SARAH VINE: Many of us willingly play the bimbo card, Meghan, own it

SARAH VINE: Many of us willingly play the bimbo card, Meghan. Just own it

The Duchess of Sussex has released the latest edition of her Archetypes podcast, featuring the socialite and heiress Paris Hilton, in which she talked about how being typecast as a ‘bimbo’ on the US gameshow Deal Or No Deal had left her feeling ‘objectified’, judged purely on her looks and not her intellect.

Fair enough, I suppose. After all, her job as ‘briefcase girl’ No 24 back in 2006 was not exactly what you might call mentally stimulating, although the skin-tight dresses, push-up bras and 5in heels the girls were required to wear might have been stimulating to viewers in other areas.

I can see how, as a young woman striving to be taken seriously as an actress, having to stand around on a stage, simpering and sucking in her stomach, might not exactly feel like the pinnacle of feminist achievement.

Then again, whatever Meghan may feel retrospectively about that gig, it played a big part in getting her where she is today.

Most women, if they’re honest, have played the bimbo card at one point or another in their lives.

Meghan in Variety magazine, which was published at the same time as she used her podcast to condemn her glam role on a game show

When I was in my early 20s, fresh out of university and desperate to break into newspapers, I, too, had my Meghan moment.

A friend told me about a certain pub in Fleet Street which was frequented by journalists, and so one Sunday afternoon we headed there for a drink.

The place was chock full of what seemed very ancient men (probably actually in their 30s) in rolled-up shirt sleeves, knocking back pints, smoking as though their lives depended on it and calling each other exceptionally rude things.

Before long we were sharing a few packets of pork scratchings, and by the end of a very convivial evening I had secured myself a trial shift in the TV listings department of the Daily Mirror.

It wasn’t exactly the Daily Planet, but it was good enough for me as a foot in the door.

The Duchess of Sussex Meghan on the cover of Variety published earlier this week 

And, yes, I had to fend off the occasional over-familiar offer of help, but in the months and years that followed I learnt so much from those supposedly toxic examples of masculinity. Those were some of the most fun years of my life, a time when I would happily work late into the night just for the privilege of seeing these guys at work. And, yes, they did call me ‘darlin’ and ‘love’, and I did occasionally get a little too much of a whiff of their beery breath. But I knew how to look after myself, and besides, their bark was much worse than their bite.

Truth is, without them and their weakness for a young thing in a short skirt, I’d probably still be working as a sales assistant. It was, as far as I was concerned, a very good trade-off.

And this is what annoys me about Meghan’s handwringing.

Why try to rewrite the narrative? Why knock something that she, and countless young women, have done since time immemorial? Why turn it into a drama? Why make yourself a victim, why be ashamed? Why not just own it, as the Americans say, and laugh it off as youthful opportunism.

No wonder her former colleagues on Deal Or No Deal are a little put out about her comments.

As one of them pointed out: ‘If Meghan didn’t want to feel objectified, she could have chosen not to do the audition… that would have given another girl a chance.’

Quite.

And as the actress Whoopi Goldberg added: ‘That’s TV, baby. When you’re a performer, you take the gig.’

And this is my problem with so much of today’s post-#MeToo world. Of course it’s progress that women no longer have to fear men such as Harvey Weinstein, but not all of us are helpless victims of the casting couch. Many willingly play the game – and play it they do, much to their own advantage.

It’s the hypocrisy that gets me. Just as her podcast episode was released, the Duchess of Sussex appeared in an interview for Variety magazine, accompanied by a set of pictures very much intended to flaunt her not inconsiderable physical attributes.

No mention of ‘objectification’ there. Funny, that.

It’s not all about the menopause …

If I hear one more celebrity whingeing on about the misery of going through the menopause – or the moanapause, as I shall henceforth call it – I shall scream.

Yes, it’s a pain, yes the symptoms are unpleasant and uncomfortable, but the idea that it’s all that defines women my age is not only patronising, it’s plain wrong.

Can we please talk about something else?

 Well that wasn’t so fantastic Mr Fox

While posting a picture of his son’s face online, the controversialist and actor Laurence Fox says: ‘I don’t post pictures of my boys’ faces online.’

He accuses his ex, Billie Piper, of ‘child alienation’ and of using their children ‘as weapons’. 

Sorry, but the only person weaponising their children seems to be Fox, by exposing them to his 320,000-plus Twitter followers, not all of whom, given his views, are the kind of people you might want to know what your children look like.

SARAH VINE: ‘The only person weaponising their children seems to be Fox, by exposing them to his 320,000-plus Twitter followers, not all of whom, given his views, are the kind of people you might want to know what your children look like’

Will Boris Johnson prevail? Stranger things have happened. And if he does, I can’t help thinking it will be a bit like the Bobby Ewing shower scene in Dallas: it was all just a weird dream.

Only, let’s hope that Boris keeps his towel on.

 As part of the BBC’s celebration of its centenary, it has broadcast many programmes from its archives. 

One of those was Antiques Roadshow – in many ways a series that’s emblematic of the kind of thing the BBC does so well and which has become a staple of our cultural life. 

Its presenter, Fiona Bruce, left, is also the personification of what the BBC should be: impartial, unflappable, inscrutable.

SARAH VINE: Fiona Bruce (pictured) is the personification of what the BBC should be: impartial, unflappable, inscrutable

I’m already finding it hard to scrape myself out of bed in the mornings, and it’ll get worse next weekend when the clocks go back and it’s pitch dark at 4pm.

Luckily, every morning, without fail, at precisely 7.30am, my neighbour unchains his motorbike and revs the engine so loudly it could wake the dead.

Every cloud has its silver lining.

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