Anna and America

February 14, 2007 3:55 AM

Newspaper clipping We get little 'cut and paste' sections in our local newspaper of articles written somewhere else. I thought the Anna Nicole Smith article was a different take on a rather disfunctional life. The first article... well I won't even go there! Unfortunately to see the full NY Times article you have to be a paying subscriber so I haven't added that link.
posted by gnomesb (16 comments total)

BREATHLESS commentators these last few days have likened Anna Nicole Smith -- whose untimely death, like her much-observed physique, was not the result of entirely natural causes -- to Marilyn Monroe. This comparison is preposterous: Arthur Miller, who married Monroe, would have had little time for Smith beyond the obvious dictates of chivalry.

That's a pretty misogynistic way to compare women - by whether a man would marry them or not. I'm no expert but didn't Marilyn make some films, sing and model as well as marry some dead-beat playwright?
posted by meech at 4:13 AM on February 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

GYOBFW.
posted by Second Account For Making Jokey Comments at 4:19 AM on February 14, 2007

Metafilter: It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.
posted by matthewr at 4:24 AM on February 14, 2007

GYOBFW indeed.
posted by wfrgms at 4:41 AM on February 14, 2007

In my mind's eye I see a video of hungry sharks eating Anna Nicole Smith's bloated body, while Czech president Vaclav Klaus blissfully but precariously sits on her belly, trying to get a closer photograph of the sharks. Rarely has such an orgy of gluttony been documented before.
posted by furtive at 4:44 AM on February 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

What is the FW in GYOBFW for? Forthwith? Or something mean?
posted by Mister_A at 5:08 AM on February 14, 2007

Something mean.
posted by matthewr at 5:09 AM on February 14, 2007

FW=F*CKWIT

Oh, dammit, we're all adults here. The asterisk is a U.
posted by premiumpolar at 5:10 AM on February 14, 2007

I was saying Forthwith
posted by Flashman at 5:11 AM on February 14, 2007

And fandango_matt saves the day with a witty ditty!
posted by nightchrome at 5:17 AM on February 14, 2007

& fandango_matt, for the Kiwis to call their newspaper 'The Australian' would take a tremendous sense of ironic humour.

Nice song nonetheless
posted by Flashman at 5:18 AM on February 14, 2007

Get your own blog fuckwith!

Did some hippies sneak some of that LSD in the reservoir or something? Everything's arsey versey today.
posted by Divine_Wino at 5:36 AM on February 14, 2007

Yah! It's crappy post day.
posted by octothorpe at 6:40 AM on February 14, 2007

One of my least favorite rhetorical tricks is "it could be said that..." (followed by "there's a school of thought that..."). What does it mean? Is the statement that follows it true or not? Because ANYTHING can be said.

Clearly, no one can prove or disprove that Anna Nicole "represents" America, because nothing represents anything -- except TO someone.

So I urge the writer to get a backbone and say something like, "To me, Anna Nicole represents America..." Of course, then it doesn't sound so grand and universal, but it might just flirt with the truth.

I do find the claim that woman like Smith (blonde? buxom?) are loved in countries that have bad relations with the US. I don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, maybe it does have something to do with America. Or might it be that in most of those countries (e.g. North Korea and much of the Middle East), blondes are pretty exotic?
posted by grumblebee at 6:42 AM on February 14, 2007

No digg.
posted by designbot at 6:48 AM on February 14, 2007

Why are you all hating on this? It's like metafilter without the links or comments.
posted by srboisvert at 7:01 AM on February 14, 2007