I just realized that David Beckham is married to one of the Spice Girls. (Sorry, I can remember neither her name, nor her spice.) What makes that interesting? It means that the couple are celebrated for two of my favorite things: football and music. However he plays a form a football I don’t consider real football, and she plays a form of music I don’t consider real music.
Well, it’s interesting to me. It’s like hitting a snarky exacta!
You mean the kind where he kicks a ball with his foot? 
You mean Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice.
Well to this Yank Becks is quite the footballer; however his wife is absolutely useless as far as music and certainly doesn’t do much for me in the “sexy” department. Way too skinny with horrible implants and a permanent bitchface. I don’t know what her musical/modeling appeal is, but I’ll say she did quite well in bagging Beckham.
For some reason NBC thought that people would be interested in watching a reality show featuring Victoria. It aired for one episode I think, and was promptly pulled from the air. She’s just not that interesting, talented, or hot. Hell, she wasn’t even the most attractive Spice Girl. Ginger, Baby, and Scary are much better looking.
Hell, Sporty was better looking.
But her show was only meant to run for one episode (although NBC would have definitely done more if it was a hit), so it was never pulled from the air. And it was actually really funny because the whole thing was a parody of what Victoria Beckham’s first few days in America would seem like and the show really laid into her supposesd vapid and self-centered perception in the media. I was amazed that she was that self-aware to be able to “take the piss out of herself”, as the Brits say.
But NBC forgot to tell everyone it was scripted and the whole thing tanked.
Thanks for that! There really is nothing behind her eyes.
This has taken you how long?
So, is Beckham really famous in the US now? Bit weird as no one there seems to watch (proper) football. What’s people’s perception of him?
He’s quite the God in the UK.
No, not really. My understanding is that the couple is hugely famous in the UK. Here in America, they are mildly famous C-list celebrities.
Semi famous, sure. Not at all famous really for playing football though, more recognizable here as a male model and for being the next target of the Tom Cruise/Will Smith Scientology machine. My girlfriend reads those checkout isle magazines and the Beckhams are featured in every one of them.
Beckham has become somewhat well known in the USA. I doubt if one person in 100 can name any other soccer player in the MSL so he is way ahead on that. The Spice Girls were reasonably popular in their day but not massive But mainly they are “friends of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes”.
Always work in this quote about Becks from the late George Best (soccer’s version of Joe Namath to anyone who doesn’t know) any chance I get. “He can not kick with his left foot, he can not defend, he can not head block and he doesn’t score that many goals. Other than that, he’s okay”.
Sort of, but not really.
Basically people know who she is and know who he is and know they’re a couple and they’re sort of famous. But on the fame scale of 1-100, they’re kind of a 10. But they keep acting like a 90. So you get things like the reality show which was originally imagined as a series, but when it became obvious that no one was really going to watch it, was redesigned into a special. (It wasn’t pulled…exactly)
They’re kind of amusing in their failure to really capture the American market.
I’m not sure. How long have they been together?
For talk of the “proper” football, I offer the following dialog from, “Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves”, by P.G. Wodehouse, i.e., a Brit:
“Don’t run a rugger club in Totleigh, do you?”
Stinker replied in the negative. The Totleigh-in-the-Wold athletes, he said, preferred the Association Code, and Plank, probably shuddering, said, “Good god!”
So, soccer (association code football) isn’t (or wasn’t) universally revered even in England. Of course Plank, here, likes rugby, not real football, but that is still a vast improvement over soccer. I bet he wouldn’t like the Spice Girls either.
That’s pretty much a good sample of how the Beckmans are viewed in the US. In fact, David Beckham–who’s one of the most famous athletes in the world–is still probably less recognized here than Victoria is. In terms of fame, David Beckham isn’t even the most well-known athlete in the Los Angeles area let alone the entire country. In that department, he ranks far behind Kobe Bryant. Even Manny Ramirez, who just arrived from the Boston Red Sox a few weeks ago and will likely depart at season’s end, is probably more recognized in LA than “Mr. Posh Spice.”
And, to keep this post from being entirely sports related, I never liked the Spice Girls but I used to think Victoria was the best-looking one in the group about ten years ago. However, I now think it’s Geri (a.k.a. Ginger) by far.
As has been said, Victoria Beckham’s spice designation is “Posh”. You can usually find it between Poppy Seeds and Poultry Seasoning. It’s commonly used on foods that they’re better than they really are.
There are ~30 million Mexicans or Mexican-Americans in the US? Well, that’s 1 in 10 that can also name Cuauhtemoc Blanco. Also, it’s MLS.
Here’s another American version of how well-known they are: I didn’t know who he was at all until the movie Bend it Like Beckham, when I had to have the title explained to me. And this was what, c. 2002?
Thank you for that. I didn’t think I could love Jon Stewart more than I already did, but I do now. I felt bad for “Baby”–she got included in the snark and it was meant for “Posh”. Now I am sure that “Posh” is a pseudonym for bitch. “The couch folds out”–perfect. 
I know another MLS–Freddie Adoo. And then there used to be um, Pele and er, Mia Hamm! (that’s it in terms of player’s names that I know–and some of them aren’t in the MLS of course). Since the Chicago Fire games are covered in English, Spanish and Polish here, I’m sure there are plenty of Americans who can name MLS players. But they are not household names like Michael Jordan or Joe Namath were.
:smack:
“foods that think they’re better than they really are.”
Dammit, proofread!
Heh, Adu plays in Monaco now. He last played in MLS in… '06 (?).
See? I know MLS players as well as I know major opera singers today, that is to say, not at all…