Monday, June 30, 2008
Which soundbite's sound and which one bites?
EW.com have a great video dealy ever day where they hold a vote on the best soundbites from the previous night's TV. Nearly always hilarious. Watch here.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Absolved online of all my sins
From today's Independent
The internet is a life-saver for many of us, but did you know it can help save your soul too? Continue here.
The internet is a life-saver for many of us, but did you know it can help save your soul too? Continue here.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Unity indeed
What are they up to?! What is Hillary going to get out of supporting Obama? Stop teasing us you two!
Prince Caspian
My review of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian in Day and Night magazine in today's Independent
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Memories from a Faggot, Dyke, Freak, Whatever
My feature from today's Irish Examiner...
There’s a fantastic scene in an episode of the British drama series Queer as Folk where gay schoolboy Nathan is being taunted in class for being “queer” by some fellow pupils, while the teacher ignores it and continues calling the roll.
When he gets to Nathan’s name, the student responds with “queer” rather than “here”. The teacher becomes furious, which leads Nathan to coolly ask him: “How come you can hear me when I say that word, but not the others?” The flustered teacher has no response.
Nathan’s small moment of triumph is fiction. In reality, very few gay secondary school students here or abroad would have the confidence or support to stand up to homophobic bullying.
It’s a topic that is covered to startling effect in a new documentary provocatively entitled Faggot, Dyke, Freak, Whatever, which will be broadcast on Newstalk 106-108 this weekend.
It makes for some pretty distressing, though unsurprising, listening. One contributor, a transsexual named Danielle, tells of how she was driven to suicide attempts, before eventually dropping out of school, while another, Stephen, recounts how the bullying extended beyond school hours in the form of abusive phone calls to his home every night.
The timing of the documentary’s broadcast is significant, coming as it does a week after the streets of Dublin came to rainbow-coloured life with the annual Gay Pride parade, and two weeks after the international gay rugby world cup was staged at Dublin City University to wide acclaim.
Last week also saw the Irish Queer Archive, a collection of material charting the tumultuous campaign for gay rights over the past four decades, being transferred to the National Library of Ireland.
While this was a hugely symbolic move in terms of the Irish state officially making gay heritage part of the national narrative, the stories of discrimination and prejudice contained within that archive are anything but a distant memory for some gay people in Ireland today.
Nobody can deny that massive advances have been made in gay rights in this country, but serious problems, like homophobic bullying in schools for instance, are a cold, harsh reminder that we still have some ways to go.
As a 26-year-old proud gay man, I sometimes marvel at just how much this country has changed in a very short space of time. It may seem hard to believe from the vantage point of our post-Will and Grace era, but the same Victorian laws that were used to persecute Oscar Wilde in the 1890s were still on the Irish statute books until June 1993 – 15 years ago to the day in fact – when homosexuality was decriminalised by the then Labour-Fianna Fail coalition government.
Since then, equality legislation has been overhauled to provide rights and protections to gay citizens, while the huge increase in gay representation in the media and public life, for good and for bad, has done a great deal to ‘normalise’ homosexuality in the popular imagination.
But for a lot of gay Irish people of all ages, none of the above matters. It’s easy for me to say that life for gay people is rosy, living in a large city with an ever-diverse and lively gay scene. That’s not the case for thousands of lonely and scared gay people living in less open or supportive environs around the country.
If I had to pick one word to sum up how it feels to grow up as a gay person, it would be fear: the fear at realising you’re not the same as everyone else; fear that you will let your carefully maintained guard slip and that someone will find out your secret; the fear that life will always be lonely; and the fear that nobody, ever, will really understand you. Let me tell you, that’s enough to drive someone mad.
That’s why I tell people now that I didn’t “come out” so much as “crack up”. I couldn’t keep up the façade any longer – it was exhausting!
I gradually came out to a select group of friends, and, after a few years of building my confidence, I told my parents and brothers, who, to put it mildly, were not in the least surprised. In fact, they seemed a bit hurt and even insulted that I hadn’t told them before, something which hadn’t even occurred to me. It was all very calm as I had consciously made a decision not to tell them until I felt fully comfortable with being gay, which I think reassured them and allayed whatever fears they might have.
