really liked guys better than women because there was no DRAMA with guys. Heidi Klum would be careful not to flirt with someone else’s husband, and would deliberately not wear sexy clothes if she was coming over to your house, and you could totally be friends with her.
This led to thinking of further examples. Gisele Bundchen is obviously on the Megan Fox side of things, though I see her as less sultry and more obviously “She will eat pizza and drink beer and watch sports while dating, but as soon as the relationship is solidly locked down we’ll see the guy in People magazine talking about how she’s cut sugar and fat and dairy out of his diet completely, and also he does Pilates now.”
Scarlett Johansson seems like she’s toward the middle, but more toward Megan Fox: she wouldn’t SET OUT to steal someone’s husband—but if it came to that, what was she supposed to do about it? Gwen Stefani would be threateningly cool, but falls more toward Heidi Klum: I feel like she might sort of flirt, but not in a serious way. Taylor Swift might bat her eyelashes a little at the boys, but she’d be hanging out in the kitchen with the girls. Kate Hudson might be a little annoyingly smiley and perky, and might enjoy a little attention for it, and might do cartwheels in your yard and then scream with laughter when her skirt flipped up, but wouldn’t be hoping to mess up anyone’s relationship, and she’d have plain cotton undies on. Kate Winslet would barely even talk to someone else’s guy, just to play it safe, and would be chilly with anyone else’s guy who tried to flirt with her.
MOST female celebrities seem to me to fall into the Heidi Klum half of the spectrum: definitely appealing, maybe even a little bit accidentally too flirty, but without raising hackles. I’d think that would be a challenging image to maintain unless it came mostly naturally.
And in addition to not flirting, Emma Thomson would would generally talk me up to whoever was drinking sherry with us. Chin chin!
I wish I could have coffee with you and your mom.
I go through all the same disclaimers in my head, but they’re much funnier listed out loud like that. I’m with you on everyone except Kate Hudson, but I have an unreasoning grudge against her, so I might be even more imaginarily non-evidence-based wrong than you and your mom.
I feel the same about Kate Hudson and I think it’s because I’m unduly influenced by her character in Glee. I know that’s stupid but there it is.
I love this and also feel that it’s a good example of why Resting Bitch Face is really a terrible disability.
Word.
I would like to hear your thoughts on Gwyneth re this discussion.
Also are you aware of Megan Fox’s toe thumb? Google it if you have not eaten recently.
Hm, Gwyneth. Interesting. I think she’s more toward the Heidi Klum side: I think she’d want to be ABOVE man-stealing, and she seems too earnest for dangerous flirting. But I can picture her justifying it, if it DID happen accidentally, as something Conscious.
Kerry Washington would shut your husband DOWN if he tried to flirt with her.
Jennifer Garner WOULD NEVER and would be happy to hang out in the kitchen and chat about kid stuff.
(I 100% believe both of these are true. Don’t try to tell me otherwise)
I agree with your assessment of these women, although I had to Google to see who some of them are and I definitely have no idea what their public images are. But I do! I agree just based on looks, so I wonder what’s with that? I kind of want to line up the photographs and analyze facial features in order to figure it out.
This is slightly off-topic, but I have a similar question about how I knew which of Tinkerbell’s fairy friends was the mean one just by seeing a still image of her face. Not based on any dialogue or action in the show, just by seeing how they drew her face. (It’s Vidia.) Somehow she looks sly? Sultry, even? I think it’s something with the eyebrows? What is it? How come I could tell she’s the “bad” one?
I think it’s the head tilt, plus the smirk. It comes across as “I’m so much better than you are.” Which is, of course, Vidia’s entire issue in the first movie.
My husband has recently stared eating meat after being a vegetarian for twenty years. It is very distressing to me and I am now doing thing s I don’t want to do, like buy lunch meat, although I still refuse to cook it. I compare it to being and atheist married to an atheist who becomes a born-again Christian.
I was renewing my ex’s library books on our county website (because he sent our kiddo back to my house with some books, and I didn’t want him to get fines, and blahblahjustification) and I saw the stuff he has out. Sci-fi books, beer brewing books, okay…also three books on wiccan spells and a Mad Men DVD. APPARENTLY HE IS COMPLICATED NOW.
Jessica Alba: a husband might try to strike up a conversation which she would politely deflect and continue on through to the kitchen to talk shop about natural diapers.
I really want to hang out with Jessemy and Emma Thompson and get cheerfully schnockered.
Yes! Lots of sherry to go ’round! In case you’re wondering where I got that drink in particular, Emma would march into her director’s home and demand sherry after long days of filming Sense & Sensibility (according to the commentary).
And you nailed Alba. Always promoting her brand!
I am still annoyed about Jessica Alba and the Honest Co’s attack on Honest Toddler, so I suspect that while she would not go after someone else’s husband, she would drone on and on, congratulating herself about how she is a defender of traditional values and the sanctity of marriage.
I would have to go find Jennifer Garner and Emma Thompson.
