What do Laci, Lisa and Jessica have in common?
Always worth a chuckle, The Onion's "What Do You Think" feature today asks what people think about the Scott Peterson trial. One of the guys responded, "Let this be a warning to psychopaths with photogenic wives everywhere."
I've been somewhat bewildered about this case from the beginning. A fertilizer salesman nobody from Modesto murders his pregnant wife. Admittedly, assuming he did do it, it was pretty cold-hearted. But it wasn't particularly brutal or bloody; we don't even know for sure if it was all that premeditated. But for some reason it pretty much took over the news media for the better part of two years, with celebrity lawyers, talk show hosts, and satellite vans permanently parked outside the courthouse. And I have to ask, if Laci Peterson had weighed 180 pounds would anyone have noticed this event?
Why does it seem that a woman's appearance seems to have so much control over her destiny? Is it us? Or the media that presents it?
Remember Shoshana Johnson? No? How about Jessica Lynch? Jessica was a young soldier, captured and supposedly raped by Iaqi military (before the Iraqi military was "defeated"), then rescued as part of a TV reality show. She wrote a book about her ordeal - "I Am A Soldier, Too - The Jessica Lynch Story." Shoshana experienced almost the same fate, yet hers was not the story America latched onto. The difference? Jessica was slim and cute (we preferred to ignore the nude photos of her romping with her fellow sodiers), while Shoshana was black and a little pudgy.
With women, we demand a certain physical beauty in our celebrities. And if we can combine an unusual circumstance with physical attractiveness in an otherwise undistinguished woman, we'll raise her to the level of celebrity.
Lisa Beamer did nothing to distinguish herself, except marry Todd, a man who had the misfortune of being on the 9/11 airliner that was hijacked and crashed into a Pennsylvania field. His final (to us) words, "Let's roll!," have become a rallying cry and a small industry, with books, rock music, and bad poetry ("She heard him say, "Let's roll", and then/ As he laid down the phone./ She knew at once what he had meant,/ Now she'd be all-alone.") Lisa got a standing ovation at the Bush State of the Union speech in 2002, for her part in the drama. Her part was being photogenic, putting a pretty face on the survivors of this sad day.
Janet Reno was America's first female Attorney General. What is she remembered for?. Being over six feet tall and unglamorous.
And if Ann Coulter weren't thin and blond, even Rush Limbaugh would say, "Please shut her up - she's embarrassing me!"
Santa No. 7
8:52:15 AM 
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