However, that all happened in my early 20s. Getting to that point was extremely difficult. I was lucky not to have met the kind of horrible violence suffered by some of the contributors to the documentary, but the stories of name-calling, the sneering, and the constant barrage of passive aggressive taunting were all-too familiar reminders of my days in an all-boys secondary school.
In my experience, humiliation brought on by verbal abuse is the minimum a gay secondary school student must put up with. Looking back, sometimes I think I’d have preferred a punch rather than be called ‘bum chum’ in the middle of religion class. These were my options, apparently.
In 2006, a Dublin City University survey of 364 teachers found almost 80 per cent were aware of instances of homophobic bullying, and 16 per cent reported physical bullying of students perceived as being gay. It’s been eight years since I left school, and little seemingly has changed.
If these same statistics related to ethnic or religious-based bullying, there would be a national outcry. The word ‘gay’ is thrown around schoolyards as if it’s the worst insult imaginable, and even adults, who should know better, casually fall back on the term when they want to describe something naff.
On the upside, gay people are coming out at an earlier age today than ever before. For many of them, it’s no big deal. That’s a great advancement, but one with a crucial paradox at its heart.
Homosexuality is more “accepted”, but that seems to have created the impression that there’s no hurdles left to overcome. Legislation can change laws, but not hearts and minds. They are a lot trickier.
Since listening to that documentary, I’ve been haunted by the voices I heard on it. To those young gay men and women, and others in similar situations, all I can say is this: when I was 16 or 17, I never imagined that I would – could - ever write about being gay in a national newspaper, but here I am.
I can also say that I love my life, and sincerely wouldn’t change it for anything. That’s another thing I thought I would never say when I was 16 or 17.
My point is that school is not life. It’s not always going to be that way, but I realise it can be hard to grasp that there’s a big, diverse world out there when small minds keep trying to belittle you.
My hope is that in 30 years time, gay Irish pupils will come across that documentary in the Queer Archive - and not be able to relate to a single word of it. As a nation, as a society, surely we will have learned our lesson by then?
*Faggot, Dyke, Freak, Whatever is broadcast on Newstalk 106-108 this Saturday at 7am and repeated on Sunday at 9pm.
There’s a fantastic scene in an episode of the British drama series Queer as Folk where gay schoolboy Nathan is being taunted in class for being “queer” by some fellow pupils, while the teacher ignores it and continues calling the roll.
When he gets to Nathan’s name, the student responds with “queer” rather than “here”. The teacher becomes furious, which leads Nathan to coolly ask him: “How come you can hear me when I say that word, but not the others?” The flustered teacher has no response.
Nathan’s small moment of triumph is fiction. In reality, very few gay secondary school students here or abroad would have the confidence or support to stand up to homophobic bullying.
It’s a topic that is covered to startling effect in a new documentary provocatively entitled Faggot, Dyke, Freak, Whatever, which will be broadcast on Newstalk 106-108 this weekend.
It makes for some pretty distressing, though unsurprising, listening. One contributor, a transsexual named Danielle, tells of how she was driven to suicide attempts, before eventually dropping out of school, while another, Stephen, recounts how the bullying extended beyond school hours in the form of abusive phone calls to his home every night.
The timing of the documentary’s broadcast is significant, coming as it does a week after the streets of Dublin came to rainbow-coloured life with the annual Gay Pride parade, and two weeks after the international gay rugby world cup was staged at Dublin City University to wide acclaim.
Last week also saw the Irish Queer Archive, a collection of material charting the tumultuous campaign for gay rights over the past four decades, being transferred to the National Library of Ireland.
While this was a hugely symbolic move in terms of the Irish state officially making gay heritage part of the national narrative, the stories of discrimination and prejudice contained within that archive are anything but a distant memory for some gay people in Ireland today.
Nobody can deny that massive advances have been made in gay rights in this country, but serious problems, like homophobic bullying in schools for instance, are a cold, harsh reminder that we still have some ways to go.
As a 26-year-old proud gay man, I sometimes marvel at just how much this country has changed in a very short space of time. It may seem hard to believe from the vantage point of our post-Will and Grace era, but the same Victorian laws that were used to persecute Oscar Wilde in the 1890s were still on the Irish statute books until June 1993 – 15 years ago to the day in fact – when homosexuality was decriminalised by the then Labour-Fianna Fail coalition government.
