The Victoria Beckham documentary - is this a weird perspective of mine?

[Jessekate]

Just reading about tonight's premiere of VB's documentary and seeing the Beckhams lined up ready to watch it, and all I can think of is how awful it is for the kids (and particularly Harper) having to watch all this.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't ever be vulnerable in front of our kids and I know they have to understand the real world etc etc, but it just seems like such a lot for a 14 year old to have to absorb about a parent. So much vulnerability, all the stuff about eating (or lack of), VB being bullied as a child, her low self esteem. I look at my DD and DS (13 and 17) and think how worried they would be to hear all that about me and how anxious and protective it would make them feel, and in turn, how guilty I would feel. I don't think it's something that any amount of material wealth could compensate for. It would have such an impact on them, and not in a good way, I think.

I applaud VB for being so open, but part of me thinks it might have been a documentary to have done when all her kids were older...at least well out of their teens.

I also remember watching the David documentary and they were talking about how footie fans used to shout 'Posh spice takes it up the a*e' and again, all I could think of was....your kids are going to watch this. I was cringing on my sofa!!

I'm late 40s so maybe a bit old fashioned, but to me a lot about parenting is about having very filtered conversations in front of kids, even (or maybe especially) teenagers.

I don't mean to sound sanctimonious, although I probably do, lol! Just interested to hear other viewpoints, as everyone is going on about how amazing the documentary will be, but it can't be an easy watch for everyone in that family.

You lasted longer than me.

I know I will be lambasted for this but I am going to say it: I found the opening images of the doc quite annoying/triggering. They showed her working out and for me there was something so empty and narcissistic about it and I wondered if we were supposed to admire her “strength” and fitness. What did the director hope to achieve by showing that? We have all seen tiny women at the gym lifting incredible weights. So what? What does VB stand for? Perhaps she went on to say that her clothes are designed to make women feel that they are operating at their very best or that they allow women to live a fantasy of glamour. Something. But I couldn’t sit through the doc as I felt from the start that there was something missing. Why make a movie to show who you really are if you don’t show who you really are. Going back to the opening images: perhaps that is who VB is - someone who works out all the time and doesn’t eat much. Perhaps that is why it came across in its opening moments as dull and vacuous.

The whole point of the Spice Girls was supposed to be about girl power. But Victoria has proved that she was just a puppet in that message with her consequent decisions in life

To me being married is all that I have a share with you
good and bad
and certainly no asking
how humiliating

and in the subject of humiliating
I think that’s part of why it felt false
how it never even touched at all on the effect of David’s affair with Rebecca Loos etc
just skimmed right over all that
but yes went on and on in painstaking detail about how hard she had to work in the fashion industry

I absolutely loved it. I felt like I really got to know her and her demons

Her demons are written all over her… her sad, non smiling face, her painfully thin body which is clearly achieved through disordered eating habits and obsessive exercise, plus what we already know from the media: that DB has never been able to deny his affair, that her eldest son wants nothing to do with them, quite possibly because of the dogged determination to try to make the family into a global brand - this desperate hunger to be in the public eye is another obvious demon.

She described herself as a control freak, and i think she clearly still has an ED. But im interested that despite the opening sequence that @WeeGeeBored described she didnt really mention her fitness or exercise routine, at all. As someone who's recovered from an ED I'd find it really difficult to work in an environment (fashion) where you're designing clothes for, and surrounded by, models who are all exceptionally thin and may well have ED themselves

She desperately wanted to "prove" herself, and I suppose prove that she could make it as a fashion designer without having any of the normal credentials, or having worked her way from the bottom. (After all she was able to be part of the biggest and most successful girl band without being amazing at singing or dancing, but having the right look, and being incredibly ambitious)
I think fashion shows look pretty dull and I've no idea whether her kids and family enjoy them or go, just to support her. (Ive seen them pictured at fashion shows since they were really young and imo it looks pretty boring for kids) I run, but I appreciate its not a very exciting spectator sport and my family rarely come to watch because I know they'd find it quite boring. I do it for myself, im not dependent on anyone else being proud of me.

@Unhindereddthe “enough” thing is EXACTLY what my husband and I said last night. VB has done inordinately well for having very little talent and next to no charisma or star quality. It’s all naked ambition (practically literally, in her younger years), perseverance and determination. David comes across as a bit of an arrogant know-all who’s likely not all that bright but thinks he’s fantastic. The “jokes” they made (the one about D having a big cock and then milking it). Cringe: completely unfunny, but her fawning entourage falling about when she said it. Their children are not really making their own way in the world because a healthy, parentally engaged upbringing and true sense of self, pride in a job well done, have been sacrificed on the altar of Brand Beckham.

VB in particular seems like a carefully curated persona who, I suspect, has lost all sense of who she is, what she stands for and what would really make her happy. She seemed excruciatingly uncomfortable in every single clip of that montage of clips of her appearing at the end of the showings of her collections. Like she wanted to just pop up and then hide again (unless THAT’S a front too, in the great Russian Doll of VB’s personality).

Oh yes I remember now how she does those faux ickle shy girl coquettish appearances at the end of the shows - appeared totally contrived and tightly choreographed.

Just watched it, I enjoyed it, I do love a lot of her clothes. I have to say I found her upper lip really distracting and the strange intonations in her speech,. David comes across as a right dick to her, he is aging so badly.

I love the glimpses of their homes, they look gorgeous.

I agree he has aged badly - not sure if it’s bad genetics and/or having spent a lifetime outdoors without sunscreen. His face is sort of puffy - or maybe that is very bad cosmetic work - fillers? Body holding up though!