Sunday, February 13, 2011

When Naomi met Volodya

This annoys me soooooo much...

First of all, I don't really have much respect for Naomi Campbell. All I know about her is that she's a supermodel from the 90s, she's like the emaciated version of Russell Crowe (but don't let that fool you, she can be just as vicious with a telephone!), she was involved in a blood diamonds scandal, and she's dating the Russian oligarch Vladislav Doronin, who according to Colleen and Stuart's friend Nina (she lives in the same building where Doronin has a penthouse suite), is a complete wuss who got freaked out by Nina's mum when he was forced to share an elevator with her and no security.

So when I saw that Naomi had interviewed Putin for GQ magazine, I had to roll my eyes. What could a vacuous model who's had numerous encounters with the law have to say to the prime minister of Russia? Well, not much apparently.

The whole interview is just as vapid and gag-inducing as I imagined. Regardless of how you feel about Putin, the fact remains that he is one of the world's most powerful men and there are surely more interesting and globally important issues to discuss with him than how he stays fit. (Answer: by swimming the butterfly. Naomi informs us that she was just in the Dead Sea in Jordan and "it was the first time I floated in my entire life." I feel so much smarter knowing that now.)

The worst part of the interview in my opinion was their discussion on the erotic calendar that the MGU female journalist students put out back in October in honour of Putin's birthday. I blogged about it previously here. Now my feelings have just been magnified by Putin's response to it:

"I like the girls a lot, they're beautiful. I like the calendar but it's not the most important thing. As for the other one, well, in almost any country, probably in Russia in particular, it's fashionable to criticise people in power. If you come out in support of someone like me, you're going to be accused of trying to ingratiate yourself. The girls in the erotic calendar were courageous and they were not scared. As student journalists, they couldn't fail to understand what might have been said to them after doing this. Nonetheless, they were not deterred and did the calendar anyway. So, frankly, that's what I liked the most."

There are so many things wrong with this! The girls were COURAGEOUS for posing in lingerie with inane speech bubbles over their heads saying things like, "You put the fires out but I'm still burning"?? In my opinion, that's not courageous or commendable, that's cheap and like, two GIANT steps back for women's equality. Plus, of course the women were not deterred from doing the calendar. A) They're going to get noticed, and B) It's not like people who AGREE with Putin are risking their lives or anything.

I'm just really disappointed and disgusted by this article. Not cool, GQ.

5 comments:

  1. Give the guy a break, he is a guy after all. No straight guy in their right mind would complain about a bunch of hot girls posing in lingerie and making a calendar devoted to him. Seriously, what was he supposed to do? Condone it? That's outrageous. The calendar was a bit of a joke, the guy got a good kick out of it, as would anyone, the end. You're reading way too much into this.

    Okay so the whole 'courageous' part is bullshit, but he is just putting in the political thing here. He liked it because they're hot and wearing lingerie for him. ANY normal guy would. It would look awkward and weird if he did condone it. Wear lingerie for a guy and you'll make him happy, hell he'll even start doing some more chores around the house.

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  2. I respectfully disagree with you about this. My issue is not with the fact that the girls were posing in skimpy clothes - whatever, that's their prerogative.

    My main issue with this is that they did that with the clear association that they were representing the Journalism Faculty of Moscow State University, the same faculty from which Anna Politkovskaya, the champion of human rights and freedom of speech who was brutally murdered by someone who didn't like her stance against Putin and Chechnya, graduated. That is like a slap in the face of ethical, hardworking journalists who use the power of their pen (or keyboard nowadays) to make a name for themselves, not the power of their bodies.

    I don't think I'm reading into this at all.

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  3. And getting Naomi Campbell to interview Putin?? That's like sending Heidi Klum to interview Obama - why??

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  4. I love how her brain works. It's like some weird word association puzzle:

    I noticed most people here swim the butterfly (wait... most people, in all of russia?)

    I can't swim the butterfly (ok, natural progression)

    I was in the Dead Sea and it was the first time I floated in my whole life.

    WHAAAT??? How is that relevant? Did she mean to say that she can't swim, period? so that was the first time she was in water and not almost drowning?


    Putin's response is even better:
    Actually, you can swim anyway you like in the Dead Sea.

    wtf does that even mean?!

    "that's gold, jerry! gold!"

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  5. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. As for the Naomi Campbell, ya thats a lol so we can agree on that at least.

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