Music
Email
Print
A Jessica for all seasons
AP Photo
The multifacted Jessica Simpson will open for Rascal Flatts at Joel Colisem on Friday. We take a look at her blonde ambition and smart moves.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: January 22, 2009
Updated: 01/21/2009 07:15 pm
All things being fair, it's important to remember the long-standing axiom about Jessica Simpson, now a countrypolitan singer, as she heads to Winston-Salem to open a show for country sensations Rascal Flatts on Friday.
She isn't bad. She's just drawn that way.
Oh. Wait. Wrong Jessica. That axiom applies to the animated Jessica Rabbit, from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit! No matter. The equally animated, but undeniably human, Simpson bears such a striking resemblance to Rabbit -- she's tinier, but oh-so-bodacious -- that she could be Rabbit. She has proved quite capable of looking vampish.
Besides, according to www.people.com -- People magazine's Web site -- Simpson's nickname among her intimates is … Rabbit. And it's not because of her big … teeth.
"I can make the best bunny face," she told People. "No one can stay mad at me when I make the bunny face."
Uh ... sure. Simpson, 28, has been a celebrity since the release of her first single, "I Wanna Love You Forever" captivated the public, if not the critics, in 2002. That was a year when young, curvaceous girl singers (Britney Spears, Christina Aquilera, Mandy Moore) were raising temperatures, moral questions and album sales.
Simpson, more than her competition, has proved surprisingly durable. She is a diversified celebrity, a survivor. She wears many hats -- singer, actress, entrepreneur, pitch person -- but what she truly excels at is navigating the slippery slope of sexy celebrity.
She is, simply, Jessica Simpson, Inc. And she sells the various facets of herself quite well.
JESSICA SIMPSON -- SEX BOMB: Blond hair. Big smile. Nothing loose in the caboose. And yet for all her Playmate-ready pin-up qualities, the exceptionally well-endowed Simpson -- she's from Texas, and everything is bigger in Texas -- has never seemed like a tramp. There is a girl-next-door quality about her. She can wear a skin-tight dress with a revealing neckline cut from here to there and still look composed, playful and well-behaved.
She is without question comfortable in her own skin -- of which, in reality, she shows very little. She fully understands the pull of her physical attributes and plays to her strengths -- to a point. She has never played the bad girl. She has never done nude photo shoots. There have been no trips to rehab or party-girl rampages. No wardrobe malfunctions, no sex tapes, no drunken flashes of nether regions.
Simpson understands that less can be more, and "just enough" keeps the wolves hungry and her integrity intact. Much was made of her virginity early in her career, but nobody seemed more genuinely thrilled than she was when she finally gave it away to husband Nick Lachey, formerly of the boy band 98 Degrees. She played it perfect.
JESSICA SIMPSON, SINGER/ACTRESS: The conventional critical wisdom: As a singer, Simpson is a great actress, and as an actress, she looks good. In reality, Simpson is a fair singer who, if she worked at it, could be better. But she doesn't need to be a better singer. She understands that she is a commodity -- not a golden-throated thrush.
A review, from 2000, on Amazon.com of Simpson's debut single: "I know the Spice Girls were bad, but they didn't make you want to cut your ears off." The song was a Top 3 pop hit.
She then racked up seven Top 40 pop singles, three gold albums and two multi-platinum albums amid a heap of critical disdain. She appeared in four movies, all panned. The most successful was The Dukes of Hazzard, which made $110 million. Her last film, Private Volunteer, shipped direct to DVD. On the Internet Movie Data Base, the latest discussion on her site is titled: "How Big Are Those Things."
What did she learn from her film experience? To transform herself into a country singer to suit the rural audience that went to see The Dukes movie. It worked. Do You Know, released late last year, became her first No. 1 album.
E Musso "PhantomFan," in a three-star review on Amazon.com, cuts straight to the heart of the matter: "There's no doubt that she's beautiful and knows how to stay in the limelight."
JESSICA SIMPSON, CAREERIST: Simpson became a chunk of pop culture, not through her recording career, but through a reality show: Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, which followed Simpson and then-husband Lachey through their marriage. It was as real as an episode of I Love Lucy. Simpson was the loveable ditz -- she thought Buffalo wings came from buffalos and was confused by the Chicken of the Sea description on a can of tuna -- while Lachey dutifully fumed like Yosemite Sam.
People magazine reported that Tina Simpson, Simpson's mother, told Vanity Fair magazine that Jessica was called a "space cadet" by her fifth-grade teacher, prompting an IQ test. Her score -- 160. Simpson knows exactly what she is doing. Her pop albums were released to piggyback on the success of her reality show. She shilled for Pizza Hut, promoting Buffalo wings in her Daisy Duke outfit. She made money. She sold the product.
She does things right. She has released a well-designed, fashionable and reasonably priced line of shoes -- customer reviews of the shoes on overstock.com were largely ecstatic -- with a line of lingerie to follow later this year.
She has dated celebrities, including John Mayer, and, at the moment, Tony Romo, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, without creating a lurid tabloid firestorm. She maintains control.
There are singers more talented than Simpson, but it's not the quality of what she does, or the way she presents herself, that makes the difference. It's who she is.
JUST JESSICA: A fan from Greensboro, Wendy Cates, wrote relish a heartfelt note about why she likes Simpson. It beautifully sums up her appeal.
"I have always admired Jessica for her values and her faith, (and) I think people underestimate her for her talent and business sense. I think she has a good head on her shoulders, but I believe most importantly she has a really big heart.
"I went to see Jessica in Charlotte back in 2004. It was one of the best concerts that I have ever been to. Some lucky people got to be on stage with her and ask her questions. I thought that was really cool of her. She seemed so down to earth, even if she was larger than life in such a small little body. I admire someone who has good values and a good heart."
As a frustrated Simpson told a hostile Wisconsin audience in November, "I don't know what your perception is of Jessica Simpson, or what tabloid you buy, but I want you to know that I'm just a girl from Texas. I'm just like you."
And in a way she is, even if she looks like Jessica Rabbit, who, for the record, was one smart bunny.
Email
Print
