Stars: They're Just Like Each Other!
Jun 29, 2006
One of the celebrity mag bits I'm getting sick of is the whole, "is sister A trying to turn into sister B?!" thing. Basically, the shtick is to take two pictures of a pair of famous sisters wearing similar hairstyles/outfits and imply that the weaker sister is going through an identity crisis and trying to co-opt the stronger or more popular sister's image. See Hilary and Haylie Duff:
And, of course, Ashlee and Jessica Simpson, who are classic victims of this treatment:
I should mention that the reason this bothers me is not because I give a shit about the state of Ashlee Simpson's sense of self. It's because it's lazy-ass trickery on behalf of the magazines who run this stuff, and I feel like I should be able to flip through my pictures of pretty people without having to be assaulted by 72-pt. bold non-sequitur about how the fact that when one sister looks like another it means a gigantic struggle for dominance is going on.
Hey, here's a thought--maybe they're just related. Maybe that accounts for the striking similarities. Maybe instead of inferring that the Simpsons or the Duffs looking alike means that one wishes she were the other, we should infer that when two already genetically similar people undergo the same set of standard-issue Hollywood grooming conventions--teeth whitening, microdermabrasion, eyebrow shaping, etc.--they start to look really F-ing similar.
And on top of that, when these young women are photographed all day in numerous outfits and hairstyles, I think it would be hard not to find a few pictures of them dressed in similar outfits. Hell, maybe they even share their clothes because they are SISTERS. The fact that you had a photo intern rifle through 800 stock photos doesn't mean shit to me, but thanks.
I even tested the theory that you could choose two polar opposite celebrities and find pictures of them wearing essentially the same thing. The two I chose were Bruce Vilanch and Nicole Kidman and, I swear to God, by the time ten minutes passed I had created the following graphic:
Again, I'm not outraged on behalf of these celebs. I just hate it when my magazines are lazy and un-creative, and I'm completely OK with saying that I expect more. Maybe it's not US News & World Report, but it's what I read and I'm holding it accountable to my standards. So there.