I DIDN’T SEE The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour on ABC last Sunday night, but according to Nielsen, about 11.4 million other viewers did. An hour of musical numbers and comedy sketches performed by husband-and-wife team Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, the show won its time slot. It drew most of its support from that most coveted of demographics, 18-49-year olds. Nick and Jessica’s warbling and wailing proved so popular, in fact, that ABC has already greenlit a sequel: a Christmas-time-is-here spectacular that will air sometime during the holiday shopping season.
The ascendancy of Jessica Simpson, in other words, is now complete. Simpson, 23, once lurked towards the back of the teen popstar pack, behind Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and even Mandy Moore. Britney and Christina’s album sales were higher than Jessica’s; Moore cornered the I’m-so-innocent market early on. But times change. Today it’s Simpson, not Christina, who has one of the most popular shows on the MTV network. It’s Simpson, not Britney, who’s latest album is certified double platinum. It’s Simpson, not Moore, who stars in primetime ABC specials.
Simpson is more than ascendant. She’s ubiquitous. In early March “With You,” a single from her album In This Skin, hit Number 1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Top 40 chart. Last week Simpson filmed a sitcom pilot for ABC. This week she graces the cover of People magazine’s 30th anniversary issue. Last night’s finale of The Apprentice, Donald Trump’s reality show, featured Simpson (contestants are tasked with managing one of her concerts). On April 17 Simpson will appear on VH1’s 7th annual Divas special, along with fellow divas Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight (sans Pips), Mary J. Blige, and Cyndi Lauper. Movies are her next target. Her ambition, she’s told reporters, is to star in a remake of I Dream of Jeannie, as, you guessed it, Jeannie.
WHY IS SIMPSON so rich, so popular, and yet so spectacularly talentless? She herself doesn’t seem to know. “We’re amazed [at the show’s success], actually,” she once said. “We’re amazed that we’re entertaining, I think.” That makes two of us.
Her looks may have something to do with it. Petite, blonde, and possessed of, well, impressive measurements, she resembles nothing so much as a life-sized Barbie doll. On the other hand, she’s no more attractive than, say, Britney Spears. And Simpson is less inclined to capitalize on her good looks than other young celebrities: A little research (ahem) shows that she appears more often in women’s magazines than FHM or Maxim spreads.
Maybe it’s her lifestyle. Remember that Simpson’s career took off with the premiere and ensuing popularity of Newlyweds, the MTV reality show that follows her day-to-day life with Nick Lachey, the well-pectoraled singer who once headlined a boyband called 98 Degrees (as in hot!). The coupled married in the fall of 2002, when Simpson was 22 and Lachey 29. (CNN’s Anderson Cooper has since pronounced Simpson and Lachey “America’s favorite young couple.”) Before her nuptials, Simpson was the postergirl for teenage abstinence. Which is partly responsible for her appeal: Attending a Simpson concert, 12-year-old Savannah David told a Wilmington, North Carolina, paper that Simpson was “a good role model. She waited until she was married to do it.”
OR MAYBE Simpson is popular because she’s vacuous. Remember that people love to joke about how stupid she is; in her own way, she embodies several centuries’ worth of cultural attitudes towards blondes. Providing her with more opportunities to embarrass herself as long as she continues to make you laugh seems a good bargain. And she does make you laugh. A few examples: The Newlyweds episode where she displayed serious befuddlement and surprise at the news that Chicken of the Sea brand tuna fish contains no chicken whatsoever. When later told that Buffalo wings contain no buffalo meat, her face drew a blank. An internal monologue played across her face: “What do you mean?” she seemed to ask. “How can something not be what it’s marketed as?” A similar moment occurred more recently, when Simpson told Interior secretary Gale Norton that she had done a “good job decorating the White House.”
My favorite Jessica Simpson moment is the “30 Questions in 30 Seconds” feature on the back page of this week’s People magazine. Here’s a taste:
A: Depends on what kind of mood I’m in.
Q: Hidden talent?
A: I can pick up things with my toes.
Q: Where do you want to be at 30?
A: Same place. Maybe a different house.
Q: What do you have faith in?
A: Everything.
It’s hard to reach such towering heights of vapidity. Yet Simpson somehow manages to pull it off. Which may, come to think of it, suggest what lies at the heart of her appeal. Simpson, upon close examination, isn’t really a singer, or even a performer, at all. She’s a marketer. And her product is . . . herself.
Simpson knows this. Look at this revealing excerpt from a 1999 issue of Interview magazine:
A: Definitely. I could either have gone for a young teen, pop schoolgirl image, or I could have done an extremely sexy approach, but I didn’t want to come across as intimidating to anybody. My whole thing is that I think innocence is sexy. That’s my image–that you can be sexy and innocent. I think that the image we ultimately chose is basically who I am.
In such exchanges Jessica reveals that she’s image conscious to a considerable degree. Only 22, she has already spent over a decade in show business–the one area of human experience in which she’s extremely knowledgeable–and is an adept manager. She understands homage (the interest in the I Dream of Jeannie movie, closing her variety special with “I Got You Babe,” performed with her husband). And like all good advertisers she knows how to fulfill certain people’s desires: in this case, the desire for dumb blonde jokes, blonde bombshells, and “traditional” female role models.
HER HUSBAND isn’t as successful. Lachey may be on the cover of Details magazine, but read what he says inside: “It’s been frustrating,” he says. “For Jessica, the show has translated into musical success. For me, it’s been a little bizarre. I’m now more recognized as the star of a reality-television program than a musician.” Last November Lachey’s album, Soulo, debuted–and peaked–at number 51 on the Billboard chart. He isn’t in highly publicized development talks with networks and movie studios about possible projects. He isn’t on the cover of People magazine.
“I’m insanely jealous of Jessica,” Lachey told Ryan Seacrest on Larry King Live last October. “I’m insanely jealous. It’s like, you know, she’s shooting the cover of Rolling Stone tomorrow. And you know, I’m not on the cover. Which I’m so happy for her. You know, and I think it’s important that we always understand each other like that.”
Why is Lachey jealous? Simpson helped answer this question when she explained to Seacrest that Newlyweds differs from real life because the show’s producers “don’t ever show that I’m out of town the whole time, and that’s why I, like, freak out when I get home, and all my laundry’s all over the place.” In other words, Nick is a stay-at-home husband.
Which isn’t so bad. He gets to star in a reality show, after all, and shares billing on network television specials. Every so often he gets to appear half-naked on the cover of a national magazine. And if he follows his wife’s advice, maybe one day he’ll be a real star.
Matthew Continetti is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.
