Joe's Daughters

I confess it feels, at times, like the right thing to do to rush to the defense of one pop celebrity or another. Those shows on E! or Vh1 where C-level comedians in need of day jobs trash, say, Shannen Doherty's recent trip to the supermarket or Eva Longoria's choice in car paint, only wind up making me sympathetic with whichever lousy celebrity seems to be the focus of ironic commentary - I may never have been a fan of Longoria or Doherty or Paris Hilton or Winona Ryder, but I start to think, in flipping past Awesomely Badder Girls 4 or whatever Vh1 programs for my wakeup time on Sundays, that at least those celebrities did something, anything, besides whine about people more recognizable than themselves.

I say this because no celebrity at this point should be more ripe for sympathy than either one of the Simpson sisters, Jessica or Ashlee. Either one of them should have me secretly singing their songs to myself, or surrepticiously slipping them onto a party playlist on my iPod. This being the sort of thing I would do - at last count, my iPod of 7062 songs features 10 Britney Spears songs, she, never a kind word said about her in public, happens to make terrific pop music on occasion.

Yet with Jessica turning her divorce into a song of confectionary drivel about dancing or roller skating or whatever "A Public Affair" is supposed to be about, and Ashlee's recent identity -altering plastic surgery, I wonder if these aren't the two celebrities most in need of immediate relocation to a Mediterranean island somewhere, women whose presence and celebrity is maddening only when it's not terrifying.

What is it about Jessica, I wonder - the more I consider her existence, the more ponderous it gets. The woman has never had any singing talent, not really. She doesn't hit notes so much as warble around them, which might be ok (after all, the 90's were full of astonishing female artists who couldn't sing well, exactly, but sang their songs exactly right), except that her music is of such a bland variety, made to be only catchy, hummable, and unnoticed as it skates to familiarity on radio airwaves, that her lack of talent seems to be the music's only mark of uniqueness.

In fact, can you even remember a Jessica Simpson song? Could you sing one to yourself? The truth is, she was a failing pop star before she was a celebrity, and she'll always make a far more interesting celebrity than pop star. She boasts as her biggest hit, I think, "With You," which owes its success to a video trumpeting all of her dumb-blonde catchphrases from her reality show Newlyweds, including stinky farts and mistakes about tuna. That video, if you recall (and likely, you can't), played at the end of every Newlyweds episode for months, and it seemed the aggressive marketing for the single wasn't going to stop until the song cracked Billboard's Top 10 - it did, eventually, which may or may not have been an act of mercy.

I heard "With You" on a 90's music program a few weeks ago, and it took that insecure warble to remind me which generic love ode it was. I'd have no desire to ever hear the song in any context otherwise, and that seems pretty clear with all of her songs. Now, "A Public Affair" has cracked the top 20, and the marketing is just as aggressive - its roller-rink video features Christina Applegate and Eva Longoria skating in perfectly-coifed synchronicity with Simpson, and it is one of those videos that MTV shows in 30-second clips whenever possible.

This must be the work of the Simpsons' father/manager Joe Simpson. I wonder what it's like to be Joe Simpson. Jessica tried out - and failed - for Star Search and The Mickey Mouse Club as a child, her breasts expanded overnight (I do think they're real though, to her credit - and to credit her truly astonishing physical appeal), and he found there was more money in marketing her as a pop star than a Christian music star. Joe Simpson is probably amongst the wealthiest managers in the music business, but what must it be like to force your daughters to strive towards fame before they even hit puberty?

I wonder this mostly because the now-infamous image of a stately Ashlee Simpson that seems to be everywhere - there she is, a blonde now, small-nosed now, big-breasted now. Ashlee had botox, Ashlee had a boob job, Ashlee had a nosejob and lip work. I don't know exactly which rumor is true, nor do I care to.

I do, however, note the irony of a woman who will declare, from every microphone possible, that she is "her own woman," that she "won't change for anybody," that she "cannot be told who she is." I didn't buy that when she said it, of course (who could?), yet I did think that was at least a message of confidence she wanted her fan base to share with her. I have no doubt that message will continue when "the new Ashlee" unveils her third album.

This is where things get harmful, I believe, and it also treads on my own moral beliefs about plastic surgery. I do believe that women of all ages should be "her own woman," should "not change for anybody," and should "not be told who they are." Yet if Ashlee's looks were keeping her from being the sex symbol her sister is, it seems to me the exact wrong message to turn her into one - wasn't the notion from the beginning that Ashlee, with her black hair, would stand as the "edgy" counterpart to her sister's glitz? Perhaps Joe realized his marketing strategy was underperforming when Ashlee's SNL snafu helped I Am Me, her sophomore album, underperform.

If this seems like a lot of energy to go through for middling and forgettable pop stars, it most likely is, however I think Jessica and Ashlee Simpson are the stars most indicative of the cynical, market-driven business of celebrity. They are women who are most successful when commodities, most appealing when reflecting the messages we like to believe in. What makes them harmful, I believe, is the expansion of those messages - independence is great, but that includes the "independent" decision to alter your looks and identity. Art and music are great, but really, they are just means to present best Celeb persona. They are, I think, less musicians than cautionary tales for parenting.