Since then, equality legislation has been overhauled to provide rights and protections to gay citizens, while the huge increase in gay representation in the media and public life, for good and for bad, has done a great deal to ‘normalise’ homosexuality in the popular imagination.
But for a lot of gay Irish people of all ages, none of the above matters. It’s easy for me to say that life for gay people is rosy, living in a large city with an ever-diverse and lively gay scene. That’s not the case for thousands of lonely and scared gay people living in less open or supportive environs around the country.
If I had to pick one word to sum up how it feels to grow up as a gay person, it would be fear: the fear at realising you’re not the same as everyone else; fear that you will let your carefully maintained guard slip and that someone will find out your secret; the fear that life will always be lonely; and the fear that nobody, ever, will really understand you. Let me tell you, that’s enough to drive someone mad.
That’s why I tell people now that I didn’t “come out” so much as “crack up”. I couldn’t keep up the façade any longer – it was exhausting!
I gradually came out to a select group of friends, and, after a few years of building my confidence, I told my parents and brothers, who, to put it mildly, were not in the least surprised. In fact, they seemed a bit hurt and even insulted that I hadn’t told them before, something which hadn’t even occurred to me. It was all very calm as I had consciously made a decision not to tell them until I felt fully comfortable with being gay, which I think reassured them and allayed whatever fears they might have.
However, that all happened in my early 20s. Getting to that point was extremely difficult. I was lucky not to have met the kind of horrible violence suffered by some of the contributors to the documentary, but the stories of name-calling, the sneering, and the constant barrage of passive aggressive taunting were all-too familiar reminders of my days in an all-boys secondary school.
In my experience, humiliation brought on by verbal abuse is the minimum a gay secondary school student must put up with. Looking back, sometimes I think I’d have preferred a punch rather than be called ‘bum chum’ in the middle of religion class. These were my options, apparently.
In 2006, a Dublin City University survey of 364 teachers found almost 80 per cent were aware of instances of homophobic bullying, and 16 per cent reported physical bullying of students perceived as being gay. It’s been eight years since I left school, and little seemingly has changed.
If these same statistics related to ethnic or religious-based bullying, there would be a national outcry. The word ‘gay’ is thrown around schoolyards as if it’s the worst insult imaginable, and even adults, who should know better, casually fall back on the term when they want to describe something naff.
On the upside, gay people are coming out at an earlier age today than ever before. For many of them, it’s no big deal. That’s a great advancement, but one with a crucial paradox at its heart.
Homosexuality is more “accepted”, but that seems to have created the impression that there’s no hurdles left to overcome. Legislation can change laws, but not hearts and minds. They are a lot trickier.
Since listening to that documentary, I’ve been haunted by the voices I heard on it. To those young gay men and women, and others in similar situations, all I can say is this: when I was 16 or 17, I never imagined that I would – could - ever write about being gay in a national newspaper, but here I am.
I can also say that I love my life, and sincerely wouldn’t change it for anything. That’s another thing I thought I would never say when I was 16 or 17.
My point is that school is not life. It’s not always going to be that way, but I realise it can be hard to grasp that there’s a big, diverse world out there when small minds keep trying to belittle you.
My hope is that in 30 years time, gay Irish pupils will come across that documentary in the Queer Archive - and not be able to relate to a single word of it. As a nation, as a society, surely we will have learned our lesson by then?
*Faggot, Dyke, Freak, Whatever is broadcast on Newstalk 106-108 this Saturday at 7am and repeated on Sunday at 9pm.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Queer Times
Feature from yesterday's Independent.
The young gay man was attacked in a known cruising spot in the Phoenix Park. He was set upon by a group of what he later described to Gardai as "maniacal youths" who knocked him to the ground, and beat him with clubs, resulting in several cracked ribs. Continue here.
The young gay man was attacked in a known cruising spot in the Phoenix Park. He was set upon by a group of what he later described to Gardai as "maniacal youths" who knocked him to the ground, and beat him with clubs, resulting in several cracked ribs. Continue here.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The 2008 Sense-of-Perspective Award goes to...
...R Kelly for his latest quote: "Bin Laden is the only one who knows exactly whatI'm going through."
Monday, June 16, 2008
Grass is always greener...
