Video Girl Continuum

This post has been delayed for awhile, due to my inability to create a chart that’s appropriately funny to support the concept. Oh, and before you start reading, this is DEFINITELY going to be a post that will either make you laugh, or make you go right over to my MySpace page to send me a nasty message. I’m looking at you, Gloria Steinam. That said, it’s all for funny—just another one of those random things that starts out as a comment someone makes or something I overhear, then ends up something I think about and bring up at dinner parties and expand upon until it has enough "meat" for a long post.

Also, if you’re a woman who’s in the professional world, or a stay-at-home mom (a job that is about 1,000 times HARDER than working in an office, from what I understand), you are not going to see yourself on the list, because this post is all just about women who, despite the women’s movement, women’s rights, etc, are still choosing to sell themselves, and therefore making the rest of us look bad.

Ok, here goes.

The Video Girl Continuum

A couple of months ago, I was sitting behind these two girls at a show I was covering for Fashion Week here in LA. They were obviously stylists (they had that look), and were having what turned out to be a hilariously snarky conversation about a certain celebrity that they’d both worked for, but that didn’t like (let’s call her April). Here’s about how the conversation went:

Stylist A: “…..such a bitch. I mean, not even civil. Made me drive all over town to find a leopard sarong that didn’t even make the cut for the shoot.”

Stylist B: “…I know! She did the same thing to me. I had to go out and get her a latte at 4:00. 4:00, dude. In LA. Prime stuck in traffic time.”

 

Stylist A: “It’s such bullshit….everyone knows she’s just a video girl who got lucky and f*&^d her way to the top.”

 

This is when, being myself and being curious, I lean over and go “Excuse me….what’s a video girl?” They were extremely accommodating, explaining that a video girl is a girl who is not tall enough or pretty enough to model, and not quite a good enough dancer to actually DANCE in a video, but who is just shameless enough to be one of those girls by the pool in a rap video, shaking her ass in slow motion and letting Jay Z put his hands on her boobs. Video Girl.

This got me thinking – to a certain extent, if you’re a woman and you’re not on the professional track or raising kids, you’re probably doing some level of this. I’m not going to try to account for the logic of this—maybe you were the prettiest girl in your high school and never went to college. Maybe you’re accustomed to getting things for free, so when someone tells you that you actually have to get up every day and go to work, you go “Um…..no. I’m going to explore other alternatives.” And, because there is still some level of patriarchal dominance in society, this means that there are still some women who are still selling themselves—now it just depends on the price.

Crack Ho: Sells her body, just to get more crack. The lowest on the spectrum, because she’s basically just treading water until the inevitable crack overdose.  A closed cycle of prostitution, if you will.  Here is a crack ho Barbie I found on Google images:


 

Streetwalker: Walks the street, gives most of her money to her pimp, but maybe she has a heart of gold, or big dreams, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Because really, so many of them do.




Porn Star: Yeah, yeah, they “get paid to have fun and do what people do anyway,” or they’re “just using porn as a stepping stone to get their film career started.” These are the lines they use so they don’t want to kill themselves every day, anyway. As far as I can tell, they’re having sex, on film, and they know that men are the primary audience for the product that makes them all the money. So…..there you go. I’m not saying that Jenna Jameson isn’t a gazillioniare with her own management team at a Big Five agency that I’m not supposed to name, but she’s the ONE exception to the thousands of girls who do this every day. Even Traci Lords—still known for porn, dude. 

Paid Escort: This is the girl who shows up when you call the concierge at the hotel, or respond to the late night tv commercial advertising “dates.” This is definitely a girl who has always been so pretty, she’s gotten away with everything, has never paid a parking ticket, and who could easily go out to dinner with a studio executive. In fact, I was having dinner with my lawyer friend B. at the Ivy by the Shore, developing these very ideas, we saw a really, really gorgeous Asian woman who was out at dinner with a very old man. Since there wasn’t any obvious conversation going on (like, at all), and since she was cutting his meat for him, and she had on a very low-cut dress. So—you be the judge. I’m positive she wasn’t his daughter, just back from Harvard for dinner.

