So I got home last night about 8:30, paid the sitter, and fell onto the couch for a good bout of brain-free TV. I found what I was looking for in the hour-long NBC special featuring Victoria Beckham’s arrival in the U.S.
We are big fans of David Beckham, the footballer, and by we I mean my husband. He’d go gay for David Beckham. I’m serious. To 100% of the world population that does not reside in America, DB is a huge if aging soccer icon, signed for a ridiculous sum to the L.A. Galaxy in a PR bid to help boost the still struggling Major League Soccer in the U.S. In America, the erstwhile Posh Spice is, unbelievably, still the more famous name.
By the time I tuned in, Posh was dressed in her best imitation of a Los Angeles society lady (were there such a species) in a skin-tight dress and a hairband to hold back her peroxide blonde do. She was making the acquaintance of a gaggle of plastic surgery brides of Frankenstein in a home decorated in the popular contemporary style called rich white trash. Though in her cut-away interviews Posh professed to find the ladies charming, the clip was clearly edited to both ogle at the women’s wealth and laugh at their ostentatiousness.
At one point, a particularly cartoonish woman probes Posh about the size of her husband’s package (pay package, you hyenas). These women barely know what David Beckham does or represents, but they’ve all heard about the payday: “I’ve heard it’s, like, $60 billion!” brays the cartoon woman, Tammy Faye eyes full of hope.
The boppety background music screeches to a halt. Away from the scene, Posh acts out horror and declares to the camera: “I ne-vah discuss money–ne-vah.”
No. 1: I guess she was trying to imply that she, being British, is well-bred, and the well-bred don’t discuss money. I swoon at a British accent as much as the next Yankee, but even I can tell Posh is no blueblood.
No. 2: If her whole schtick is about embracing America, she better get the hell over her supposed breeding and stop implying Americans are crass. Besides, only a drunk hermit wouldn’t have heard about DB’s pay package–$27.5 million over five years. Okay, so if this were an actual gathering of society ladies, it probably wouldn’t be cool to bring up the husband’s salary. But come on. She brought reality TV cameras into the house. What did she expect?
No. 3: Posh is no housewife to a soccer superstar; she’s a legit celeb in her own right, as one-fifth of the ’90s supergirlband Spice Girls. If I recall correctly, their whole thing was about girl power or some such. With their reunion in the offing, she’d set a better role model for little American girls if she showed she had room in that coiffed head for numbers.
No. 4: Can’t the woman crack a smile? Once again I think this has to do with her misguided notions of breeding; posh folks don’t show their teeth, she seems to think. Well, every snap I see of Prince Williams shows him flashing the biggest, gooniest smile, and Americans loooove him. If she’s too thick to figure out by now that Americans like strong, smart women who smile, she should perhaps hold off on unpacking those boxes.
Here’s the ad from NBC: