Beauty Myth

Shut it, Hurles

Liz Hurley. Isn’t she just vile? I’ve just had one of herquotes pointed out to me, a jumble of words that have made me search for acorner in which to vomit. And while this quote was uttered many years ago, byall accounts, it’s still worthy of my rage, as are most things that I come acrossthese days.  Here you go, here’s the Hurleygem: “I’d kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe”.

Oh. My. God. There are so many things wrong with this vapidfucking statement that I’ve had to invent numbers to count them all. It’s just11 words but they carry such a burgeoning amount of snobbery that it’s amazingthat the sentence hasn’t collapsed in on itself, creating undiluted evil.

For a start there’s the suicide reference, a boggling reactionto the piffling issue of putting on a few pounds. Not for Hurley, the prospectof suicide as a reaction to the death of her entire family or the loss of allof her lower limbs in a bomb attack. Christ no. Instead she keeps a stash ofparacetamol and razor blades next to her weighing scales in case her entirelife is inverted by the appearance of an extra ounce.

Then there’s the laughable comparison of herself with MarilynMonroe only for her to conclude, by her remark, that she is thinner andtherefore better than the bombshell of blondeness.  Fuckety-fuckety-fuck. First, the only way youcould put Hurley and Monroe in the same category is by identifying them both asfemale. That Hurley thinks she is up there with one of the most beautiful womenin the world displays a giddying lack of self awareness, a bit like David Cameronbelieving that he’s actually improving the NHS.

Worse, Hurley has then studied Monroe’s curves and definedthem as fat and therefore as ugly. Oh fucking hell, Hurley, spare me, will you?Not only was Monroe the definition of womanliness,  so it’s no surprise that Hurley doesn’trecognise it, but she was hardly trapped in her bed under 40 stone of suppuratingflesh either. Monroe? Fat?  Then pass methe Mars Bars because I’d prefer that to looking like the lettuce-suckingHurley.

Anyway, tell me who is more fun to be with, who is moreappealing? A gorgeously curvy woman who knows exactly how to treat a chocolate éclairor a hatchet-faced stick insect on alert for rogue calories? Quite.

Which is why Hurley’s statement blows holes in the beautymyth that she’s surrounded herself with. It’s brimming with ugliness,bitterness and self-obsession, none of which makes Hurley the beauty that shethinks she is. Shrivelled. That’s the word that springs to mind. Inside andout.