Jessica Alba: I'm Beautiful...And You're Not, But Don't Put Me On the Cover of Playboy

There are some rich people out there who have a huge savings account of undeserved good fortune. Now, they're not always evil, stupid, vulgar or mean-spirited. But they are incredibly annoying. It's like you're being tormented by an itch you can't reach because you're tied up in a straitjacket.

For me, the latest itch that won't go away is the alleged "actress" Jessica Alba. Oh God, please make it go away.

Because life isn't fair, Alba is a rich and famous celebrity whose ego happily spins in a narcissistic orbit around the planet "Jessica". I know she's a big Star because I keep seeing her on magazine covers, TV and movies.

So, it's not surprising that Jessica Alba is in the news again. But what is surprising is she's not aggressively promoting a new perfume, an autobiography or an upcoming appearance on Letterman.

I read the news today, oboy, and sandwiched between the war in Iraq and global warming was the announcement about Alba's recent out of court settlement with Playboy magazine. What happened was Alba got upset seeing herself wearing a microscopic bikini on the cover of its March issue. Even though the photograph was from her movie Into The Blue, Alba felt "violated" because it implied (nudge nudge, wink wink) that she appeared nude inside. But Alba dropped legal action against Playboy after Hugh Hefner, the Viagra-popping, bathrobe-wearing, Dirty Old Editor-In-Chief himself, sent her a letter of apology.

After reading this news item, what I thought was this: "Excuse me? Miss Pot, I'd like you to meet Mr. Kettle. My, what a lovely shade of black the both of you are wearing today."

I'm sorry Alba's feelings got hurt but, uh Jessie? Life isn't fair. And I don't seriously think a crime was committed. There isn't a chalk outline where Jessica Alba's career used to be. However, if you ask me, when Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America crown years ago because Penthouse published those infamous erotic pictures of her, I think that was wrong. When Cameron Diaz was blackmailed by a sleazy photographer, that was wrong. Maybe Alba's pissed off because she didn't get paid. Or, if I were more cynical, I'd think this fraudulent (and heavily-promoted) controversy was a manufactured stratagem by her agent. Ah, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Besides, as men's magazines go these days, Playboy is the old, toothless ex-boxer who used to be a contender. I mean, think about it, OK? For better or worse, when it comes to sexual explicitness, there's more freedom than there used to be, whether it's on TV, bookstores or the internet. These days you can see a not-so-enthusiastic Chloe Sevigny perform fellatio on Vincent Gallo in The Brown Bunny without either of them being arrested for obscenity. Remember, porn actor Harry Reems almost went to jail doing Deep Throat back in the Dark Ages. Playboy magazine is as pornographic as last month's Victoria's Secret catalog.

What confuses me is the idea that the woman who's embarrassed by her appearance on the cover of Playboy has willingly taken off her clothes in almost every movie she's in. How about that ridiculous scene in Sin City where she's an, ahem, "innocent" baby-faced stripper that's tied up and whipped by this ugly, sadistic, yellow-skinned gargoyle who's wearing nothing but a diaper?

Ewwww.

Never mind Alba's "holier-than-thou" nonsense.

Do you know what Jessica Alba's real job is?

No, it's not parading semi-naked in front of a camera with that hateful, yeah-I-want-to-make-love-to-you smile on her face. What Alba and the other empty-headed, toothpick aliens from Barbie World work hard at is making women who don't look like them feel bad. And it's a job they're very good at, too.

Hollywood is a video funhouse mirror that reflects distorted images of the real world and the people who live in it. But, in the majority of the movies and television shows, there's a cruel double standard where men aren't defined as unrealistically as women are. Sure, there are always going to be hallucinations like, let's say, Tom Cruise pretending he's an unemployed car mechanic in War of The Worlds. But John C. Reilly, Billy Joe Thornton, Paul Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Paul Giamatti, and Steve Buchemi live in this alternative universe, too. Unfortunately, Hollywood's idea of a "regular-looking" woman is to put Uma Thurman in a shabby bathrobe wearing Clark Kent's glasses.

Too fat? Crooked teeth? Nappy hair? Big nose? What to do? Well, how about botox, yo-yo dieting, plastic surgery, humiliating boot camp exercise programs or shoving a finger down your throat to vomit up breakfast? Huh? You still don't look like Jessica Alba? Jeez, what an ugly loser you are.

Is it any wonder comedian Margaret Cho, who powerfully dramatized her struggles with self-esteem in I'm The One That I Want, decided to save her life and stop listening to the toxic, soul-destroying propaganda ?

"I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose."

I think the only thing left for women to do who aren't anorexic freaks is just start whispering to that stranger in the mirror, "I'm beautiful, damn it!" and get really pissed off at anybody who foolishly tries to tell you otherwise. Or, as Miss Piggy so wonderfully put it, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."

Uh, Jessica? Duck.