Good piece in today's New York Times on the brilliant and, yes, highly addictive TV show Weeds, starring Mary Louise Parker (left), which starts its fourth season tonight in the US
Shut up and kiss me
From today's Dindo.
The pursuit of the perfect smooch is one of the guiding forces behind the new indie rom-com, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, which opened in Irish cinemas on Friday. Continue here.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
How to win friends - and forget their names
From today's Review in the Irish Independent
When I think back on it now, I find myself genuinely shocked at how quickly, how easily and how unexpectedly the whole excruciating disaster unfurled around me. Continue reading here.
When I think back on it now, I find myself genuinely shocked at how quickly, how easily and how unexpectedly the whole excruciating disaster unfurled around me. Continue reading here.
Copycat TV shows
From today's Review section in today's Independent
You're hired! Those are the words that Bill Cullen heard this week from the head honchos at TV3, who announced that the station is to make an Irish version of the smash hit reality show The Apprentice to be hosted by Renault Ireland's chairman. Continue here.
You're hired! Those are the words that Bill Cullen heard this week from the head honchos at TV3, who announced that the station is to make an Irish version of the smash hit reality show The Apprentice to be hosted by Renault Ireland's chairman. Continue here.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Bye bye to bling bling
Feature in today's Independent
The election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London signalled that something strange was happening in British cultural life. The Eton and Oxford-educated toff, written off by the media as a pompous buffoon, was a wildly popular candidate, particularly among younger voters. Continue here.
The election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London signalled that something strange was happening in British cultural life. The Eton and Oxford-educated toff, written off by the media as a pompous buffoon, was a wildly popular candidate, particularly among younger voters. Continue here.
The Talkies
Review of The Incredible Hulk in today's Day and Night magazine in the Independent.
Also words on The Happening
Lastly, my review of In Search of a Midnight Kiss...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Growing trends
My feature on the rehabilitation of stubble in today's Irish Examiner.
It’s official: grizzle is great. Men from all walks of life are banishing the razors and shaving gel to the back of the bathroom cabinet and are embracing the once-maligned 5 o’clock shadow.
Look around you in the office, in the bar or on public transport, and you will be guaranteed to find a heap of blokes sporting stubble and light beards.
Look around you in the office, in the bar or on public transport, and you will be guaranteed to find a heap of blokes sporting stubble and light beards.
Face bristle is also the look du jour amongst many men in the public eye. Colin Farrell, Patrick Dempsey and Matthew Fox are all sprouting stubble, as are Roy Keane, Roman Abramovich, George Michael and Michelen-star chef Dylan McGrath.
“There’s definitely a trend for stubble and facial hair at the moment,” says Cian McDonald, one of the proprietors of the men-only salon The Grooming Rooms in Dublin, and himself the proud holder of a grizzly muzzle.
“I think men are expressing themselves in different ways, through their clothes, their hair and their facial hair. Maybe 4-5 years ago it was less socially acceptable, but it’s gotten to the point where enough guys are wearing stubble for it to be more mainstream.”
But why the sudden rise in popularity for the stubbly look? McDonald believes the trend is both a product of, and reaction against, the metrosexual revolution.
“Metrosexuality has been good in one way because it made men realise that caring about how you look is okay and that it’s good to look smart and stylish,” he explains. “On the other hand, there has been a bit of a backlash because some feel that it perhaps went too far towards feminisation. Stubble and beards are very manly, masculine traits.”
Facial hair may be popular and desirable right now, but in the past, stubble has been loaded with largely negative, and even dangerous, connotations.
“Historically, a stubbled face suggested that a man might be grieving or in mourning, or, as all those famous photographs from The Great Depression suggest, that he was unemployed and unemployable,” states Allan Peterkin, a psychiatrist and author of One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair.
“Stubble has even implied that the man might be crazy – think of Jack Nicholson in The Shining - or sleazy and overly-slick, like Don Johnson in Miami Vice back in the 80s.”
Peterkin says the look was rehabilitated in the 1990s with the emergence of goatees and sideburns, and really took off when the look was seized upon by celebrities and the popular media.
“If you look at any men’s magazine, like FHM, Maxim, GQ or any of the sports magazines, you’ll see a lot of guys with stubble,” he says. “It is a bit of a fashion norm now, so I think that affects our attitudes. We used to get our style cues from our kings and clergymen, but men are increasingly taking cues from fashion magazines, actors, and athletes.”
