What We Want from Hillary

I have to admit I have a warped admiration for Ashley Alexandra Dupre -  $1000-an-hour prositiute come musician/model/urber-celebrity. She has beautifully executed the Paris Hilton blueprint for surviving scandal: Keep walking through the flames until you find a way to take them as a compliment and use them to your advantage.

Earlier this week Dupre was identified as ’kristen’ the infamous call girl who cost (former) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer his position in office and his reputation.

I would never claim to be a feminist (I like my bras far too much to burn them) but I do derive a certain pride and pleasure watching this story unfold. Not 10 years ago after an almost identical scandal, former president Bill Clinton remarkably managed to keep his presidency, reputation and family in tact. While Clinton continued business as usual Monica Lewinsky, the woman with whom he alledgadly ”did not have sexual relations” with became the laughing stock of the nation before fading into oblivion. While she had a brief stint as a spokeswoman for diet group Jenny Craig - it was hardly the most glamorours use of her 15 minutes.  What makes this worse is that Hillary Clinton won praise for ’standing-by her man’ and is now an almost certainty to take the helm of the white house later this year.

On a brief tangent sidenote: I still refuse to believe that Americans will vote in a man with the surname Obama as ‘unflappable’ as he may be. Or for that matter a Panama-born  105 year old Republican who, cyclone-bush aside, is ‘technically’ not even eligible to hold the presidency under the US constitution which states that all presidents of the US must be born on US soil .

Ok, so back to Hillary - I would never mean to imply that Senator Clinton embodies a weak, anti-feminism sentiment. I like her, a lot – I love her political fierceness…she just freaking wants it more than everyone else. She has that crazy look in her eye – the one you get when you become so passionate about something it becomes an obsession. I’m all for passion and energy…I think its long overdue for a revival in the white house. However, I do see a certain poetic injustice in the fact that while the Clinton’s (and make no mistake it is a team effort) thrive as they make their second march to the oval office, Lewinsky will forever go down in history as the woman who was brought to her knees by the president.          

So while Lewinsky was perhaps a victim of the times – or perhaps more so the powerful, allmighty Clinton PR machine – Dupre is using her new found notoriety to her full advantage. To put the icing on this erotic politician and the prostitute fairytale it turns out Dupre is a struggling musician (go figure) - well was a struggling musician. At the time of writing her myspace page, www.myspace.com/ninavenetta  has had in excess of 8649240 hits. Her latest single ‘What We Want’ has been played 17613 times today alone. An article in Sundays edition of The Age suggests that ‘What We Want’ has already netted Dupre in excess of US$680,000. 

I’m not sure if this is quite what Geri Halliwell had in mind when she shouted girlpower to the masses, but then again, Halliwell was involved in her own topless sex scandal back in the day… perhaps she was on to something.  

As we prepare to (hopefully) swear in the first female president of the US, I can’t help but sense a shift. Females are begining to emerge from risque scandles as warriors rather than whores; and the men?…well Spitzer is on the fast track to going down in history as “that guy who got booted out of office after his tryst with Ashley” and who even remembers Rick-whats-his-name (Paris’ creepy co-star in her cinamatic debut).

“What destroys me, strengthens me” the truth of this slogan, which is embezzled across  Dupre’s website, is striking. This girl has beauty, talent (the song is no-grammy winner but its audible), brains (‘What We Want’ was uploaded and for sale mere hours after Dupre was named as Spitzers girl) and most importantly unapologetic drive…Not once have I read about her ’justifying’  being a callgirl…which all things being consensual, I believe is a respectable profession. Why should we judge someone for using their natural assets – in Dupre’s case her beauty and sexuality – to get ahead. Not everyone can be a brain surgeon, just as not everyone can be a $1000-a-night-callgirl….we work with what we are given. If you are given a voice - sing. If you are given a sixth sense – predict the future. If you are given an awesome body and a desire to flaunt it - by all means….

Perhaps the somewhat fledgling Clinton for president evangelists should get Dupre on-board their publicity juggernaut to revive their campaign. Although, I’m not so sure that this would actually be a step up for the girl, especially from a moral standpoint. Hillary did after all take feminism back a quantum leap by sticking by Bill.  

While I do hope the next US president is Hillary Clinton, I would be a lot prouder if the next US president was Hillary Rodham.

  5 June 2008

OK, so I officially stand corrected (and slightly disappointed/disgruntled) – Such is life

Time to Jump on the Barack bandwagon and pray for unity