When I first heard about her antics on the Newlyweds show, I was convinced it was a put-on or selective editing like the producers of The Real World do to get a story or angle to the show. I even thought this the first few times I saw the show.
What put me firmly in the “She’s a twit” camp was seeing her on SNL. She was so stagey and fake trying to play her “dumb self” in the morning DJ sketch with Jimmy Fallon and her husband and the sketch where they were old, that I figured what we see on her show wasn’t an act. So I can’t back Jervoise’s former theory about her, that’s just too many layers to the “dumb Jessica” act for me to buy into. She may have been sheltered and naive as she was being molded for the pop princess machinery, but that doesn’t exclude the possibility that she really is stupid as well.
Of course Nick will stick up for her, he is married to her. Plus, IMO he’s not going seriously risk losing the sex or what passes for a career with him. He’s an aging former boy band member, with a wilting solo career, that people only remember now because he’s hooked up with her. Let’s see if they really do continue in the Gen Y Sonny & Cher mode down the line.
When Newlyweds made its debut, my first reaction was that Jessica Simpsons was acting like the stereotypical blonde just for ratings. I felt it was a stunt based off of Anna Nicole Smith’s show (where stupidity is a real tangible thing) that did well with ratings.
I doubt Jessica Simpson is a valedictorian (although in Southern schools how hard is that? :)), but I think she acts ditzy for the camera, too.
my 2 cents
Just to add a little more support to the legitamacy of the quote, I was watching MSNBC (or maybe it was CNN) this morning and I don’t know who the host was but they mentioned the quote. Then the girl tried to sort of stick up for Jessica saying that Jessica Simpson was putting on an act, and then the guy said something like, “But still… C’mon!” It was pretty funny, and then kind of sad as I realized that even professional news anchors on major news outlets make fun of her. But still funny.
I spotted something in the paper a couple of weeks ago that said Jessica Simpson was undergoing pregnancy tests. The article implied (though it might have been spinning) that she requested the tests not because she was feeling any symptoms, but because she read a rumour in the press that she was in the family way.
If it’s true, and if the quotes attributed to her are genuine and not taken out of context, she sounds dummer than a box o’rocks. The wheel’s turning but the hamster’s dead. :rolleyes:
Not that I especially care either way, since I’ve never seen her show and don’t have the slightest to.
From what I have seen and read I think it’s about one-half ownership and one-half lust/love that he has for his daughter. They don’t call him Creepy Pa Simpson for nothing.
I think it’s vanity, on his part. I’ve seen the same kind of dynamics at work in Mother/Son relationships, and I think it’s the same thing. (IANAPsychologist, BTW, just a person with experience in dealing with how vanity can fuck people over.) When an overly vain person becomes a parent, it can become a watershed moment that shapes the child’s entire history with that parent. Basically, the child’s natural inclination towards bonding and admiration of their parent feeds the vanity. Here is a person, whom he has pretty much created, whos world revolves around him and who agrees that he is everything he thinks/sees himself to be. It only lasts for childhood, so naturally, his motives would revolve around keeping the child in that state of childishness.
It’s very telling that she does not see the inappropriateness of her father’s interest in her sex life, as well as really not seeing the jealousy and sometimes rage he has over her relationship with Nick. He appears to be trying to sabotage their relationship, as well. (Trying to separate them on their wedding anniversary, for example, by scheduling Jessica to be away from home performing on that day.)
That’s not even to mention the peculiar cognative dissonace that apparently meant she wasn’t supposed to even think about the Evil Deed (sex) before marriage, but now that she’s married it’s okay to jump out of a cake in strippergear and grind herself on Nick’s crotch in front of a crowd, cameras, and her Daddy.
I think it’s all going to blow up in her face pretty soon. In some of the latest episodes, she comes across as whiny, ungrateful, spiteful, manipulative, and attention-seeking. She is so ill-trained for anything but being a pretty trophy for Daddy, I don’t think she has a clue at all.
BTW, have you heard about the “Free Nick!” t-shirts? Heh.
I haven’t seen The Newlyweds, but I saw her appearance on Jay Leno, and she seems really intelligent, just completely devoid of perception of her surroundings. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had a copy of Ulysses under her pillow, she just doesn’t pay much attention to her tuna.
I saw that episode of Newlyweds. They’d been discussing the tabloid rumors early in the episode. Toward the end, they had a shot of Jessica standing over a sink with a pregnancy test. When Nick asked her what she was doing, she replied, “Just making sure they aren’t right” or something to that effect.
And she is stupid. I mean, really, how educated to you have to be to know that Buffalo wings don’t really come from buffalo? Granted, I never knew why they called them Buffalo wings growing up, but I knew enough to know that I was eating chicken.
Last night the show started with Jessica pumping gas and she didn’t know how.
I don’t watch much TV, but a few months back I was on bay orderly duty (basically, cleaning up the dorms) and Newlyweds happened to be on. I really didn’t know much about Jessica Simpson, but she was whining about this music video she was making, especially about the cold water she had to stand in. Kinda silly, considering that practically all she did during the video was make out with her husband.
I just thought “What the hell are you whining about? You just made a whole bunch of money by making out with your husband in front of cameras.” I mean, seriously. There were three differences between that video and a porno: 1. She made more money. 2. The music in a porno tends to be better. 3. She didn’t have to take a shot in the face.
I would chalk that up to mediocre acting skills more than I would indications of her actual intelligence. Funnily enough, I actually gained more respect for both her and her husband after their SNL episode. The jury’s still out for me on just how much fuel is actually in her Lear jet, but the two of them came across as extremely likable and self-deprecating, I thought. And for some dumb reason, the Donnie and Marie pastiche really made me smile. Though that could’ve had to do with watching her bend slowly foward and back up in rhythym… but anyway.
What was I saying?
I enjoyed the Donny and Marie spoof too, Moody Bastard, plus it was the one time on the show Simpson seemed energized and to know what she was doing. I guess all that time being molded into a generic entertainer shown through. She was aware enough to share her microphone with her husband when his apparently went out during that part. What a trooper, I guess.
You may be right that I’m reading too much into her “acting”, but I remember saying to myself at the time, " She’s too dumb to play dumb."
Only if Nick told her she could read a book in her dreams that way.