At this point, it seems necessary to ask an obvious question that arises from this whole craze: are men just growing stubble to impress the fairer sex?
“Women are actually mixed on the issue,” Peterkin answers. “Surveys show that men often grow facial hair because they think that women like it.
“However, while it’s true that women will rate pictures of men with facial hair as being more virile and masculine, that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to go out with them.
“Women may like the look, but they don’t like kissing a man with stubble because it’s very hard on their skin. It’s like instant dermabrasion!”
The ladies’ ambivalence notwithstanding, Peterkin believes that the facial hair phenomenon has evolved into a galvanising, almost rebellious, statement by men since the turn of the new century.
“I think men today are making a point with their stubble: they are saying, ‘I’m no corporate slave’,” he states. “Unlike their fathers and grandfathers, they know they can get away with facial hair, and still become president of a company with stubble.”
That angle on the stubble issue has been highlighted in the current series of The Apprentice on BBC1, where there’s nary a clean-shaven face to be seen, from the bushy visage of Alan Sugar himself, to the designer stubble sported by contestants Alex Wotherspoon and Lee McQueen. Is facial hair now acceptable in the traditionally formal and conservative corporate world?
“In terms of employability, there’s still a lot of discrimination against facial hair, especially the full beard,” Peterkin replies. “Some employers will still discriminate, albeit perhaps unconsciously, if you have a beard.
“There’s actually a group in the UK called the Beard Liberation Front and they have done experiments where they send a guy out with the same CV, shaven and unshaven, and they have proven that when a guy has facial hair, he’s less likely to be invited back for a second interview.
“It’s also very hard to get elected if you have facial hair. This is particularly the case in the United States anyway, though I think facial hair on wannabe politicians might fly more amongst the electorates in Europe.”
Patricia Callan from the Small Firms Association takes a different view on the question of stubble in the business and corporate world.
“It’s become more difficult with equality laws outlawing discrimination for employers to say something like stubble is unacceptable without a very good reason to back it up,” says Patricia Callan from the Small Firms Association.
“More industries have become relaxed about this kind of thing, but it’s fair for an employer to adopt a particular attitude if it’s relevant to the job and what’s expected in that role.
“So, for example, if you’re making an important presentation, it makes sense that you will be more successful in your interaction with your customers or clients if you appear how they want you to appear. If that means formal and clean shaven, then that has to be taken into account.”
But if the stubbled guys from The Apprentice turned up at a firm for a job interview, would their facial growth be taken into account?
“By and large most employers will look at people based on their CVs, and, unless there’s a very high level of interaction with customers, less so on their appearance,” Callan says. “But it’s a different matter if it looks like you just crawled out of bed, and that’s why you have stubble!”
Therein lies the key to successfully pulling off the stubbled look: it must appear deliberate and cared for, rather than scruffy and unkempt.
“It suits some people more than others,” Cian McDonald says. “Very often light stubble can look quite messy. The biggest thing would be putting in a bit of effort, and putting some definition and design on it, like shaving the neckline, or shaving the cheeks. We’ve had quite a few younger guys get that done in our salon.”
Allan Peterkin holds up hunky clothes designer Tom Ford as a stubble role model. “Ford always has a bit of 5’o clock shadow, but you’ll notice that he keeps it very clean looking,” he says. “His haircut is neat, his skin is in great shape and the stubble is really well demarcated. That’s what makes his stubble look designer, and not lazy or accidental.”
Monday, June 09, 2008
Ouch
Saw this movie this morning. N.a.s.t.y. Look out for the review in the Independent next Friday.
The movie is about a mythological condition called 'vagina dentata'. Tee hee hee, now start singing that along to the tune of this song.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Return of the glamazons
Feature on the return of the 1990s supermodels in yesterday's Irish Independent
They were the Amazonian goddesses who transcended the boundaries of the modelling scene to become megastar celebrities – and now the original supermodels are returning to their rightful place at the heart of the fashion world.
This autumn, some of the leading members of the original “Big Six” that Gianni Versace first sent shimmying sensuously down the catwalk in the early 1990s will be back on billboards across the globe.
