Meghan’s latest Archwell podcast- Paris Hilton

[susan12345678]

Having started threads on earlier editions of the Archewell podcast, I felt compelled to comment on the latest - an interview with Paris Hilton - on the theme of the Bimbo.

I’ve not listened - but have read a summary - and the premise strikes me as rather hypocritical.
Meghan apparently mentions taking part in a diplomatic motorcade in Argentina during an internship at the Embassy, a role she claims to have received for her intelligence and education, but neglects to mention that her uncle arranged the (very brief) role for her or the small matter of failing the diplomatic exams. The implication seems to be that she should have been destined for a stellar professional career but sabotaged these possibilities by taking on ‘bimbo’ roles in a short-sighted effort to pay the rent.

The truth of the matter is that she may never have succeeded in a more intellectual or professional career and being a ‘bimbo’ actually served her extremely well - after all, she is someone of middling talent and would never have gained the prominence she has, or access to a wealthy husband, without these ‘bimbo’ roles.

In general, one only has to look at Instagram, Only Fans, Sugar Daddy sites to appreciate the true scale of the ‘bimbo’ economy which was Meghan’s natural habitat. It’s not going anywhere- and it’s an amusing conceit to imagine, now that she’s in her 40s and safely married to a rich man, that it was all somehow beneath her all along

Ridiculous comment. She wanted to act, had a successful career and now appears to be happily married. You can always find things to criticise if you want to but honestly a lot of it just sounds pathetic tbh.

I agree @Aspiringmatriarch

Why is she held up to such impossible standards?
I've done jobs in my life I've disliked, just to get by, for the money, to pay the bills...to bide my time until something better came along. She's no different.

None of us are perfect, Meghan included. Some posters on here are too fond of calling her a bit part actress, a suitcase girl, a third rate actress in a cable show....but hang on a minute, she did that for I think it was 110 episodes and made a couple of million.
Makes sense to me

I've done jobs in my life I've disliked Did you ever flip burgers?

This is my view. Even if I hate the writer, I only criticise their podcast if I have actually listened to it.

This is my view. Even if I hate the writer, I only criticise their podcast if I have actually listened to it.

so you wouldn’t be speculating about the next series of the crown then?

Very droll ☺️

This was apparently 2 years after she stopped being a suitcase girl because it made her a bimbo.

She didn’t say this.

@MrsTumblebee In 2006, while appearing on Deal or no deal, she made a guest appearance in CSI:NY. Here is a short clip from it
I am making no comment.

I’ve watched what Whoopi said and feel that her comments were ok. Look - the industry is what it is - there are the less challenging things people do like briefcase girl or putting on a clown costume as Whoopi said, but these are some things people do to progress in entertainment and she said that the objectification was coming from how Meghan felt. Whoopi felt that Meghan should have just taken it because that how things are and she had the agency to choose. And she also felt that she was making the other women feel bad which I don’t think she was.

I disagree with Whoopi on one point - objectivisation is very real in entertainment and of course all these people trying to make it have agency, however there are very real conversations to be had about power dynamics when it comes to these conversations. Many women today can and do things which objectify themselves however they have complete creative and financial control. I think this is something female performers should push for - the entertainment industry is still male dominated. Pushing for fair and equal pay, allowing for profit sharing in marketing of certain content, expanding the workforce to ensure diversity of viewpoints - people like Frances McDormand and Beyoncé have showed how women can do it.

I don’t think it is wrong to talk about things you did before and how it made you feel. I think we should all be striving for a situation where no one feels bad about their choices - we do this by talking about it and then coming up with ways to do better or letting other people know how to make different decisions to you. I struggle with the idea if you ever did something in the past you regret you should never talk about it. Not sure why Meghan isn’t allowed to

The amount of slut shaming on this thread…….

I think some people should listen to the last couple of minutes of this podcast where Meghan speaks about judgment.

Thanks for the link, @niveaessential

This is the official ‘blurb’ on the official website:

“In this candid and eye opening episode, Meghan breaks down the labels of “Bimbo” and “Dumb Blonde” and explores why brains and beauty in a woman have been historically pitted against each other. To delve deep, Meghan connects with Paris Hilton in a surprising and revealing conversation, as Paris opens up about the trope that defined her, how she at times played into it, and how she is now coming into her own.Journalist Clare Malone also joins the conversation alongside comedian Iliza Shlesinger, as Meghan unearths who is really in on the joke.Find the episode transcript here: newsroom.spotify.com/media-kit/archetypes-podcast-transcripts/“

Some posters on here are too fond of calling her a bit part actress, a suitcase girl, a third rate actress in a cable show....but hang on a minute, she did that for I think it was 110 episodes and made a couple of million

There is an interesting point to be discussed here. Patriarchy in the pluralistic West allows other perspectives such as feminism to exist, meaning that women are able to function in roles outside of the traditionally patriarchal ones of wife, mother and sex object. So, women have added the hard-won ability to become surgeons, CEOs, administrators, entrepreneurs, etc. to their repertoire of existence. However, not surprisingly, patriarchy continues to reward highly the traditionally patriarchal roles through various channels such as the strong societal approval of marriage for women to enormous financial approval of the sex object. This is why women can make a couple of million opening a suitcase on a gameshow but only a few thousand performing surgery or as an administrator. And yet, the majority of women do not make a beeline for the 'sex object' roles, but beaver away at their considerably lower remunerated careers. This suggests, at the very least, that there are multiple issues involved here that go way beyond the overly-simplified 'I took a highly paid sex object role so what's the problem?'