Stripper: Since most of these girls will tell you they’re just working at Jumbo’s Clown Room to pay for their Sociology degree, I’m putting them above the paid escort. In my estimation, though, simulating sex for money gets you just about the same placement on the chart.

Las Vegas-type showgirl: Not just a stripper. A dancer who also shows her boobs.

Paid Girlfriend: This is the girl who lived in my building in

New   York

, who was the girlfriend of a prominent businessman. Basically, he set her up, paid all her expenses, and stayed the night a few times a week. She seemed to divide the rest of her time between working out, shopping, and going out on “auditions.” Someone else in the building also said that they thought they’d seen her in porn, so maybe she got promoted up the chain at some point. I don’t believe the paid girlfriend goes out in public with you (at least not on your wife’s side of town), but for a girl with a good body and zero professional ambitions, this seems like a pretty sweet gig. Not that I would be somebody’s paid girlfriend, but you know what I’m saying.

Model: Mostly I mean “model who is willing to do just a little too much to be successful,” like appear in provocative swimsuit ads, and/ or Playboy, or Hustler, or whatever. We’re going to hope they’re investing this money, because once a model is 30, unless she's Elle McPherson, she's done.

Actress: Mostly I just mention this because, as well as know, there is a certain age past which it’s tough to get acting jobs. So, you see a lot of actress-types in their teens, twenties, and thirties, who either “make it,” or have to find a guy to settle down with. I’m including the actress in the chart because some of them are actually desperate to go out with Phil Spector, even though his parents were first cousins and he’s known for chasing women around with guns, just to possibly get roles in films. And, to my knowledge, Phil Spector doesn’t even make films. You see what I’m saying.

Rich Guy’s Wife. I don’t mean “stay at home mom,” or “equal breadwinner,” because like I said, those women don’t appear on the continuum. I mean “woman with a stockbroker or movie producer husband, may or may not have a kid, who doesn’t work and also has a full time nanny,” or “woman who stays home all day and still needs a personal assistant and tells you how busy she is all the time.” Like, what are they doing? Charity work cannot take up that much time. Examples: Those Orange

County

Housewives

. Many of my neighbors in

New York

. Some of my neighbors in

Santa   Monica

. Karen from Will & Grace.

Old Rich Guy’s Wife. I’m talking about Anna Nicole Smith right here. Also known as “goldigger.” I’m not saying Anna Nicole Smith didn’t love that guy, but come ON. I might put “The Girls Next Door” girls in this category as well, cross-referencing them with “paid girlfriend.” Oh, she’s earning that money all right—one Viagra at a time.

Rich Guy’s Ex-Wife. Hopefully with a divorce settlement so big that they don’t have to work anymore, because you can DEFINITELY not start the continuum over when you’re 50 years old. Nope. Examples: Diandra Douglas (replaced by Catherine Zeta-Jones), Nicole Kidman (replaced by my best friend Katie Holmes), Robin Williams’ first wife (replaced by the nanny—ouch). I prefer not to use the term “Starter Wife,” because in my mind a starter wife is just your first wife and doesn’t necessarily get rich in the divorce, but if YOU’D like this to be the “Starter Wife” category, then ok.

Rich Guy’s Widow.  The motherlode of the video girl continuum—truly the end of the marathon, especially if, like Anna Nicole Smith, you advanced from “Old Rich Guy’s Wife” to “Rich Guy’s Widow” while still under 30, and were married for less than three years, and UNLIKE Anna Nicole Smith, actually collect the money.

If you fall into this category, unless you end up in court like Anna Nicole Smith, you’re still young, you never have to work again, and you have your pick of eligible guys. Of course, most of this guys are on the “male model continuum,” meaning they are looking for someone to take care of them. But, you’ve got your health, a gazillion dollars, and access to the best plastic surgeons, so you’ll be just fine. Even better if the situation isn’t complicated by ex-wives and their children.

Examples: Courtney Love, if she wasn’t quite so insane. Yoko One, if she wasn’t quite so Yoko Ono.  Also known as “Cougar.”

There will certainly be more additions to this list, as I think of them.  Just wanted to put something out there for Monday!  I'm working on one for guys.