I entirely agree on Kate Winslet, but not so much on Taylor Swift. I think Taylor Swift would be really great at seeming like she’s only about hanging in the kitchen with the girls, but then would ‘accidentally’ steal someone’s husband and then take very little responsibility for it. Ellen Page would not only be hanging in the kitchen with the girls, but would also punch a husband in the FACE for flirting with her when he has a WIFE, ugh, gross, dude.
And also maybe gently inform them that she’s gay. Cos… she is, right?
Yeah, she’s gay. But I also think she’d not in a million years be down with stealing someone’s wife.
I agree, especially about Kate Winslet, who is my fantasy BFF.
I wonder if I would feel differently about Heidi Klum if we hadn’t seen so much of her on Project Runway etc? I feel like my image of the others rests more heavily on the visual or very brief red carpet interviews, but I’ve seen Heidi in casual (on-camera, true, but still more casual) conversation.
Also I agree about Taylor Swift probably SEEMING like she’s nonthreatening and more of a tomboy and blah blah but I kinda get this feeling that she’d totally prioritize landing the guy she wanted over not stepping on another woman’s toes/feelings/heart and soul. Very probably wildly unfair but as we stated, this whole convo is, so. Whatdya gonna do.
Angelina Jolie would steal your husband without batting an eye, but I guess I only base that on the fact that oh right she already did that once.
I remember watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith in theaters right when it came out, and having no knowledge of either of their personal lives, and thinking to myself in one particular scene “there is NO WAY those two aren’t sleeping together. Neither of them can act THAT well to showcase THAT much chemistry if it’s not happening IRL” and then not too long later it came out that, well, yep.
I was thinking on the way in to work this morning that in her youth she would have done that without batting an eye (I used that very term! in my mind!) but these days would probably not. Not with the many children and preventive double mastectomy, I don’t think. She doesn’t seem chatty and friendly and kitchen-talky, but she doesn’t seem guy-stealy either.
OK, so with the caveat that I spend way too much time on gossip sites and thus would LOVE to have this discussion and I hope you’ll take this in that spirit — i.e., one of pleasant debate and not argumentative unpleasantness — I totally disagree about Megan Fox. She’s been dating Brian Austin Green FOREVER and unlike, say, Olivia Wilde (who totally slept with Justin Timberlake while he was still seriously dating Jessica Biel, leading to their breakup and I STILL can’t with Jessica taking the jerk back), there’s never been the least WHIFF of a hint that Fox flirts with other guys in her private life.
Did she let Michael Bay audition her by washing a car in her bikini? Yes. But she’s not known (at least, I don’t think so) for being the flirtatious bombshell. She’s actually known for being a little too loyal to her every so slightly skeevy boyfriend-now-husband.
Also, the word on the street is that Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin had an open marriage and she was actually the inspiration for Brad Falchuk’s divorce. So I wouldn’t trust Gwynnie within a million miles, except that RDJ adores her and I guess that has to count for something.
ScarJo is notorious for not getting along with her female co-workers while doing that flirtatious “I’m just one of the guys, over here in my drop-dead gorgeousness” thing, so I would totally place her on the “she’d steal your husband” end of the spectrum. I really wish that weren’t true, because I adore her Black Widow and would like to think she got along with other women better.
You do know that Heidi Klum is the mother of FOUR . . . (As am I. She is only 2 years younger than me, but I look NOTHING like her – I have that motherly roundness.) I think she has a great personality and is working hard to support her family, plus my nine-year-old daughter loves her!
I think it’s funny that you went first to Megan Fox because, having read interviews of hers, she is at the top of my list of celebrities people underestimate/misread because of their looks. It makes the game more interesting when you know something or have read something about the celebrity. Like, from what (admittedly little) I know about both of them, I would put Scarlett Johansson above Megan Fox for likely husband stealing, and Kate Hudson, too (although I think your description of her was so spot-on, it made me laugh). I am struggling, though, to come up with … oh, wait. I think Anne Hathaway would totally stealth steal your husband, first lulling you into a false sense of security by being so goofy and awkward you think she could NEVER, but then BAM, it’s done and she feels so bad about it. But then she also doesn’t understand why you don’t like her anymore. Oh, this is fun. Thanks for giving me something to think about while I brush my teeth tonight!
What about Zooey Deschanel?
And Jennifer Lawrence?
LOL, Jennifer Lawrence. I bet she dork dances to whatever music is on, has one shot too many and tries to impress you with bow and arrow skills from the hunger games but the arrow goes askew and shoots over your grumpy neighbor’s back fence and everybody runs inside laughing to hide. She doesn’t give a tish about your husband.
And if anything husband-y did happen she’d be incredibly contrite and feel awful, even if it was just that someone else’s husband flirted with her a bit.
As a person who is more than averagely involved in politics, married to a man more than averagely involved in politics, I am now intensely curious about WHICH BOOKS?
And in related news, this is me: http://www.ElizabethMillerForDelegate.com