“Meghan … explores why brains and beauty in a woman have been historically pitted against each other.“

I thought this was an interesting claim in a podcast called ‘archetypes’. What does the word ‘historically’ even mean here? It’s a very broad-sweep claim. And of course there are ancient ‘archetypes’ and idealisations of powerful, beautiful, intelligent, strategic and ruthless women.

That’s an interesting area, I think. I wonder what Camille Paglia would have to say.

Meghan was actually having a potentially interesting look at post-WW2 stereotypes in her own culture, and some personal regrets in women that arise from having to inhabit that murk. And she’s at liberty to do that; but she will be scrutinised for the quality of her work through an academic lens partly because it has been promoted as such a serious and important enterprise.

I do think she seeks the power of authority, as I said before; but she doesn’t have the academic chops to pursue this route credibly. She needs a change of direction, that a decent advisor could create fairly quickly I’d have thought.

(Btw theme that really comes through in this podcast, for me, is the collateral damage of wealth.)

(Btw theme that really comes through in this podcast, for me, is the collateral damage of wealth.)

You are absolutely right to hone in on this because wealth is the central skeleton of all human societies and it is through the lens of wealth privilege that every other issue should be explored.

theme that really comes through in this podcast, for me, is the collateral damage of wealth

That's interesting - could you elaborate?

I would also like to hear this.

As a related point, an interesting conundrum for feminism becomes whether to support women into the very lucrative but patriarchally traditional occupations such as sex object or support them into branching out into genuinely feminist territory of non-patriarchally determined roles but which have few wealth rewards attached.

I wonder if Meghan is happier now than she was when she worked on Suits. I suspect not actually.
Harry definitely seemed happier before he met Meghan and before he had to sell his family out to make money.
Fame and money extract a high price.

Another “ Suitcase Girl” has come out and denied M N’s claims about “ different stations “ for padded bras etc.
I sometimes wonder if MM says things to be deliberately controversial and get people talking about her or whether she firmly believes the stuff she spouts.

Fame and money extract a high price

Very much so.

Fame and money extract a high price

Posted too soon. In fact, it looks like the price to pay for 'ordinariness' is less than the price that has to be paid for fame and fortune given that only relatively few women (and men) pursue this route.

She seems like she’s constantly ‘switched on’ and not genuine, he seems very tense and about to blow a fuse or have a melt down at any given moment. I wonder what they’re like at home…

Yep, all fur coat (but it must be the grandest, most flamboyant fur coat and everybody must see it).

The collateral damage of wealth: happy to have a witter on, if it's taken as just that, just a pile of witterings and thoughts.

As @MaulPertonsays, 'wealth is the central skeleton of all human societies and it is through the lens of wealth privilege that every other issue should be explored.'

If we really want to do history, we could look at the evidence for the first stratified societies (later neolithic and early bronze age settlements) and how women's reproductive abilities started to become controlled and commodifed, from wealthy lineages to the slave strata. (At the risk of sounding like the professor from Viz comic, I'm going to try and keep this snappy!) The acquisition of wealth and the power of patriarchal heredity is writ large in emerging 'civilisations'; and women were valuable vessels. While women were very much socially framed and boxed by their biology, there were 'archetypes' at play (and had had been from earlier prehistory) that transcended that - the goddesses, idealisations, subversions, caricatures. And there were also the liminal.

And then we jump to Meghan and Paris, and how being in close proximity to wealth and the power of patriarchal heredity, and the modern stereotyping of women, has affected them, and how they have negotiated that.

Paris was born into the American 'Hilton dynasty'; Meghan married into the British Windsor 'dynasty'. The damage experienced by Paris Hilton from a young age is significant, and so is the damage cycle that Meghan is now in that involves not just heightened emotions but also a treadmill of yet more wealth acquisition.

Maybe the 'archetype' description category these women fit into best is Liminal. They are at the edge of their dynasties, collaterally damaged by them, in the liminal zone, wanting to be at the centre of something powerful but always being pushed back to the outside zone by those with more power, either individual or collective.

She reminds me of someone I used to work with who just lied all the time almost like she couldn't help it.

Meghan has packed a lot into her 41 years. She has effectively got a number of lived lives to unpick and understand, and if she's not doing that honestly I suspect it's because she can't quite channel the earlier stuff through that wealth-based lens to become what she wants - especially using the 'archtypes' theme. It just doesn't work.