Behind Nicole Kidman's Perfectly Airbrushed Facade

by: abc

For far too long now Nicole has fortuitously flown on the wings of allure and enigma – of the fine kind ... and despite saying (in GQ) that ‘if you know what is going on inside somebody’s head all the time, that’s not a good place’, she would regularly and timeously (in terms of a movie launch) toss out little bits of intriguing personal info to the piranha’s, (being everyone other than herself, that is), but woe betide those who would digest those tidbits and attempt to reach some form of (realistic) concluding legit opinion of their own about this *STAR* who is constantly, and now, more than annoyingly, being shoved in the public’s face, way past her use-by-date and relevance, especially given the ultimately poor quality of the ‘product’ itself. Those of us who have constantly scratched away at the clearly manufactured veneer and seeming (outspoken) inconsistencies, (call it hypocrisy, if you will), are always denigrated from the dizzy depths of her diminishing fan base, (irritatingly accusing all and sundry “haters” of “taking her words out of context” and being ordered to “get a life!”), but, finally she agrees with us on a major point; in her own words: ‘I became very famous because I was the wife of somebody,’ ... ‘the huge profile that brought to me’ ... admitting that (she) “got married (because) I wanted to work with people who intrigued me.” (Good career move then, as we have always maintained, given that we would “only find out bad things” if we were to read the journals of that married life, she tells us.) Tom is going to love that quote! She should be investing in lip-zipper not lip-filler.

In 2008, the walls seemed to crash in upon this “Queen of the Screen and Sheen” ... suddenly there was worldwide cross-cultural questioning of (virtually all aspects of) this supposed “best actress of her generation” ... and having been a runner all her life, she never ran as fast as she did then, and now even more so, from this growing swell of disillusionment of her *star power*, and, in fact, integrity, being adjudged over-rated, overpaid, irritating and increasingly ‘plastic’ and dull, things I had been feeling for quite some time. Her fans (mostly congregated at NKU) tore their hair out trying to figure out why ‘Nicole-bashing’ had become so prevalent and put it down to the critics (professional and otherwise) being people who had ‘no lives of their own’ and were clearly hateful and ‘jealous’ of their ‘cute’ saintly heroine, despite it being common knowledge that frizzy-ginger-haired, freckled and flat-chested used to be the least desired physical attributes - NK first came to wide public attention when she appeared on a mag cover in Oz with just the very features NOT normally deemed cover-worthy; in the days when mag covers mostly featured ‘perfect’ models, usually bronzed and blonde, not actresses, let alone ‘quirky’ awkward ones. Yet, even she herself has since spent a fortune erasing every trace of frizz, freckle and ginger ... and upping the curves – on both chin and chest; slowly turning herself into a generic barbie caricature. Jealous? Not of what she has become.

Anyhow, she seemed to ride out the storm and suddenly this year had a golden opportunity when there was a surprising backlash at ‘Nicole-bashing’ ... being described as “so 2008” ... even though even I began to give her some slack, there was still no ultimate proof that she was not the barbie bimbo pretending to be altruistic and earthy that many of us were suspecting. Until recently. Until the GQ shoot and interview. Obviously this was created before the testifying at Congress. And when the questioning there turned to Hollywood’s role in endangering women in society, she started to back-track. Too late, the GQ stuff was already in the mill and I would love to credit her with enough intelligence to have recognized the incredible hypocrisy (or double standard) that would become self-evident. Most alarmingly: her saying that (her present marriage is) “incredibly dangerous” ... help; a woman is in danger ... of what? violence? being abandoned? what “danger”? And then to show more flesh in public than is considered classy, (the adjective most used to describe her – in the past), which will only lead men to think about her while they are making love to their own women, or their hands, which ultimately amounts to mental rape ... of the saint herself. What was she thinking? (What would her husband feel?) I think, given the film Nine, and the fact that she is low down on the call sheet and voting polls, she is futilely competing with Fergie, Hudson and Cruz, who all have this GQ look in that film. In my opinion, Nicole miscalculated radically, and couldn’t help wanting it to be all about her as usual; she was supposed to be portraying (in Nine) an iconic 60’s movie *star* (muse) ... she had the perfect opportunity to again create an iconic Monroe or Bardot type image which she could pull off; though, being a sex-kittenish roleplay, is still spiritually inconsistent with her coy black-jacketed ‘female empowering’ ambassadorial role at UNIFEM; however, still better than “give me risk, danger, darkness” and “kinky fetish sex". UNIFEM must be cringing. For some reason, she is really trying to be (VERY) SEXY. She doesn’t know that you either are or you are not and trying to be that only ever looks desperate and is only ever a turn-off generally, but especially in her case – and she had such a good thing going, for so long. Silly girl. She is SUCH a wannabe/wannahave (everything). She doesn’t seem to be able to draw the line at ‘enough already’; slowly busting the genuine allure and mystique that had working to her advantage.

Nicole has become the poster girl for the public’s growing disenchantment with the media’s obsession with portraying impossible beauty ideals and eternal youth – turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse: on the one hand to make more money for the publishing houses and studios and on the other turning many millions of girls into disempowered sex objects or (lifetime) eating disorder victims – eternally dissatisfied with God’s gift to themselves – THERE’S the ‘dark’, the ‘risk’ and the real ‘danger’.

When Mrs. Urban says she has “explored monogamy”, does that mean she has returned to or also explored the opposite? I wonder how Keith feels that his wife publicly claims she wants to “honour” her union to Cruise by not revealing ANYTHING about it, but then bleats about the raw intimacy of her marriage to him; negatively, busting the carefully honed image of the cosy homeliness of life on the farm in the countryside; which of course, the “no-life haters” have not bought entirely. Quite obviously the fetish stuff was with Kravitz or during the filming of EWS, but she leaves an indelible image in the mind’s eye of her being that way now; given her current attire on the GQ cover. I think her brain must be made of rubber.

For me, however, the most hideous, hypocritical and dishonest of her comments is: ‘I’d just given birth, so I was like “OK, I’m [still] a woman – I want to do this film (Nine), “I do have a life other than simply feeding this baby” and “I think when you give birth you get itchy to get back to work and you want to feel life still goes on.” She had previously stated that after she gave birth she absolutely did not want to work again but was ‘lured back’ by the ‘irresistible’ film Nine. Is having a child not “life” itself? But the “life that still goes on” is what, making films? Making make-believe, not reality? Is not ‘feeding’ a baby life itself? And is life with a baby not more than “simply feeding” it? “This baby”, not ‘my’ or ‘our’ baby. Of course, we knew she didn’t change diapers, or breast feed, or do any other tiresome child-rearing stuff, like even carrying the child in the first place (a certainly crazy rumour that I certainly can’t quite shift out of my own mind!) There is not a single picture of NK and her child that shows they are truly bonded; clearly she was handed bottles of feed to attempt that clearly impossible task; to her simply a tedious interruption to her actual “life”.

In the fascinating and funny book “Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World And Why We Need An Exit Strategy" (Random House), Marina Hyde discusses the phenomenon of celebrity humanitarianism and writes “of course, in the manner of many stars keen to augment their achievements with – what? Something that might bring that elusive sense of self worth? – Nicole has made plenty of statements about it being famous folk’s ‘duty to give something back’. Maybe she could just settle for putting money back, and keep for herself the belief that she can bewitch repressive regimes into playing nice.” Or trying to lead the public into thinking there is much below her shiny perfectly airbrushed facade. Certainly not dignity or even run of the mill intelligence.