I watched Jessica Simpson’s new travel docu-reality show, The Price of Beauty, on VH1 last night and was struck by how superficial and frankly dumb it was. Simpson is travelling around the world with her two best friends, hairstylist Ken Paves and her former assistant Cacee Cobb, ostensibly to learn about and document the way that beauty is perceived and practiced in different cultures. Instead, they look like a bunch of fools making fun of different cultures and sticking out like sore manicured thumbs. It doesn’t help that Jessica is so dim that she’s amazed by simple cultural differences, like the fact that Thai women want pale skin as opposed to American’s striving for an orange tan.
The show is also very fast-paced and slick, with background music and beautiful visuals. It’s entertaining for a while, but it fails to impart a lesson beyond the basic concept that beauty is culturally influenced. I learned more about the way that young people can act like idiots in foreign countries. I also found Jessica and her friends kind of offensive at times. At one point they met a Thai woman who had attempted to bleach her skin with over the counter products and ended up with a face burnt by the sun. Her face looked like she had a port wine birthmark. When Jessica and Cacee met her, they cried and looked pityingly at the woman, who initially seemed stoic but broke down in tears too. I found it patronizing, to be honest, and when Jessica (who meant well I’m sure) knelt down to hug the woman I frankly cringed. From what I understand, it’s not customary to hug people in Thailand and Jessica barely knew that woman. Would she have pitied a burn victim like that?
The Washington Post has a good assessment of the show and I agree. Here’s part of what they wrote about it:
Will she eat a fried cockroach? (To derive its
beauty-enhancing nutrients?) Will she pass gas during a cleansing but
aggressive body massage in Bangkok, only to crack the obvious “happy
ending” joke? Can she get through a Buddhist prayer session to purify
her soul without giggling?Soon enough it’s clear that Simpson and her friends are on a trip
around the world to make jokes and get free spa treatments. Sure, “The
Price of Beauty” tries to serious things up a bit (they visit a woman
who irreparably burned her face in search of the Thai ideal of pale
beauty; they go out to visit those tribal women who elongate their
necks using heavy rings), but these efforts fall flat.At best, “The Price of Beauty” reminds you of the most clueless of
ugly Americans who are sometimes seen in “The Amazing Race,” barking
in Spanish (”muy rapido!”) to cabdrivers in Mozambique; Simpson’s
naivete about the world beyond her own crosses a line from mildly
clueless to patently offensive. What’s striking about this show is
that Simpson, nearing 30, has apparently done little in the way of
maturing or learning since the buffalo-wing days. Even if it’s all a
dim-bulb act, it’s a tired act, and if we’re talking about real
beauty, this sort of ignorance looks unattractive on a woman her
age.
[From The Washington Post]
Here are some of my favorite stupid ass quotes from Jessica in The Price of Beauty
On her painful Thai massage “I thought that Thai massages had happy endings. I’m wondering where mine was.”
On her palm reading at a market in Bangkok “
I got chillbumps from head to toe from the fortune teller. He said ‘you’re really going to fall in love.’ Of course right now I’m single. That was comforting.”
On laughing in a meditation session in front of a Buddhist monk
“I couldn’t control it. I felt like I was back in church and you’re not supposed to laugh and you do.”
On eating a worm
“I’m thinking to myself, how are you going to do this Jessica? You can’t even eat salmon.”
To be fair to Jessica, Ken and Cacee, they did seem considerably less rude and genuinely affected when they met a tribe in the north of Thailand made up of women who elongated their necks using thick rings. It was too little too late though. One sort-of reverent moment can’t make up for how clueless they were the rest of the show.
You can watch full episodes of The
Price of Beauty on VH1.com. Photos courtesy of VH1.
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