Linda Evangelista (43) will star in Prada’s autumn/winter ad campaign, while Christy Turlington (39) has been signed up by Escada, and last month modelled Chanel for Karl Lagerfeld.
Furthermore, Claudia Schiffer (37) will front campaigns for Chanel and Salvatore Ferragamo and Eva Herzigova (35) will pout for Louis Vuitton and Amber Valleta by Dsquared.
Meanwhile, Naomi Campbell (38) remains one of the busiest supermodels around, and this week picked up a e250,000 contract with Yves Saint Laurent, despite, our perhaps because of, her phone-chucking, air rage tantrum-throwing ways.
These glamazons were at the height of their commercial and earning power in the mid-90s, exemplified by Evangelista’s immortal utterance that she and Christy Turlington “don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day”.
But gradually the industry deserted them, leaving just Kate Moss and Brazilian stunner Gisele Bundchen (currently the world’s richest model) to fly the diminished ‘super’ flag. Actresses, singers, and, eventually, the current crop of waif-life stick insects began to dominate the scene.
So why are these old-school supermodels suddenly back in vogue? The answer to that question is most likely down to their ages – ironic for an industry where youth is considered the golden ticket.
“Models in their mid 30s and 40s more accurately reflect the demographic of designers' clients and customers - literally the women who have the most money to spend,” explains Sarah McDonnell, editor of The Gloss magazine.
“Designers have taken to "reviving" the older model for advertising campaigns, while still choosing very young girls to wear their clothes on the catwalk. It's a classic example of high fashion (as worn by super-slim teens on the runway) meeting commercial reality.”
The strategy seems to be working. L'Oréal has said that its profits have increased 20 per cent since Linda Evangelista started appearing in their ads eighteen months ago.
Celia Holman Lee, who has run her Limerick-based modelling agency for the past three decades, argues that these supermodels are in demand once more because their profiles and personas are so entrenched in popular culture.
“These women made such an impact back in the 1990s that they are still obviously household names,” Holman Lee explains.
“The key here is familiarity. It takes many years to reach a level of iconic fame where a woman can open a magazine and straight away say, ‘Oh there’s Claudia Schiffer’.
“The members of today’s cool set like Agyness Deyn and Lily Cole are not as widely known, despite their exposure.”
Holman Lee adds that this recognition factor has turned the supermodels into brands, and that their mere presence in a campaign brings its own set of associations, expectations and even desires. “It’s not necessarily the supermodel per se: it’s the persona, the sense of individuality and the mystique that this woman has created around herself that draws companies and designers,” she says.
Those lucrative supermodel personas were certainly given enough space to flourish in the public sphere in the heady years of the 1990s. These days it’s substance-bothering pop stars and actresses, and reality TV has-beens and never-weres that keep the tabloids and gossip rags in business.
But in their heyday these clothes horses were the number one fixation of the media, who slavishly tracked what they ate, where they were partying and who they were dating and hating.
Naomi Campbell continues to live the most “colourful” life of the supermodels, and was most recently arrested for allegedly assaulting an officer when she learned her luggage had been lost at Heathrow’s disastrous Terminal Five.
Naomi Campbell continues to live the most “colourful” life of the supermodels, and was most recently arrested for allegedly assaulting an officer when she learned her luggage had been lost at Heathrow’s disastrous Terminal Five.
Before she became defined by her anger management issues, Campbell was a red-top favourite for her succession of love affairs with actor Robert de Niro, boxer Mike Tyson, and , of course, Adam Clayton from U2, whom she was engaged to for a period.
Campbell was also one of the so-called “Trinity” alongside Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. Together, these three pushed for better jobs and higher pay, and are generally credited with improving the industry’s work conditions and pay rates for models.
Evangelista has spent most of her career trying to escape the shadow of her infamous $10,000 remark, which she made during an interview with Vogue in 1990. “I said that a long time ago and I would hope that today I am a different person,” she said in 2005.
The Canadian was also known for her ever-changing hairstyles, transforming her look a dozen times over the decade, earning the nickname The Chameleon. Her famous short cut shocked the industry, but it was replicated by women the world over.
Evangelista’s private life was equally changeable. In 1987 she married Gerald Marie, her boss at the Elite model agency in Paris. They divorced in 1992, and she subsequently had relationships with Desperate Housewives actor Kyle McLachlan, French footballer Fabien Barthez and Formula One driver Paulo Barilla.
