Pimp da Pope (and other make-over stories)
Anyone who’s ever watched any TV knows that make-over programmes are incredibly popular. Whether it’s your clothes, your house, your pets or your vulva which are being held up and presented as inferior to a deeply voyeuristic audience doesn’t really matter. All these shows offer the right, fast food type mix of humiliation and near instant gratification.
I fully expect some TV network to go to the Louvre museum soon and let their experts loose on the unsuspecting masterpieces there. Expect some make-over harridan to open the series by telling poor Mona Lisa that she seriously needs to lose weight, get her hair done and start flossing.
Is nothing sacred then - nothing exempt from this make-over madness?
ROME — Franco Zeffirelli would like to make over what he called Pope Benedict XVI’s “cold” image and his “showy” clothes, an Italian newspaper reported Saturday, saying the film, stage and opera director offered his services in an interview.
Coming after the media-savvy Pope John Paul II, “Benedict XVI still has a cold way of communicating, little suited to what is happening around him,” Zeffirelli was quoted as telling the Turin daily La Stampa.
“Even his wardrobe needs to be revised,” the 84-year-old Zeffirelli was quoted as saying. “These are not times of high-tailored church wear.” Instead, his vestments should reflect “sobriety,” the director said. “The papal vestments have been done over to be too sumptuous and showy.”
John Paul II, often spontaneous and sometimes outdoorsy, had little use for fancy papal attire. But Benedict has taken to wearing some eye-stopping outfits in his public appearances, including a red velvet cape trimmed with ermine, a fur-trimmed stocking cap that some first mistook for a Santa Claus hat, and bright red Prada loafers.
Zeffirelli, who has directed ceremonies at the Vatican, sounded eager in the interview to be an image consultant for Benedict.
“If they give me an official supervisory role, I would dedicate myself to it full time,” Zeffirelli was quoted by La Stampa as saying. “There is a great need for it.”
Mind you, if you think mister Franco Zeffirelli was lacking in subtlety & tact, presenting his make-over plans, then you haven’t read Hollywood script writer Ted Safran’s article last week, in which he suggested that the whole collective rose of English womanhood could do with a serious work-over:
I am a massive fan of British women. UK girls, in my opinion, are the greatest natural beauties in the world . . . when they’re 17 or 18 years old. The girls I was surrounded by when I was a teenager were sublime roses with lustrous hair, flawless skin, bright eyes and lithe, athletic bodies. They dressed as if there would be a prize at the end of the night for the girl wearing the least. I then went away to Philadelphia for university. Four years later, I came back and wondered: “What the hell happened to all the beautiful girls I knew?” My first assumption was that one half of them had eaten the other half and washed them down with a crate of lager.
A perfect example of this was presented to me last week. I was set up with Sophie (I have changed the name) by married friends. Sophie was a truly beautiful girl I used to be friends with, but hadn’t seen in 15 years. I was surprised to hear that she was still single and was excited to meet her again. At dinner, I found myself sitting opposite something that surely would have been happier hunting for truffles in the forests of France or grazing on the grassy marshlands of Canada. My friend’s wife had told me that Sophie still had the body of a 20-year-old. Maybe she did . . . dismembered in her freezer at home. She certainly didn’t have it on her skeleton.
Sometimes, make-overs do become a bit embarrassing though. Especially if they are used to try and flog the same tired old things to a deeply uncaring public over and over and over again.
It’s as if a rather desperate and decidedly camp Satan would tell his PR people for the umpteenth time, ‘Alright team, what do you think of mauve pitchforks and slightly longer and more with-it horns for this coming season?’
So, anyone for yet another try at selling the Spice Girls to us? Thought not - but, as Satan would no doubt say, ‘You’re shit out of luck’:
Speaking of embarrassments, the Spice Girls have managed to imbue their long-awaited comeback with all the glamour and class of a hurried crap in a service station toilet by whoring themselves out to Tesco. The first instalment, in which the Girl Power quartet try to hide from each other while shopping for presents, represents a important landmark for the performing arts: Posh Spice becomes the first human being in history to be out-acted by a shopping trolley.
Still, some make-overs are quite impressive - and some people will go to great lengths to make them just so.
Consider mister Russell Parsons, who has fully prepared himself for that most ultimate of make-overs:
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Retired pipefitter, Army veteran and cancer survivor Russell Parsons says he’s not afraid to die — and he’s got the tattoo to prove it.
Inside the yellow and orange flaming tattoo on his right arm are instructions to the funeral home where he has a prepaid cremation: “Barlow Bonsall cook 1700-1800 for 2 to 3 hours.”
“It’s a recipe,” the 67-year-old widower from Hurricane said. “It’s a recipe for cremation.”
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