In 2006 she gave birth to a boy, but has never revealed the father’s identity. Refreshingly – if that’s the word – Evangelista has also admitted to using Botox, though not during pregnancy. And while her personal life was always a bit of roller coaster, Evangelista had sound financial judgement, and wisely invested her millions in property.
Christy Turlington, meanwhile, was never comfortable with the ‘supermodel’ tag despite being one of its first and most successful proponents. She amassed millions in the late 80s and early 90s through her contracts with Maybelline, Chanel and Calvin Klein, appeared on over 500 magazine covers, starred in music videos for Duran Duran and George Michael, and was even hailed as the ‘Face of the 20th Century’ by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Along the way she dated actors Christian Slater and Jason Patric, before marrying actor/director Ed Burns in 2003, with whom she has a son and daughter. Turlington focussed intently on her post-modelling career by creating two yoga-clothing lines for women, and is said to be worth some e20 million today.
Elsewhere, Czech stunner Eva Herzigova was dubbed “the Marilyn of the 1990s” when she burst onto the scene – quite literally in fact - modelling for Wonderbra, Guess? and Victoria’s Secret.
The multi-lingual model cemented her sexbomb reputation by posing nude in Playboy, and marrying Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres, whom she divorced after two years. She has since said the experience turned her off marriage for life. She now has a one-year-old son with her Italian boyfriend.
The multi-lingual model cemented her sexbomb reputation by posing nude in Playboy, and marrying Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres, whom she divorced after two years. She has since said the experience turned her off marriage for life. She now has a one-year-old son with her Italian boyfriend.
Perhaps the savviest supermodel of them all is Claudia Schiffer. Her earning capacity has been so immense that she is believed to be worth upwards of e50 million. The range of her contracts is astonishing – everything from L’Oreal to Pepsi to Citreon, whom she posed for in the nude in an advert and pocketed e3 million in the process.
After spending six years engaged to magician David Copperfield, Schiffer married film producer Matthew Vaughn in 2002 and has since had two children.
It was Schiffer who pronounced the end of the supermodel reign last year. “Supermodels like we once were don’t exist anymore,” she said. Trends had certainly shifted since the turn of the millennium. Soon the supers began disappearing from the magazine covers, as the market responded to the public’s apparently insatiable appetite for Hollywood A-listers and the designer craze for paler, skinnier, more ‘average’ women than these strapping, tanned giants.
“Fashion changes so much, and as soon as one designer starts tiring of them, others follow suit,” Celia Holman Lee explains. “The supermodels just became over-exposed.”
Now that it appears the fashion cycle has spun back in their favour, Holman Lee recalls the supermodels’ appeal that made them such powerhouses in the first place.
“They were simply magnificent,” she states. “I remember seeing Naomi Campbell, Linda Evenagelista and a few more when they came to Dublin for a Brown Thomas show to raise money for Chernobyl.
“I got up quite close to them at the show and they were spectacular. We try to think that it’s all down to the make-up, the hair and so on, but it’s not. These women really are that beautiful, which is very disappointing for the rest of us because we can’t bitch!”
So has time been kind to Evangelista, Turlington et al? Do they look as good as they did back in the 90s? “They seem to look the same,” Holman Lee replies. “You’d really have to go looking for a bad picture or nitpick a lot to find flaws with these women.”
Sarah McDonnell has a similar take on the ageing question. “I'm always a bit bemused by what seems to be a sort of collective sigh of relief on the part of observers inside and outside the industry regarding these models,” she says.
“The tone of the coverage seems to be along the lines that these ageing supers have been rescued, at the ripe old age of 35 or 40, from a bleak future of soft-focus infomercials and senior moments.
“The fact is these women are probably more breathtakingly beautiful and interesting now than they ever were.”
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Why Hollywood wants to play happy families
From today's Independent
It must be hard to be Daniel P. Depp. He has just landed a lucrative deal for his new book, Loser's Town, which will earn him a fortune when it's published next spring. Continue here.
It must be hard to be Daniel P. Depp. He has just landed a lucrative deal for his new book, Loser's Town, which will earn him a fortune when it's published next spring. Continue here.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Drudging up the past
For you Drudge addicts like myself. His site is the first I check every morning - even before my own emails.
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