Lemme start off by saying that I’m no fan of girl groups. Nor boy bands. Nor any homogenised battalion with their own colour scheme and dance moves. Though I’m going to rant about a sneering take on Irish popstrel Una Healy, I must admit that haven’t heard a single song from her band, The Saturdays. I wouldn’t know The Saturdays if they’d been creeping into my lugs at night and crooning subliminal messages directly into my noggin. I’m not writing this from the perspective of an indignant fan, in other words. I’m an indignant twenty-nine year old Irishwoman, though, which gives me more than enough in common with my subject.
So yes, Una Healy is a gorgeous strawberry-blonde pop vocalist. Once a struggling singer-songwriter, she now makes up 20% of The Saturdays, and so is appropriately dolled-up and adorned with sparkly things. Last weekend’s Sunday Independent featured a piece by Niamh Horan, calling out Ms. Healy for being a bad role model and a drunken mess, basically because the writer has seen paparazzi images of Una looking rather worse for wear on a number of early-hours occasions. Her latest excursion resulted in her taking a tumble in front of waiting photographers, who naturally zoomed in and went all out.
Ms. Horan was most put-out by the whole thing.
…you’ve got to wonder what her parents must think. Not to mention her reserved country and Irish musician uncle Declan Nerney.
Indeed. Especially as Una was wearing a
… skirt up to her backside
… at the time, which I would have thought was probably her lot in life, being a member of a girl group. And hey, it’s not like she was out there wearing fishnets as trousers with a gigantic teabag on her head. Though if she was, we’d probably swoon and call it art, eh, Lady Gaga?
I was rightly riled by Horan’s attack on Healy. Whatever you may think about booze culture in the UK and Ireland, or about wimminfolk wearing minidresses in January, what’s righteous about singling out a grown woman celebrating a friend’s birthday and haughtily hypothesising how her poor Mammy must feel about her partying ways? It’s not as if Healy threw up on the pavement, dodged her taxi fare, or lamped a nightclub toilet attendent. She had a few drinks, tripped over her own feet, and looked less than graceful getting into a taxi. I doubt any manner of uncle would disown her for that … although it’s certainly an evocative image, Declan Nerney weeping into the Sunday newspapers whilst clutching his Nano Nagle action figures; “My kingdom for a shapeless tunic!”
Obviously, we have to advocate taking responsibility for one’s own actions, especially when one is nearly thirty, in good health, and financially independent. Ms. Healy chose to become a pop star, and so invited a certain amount of public attention down on her head. But that doesn’t mean that she must be held accountable for every angle she is snapped from. That doesn’t mean that she must remain poised and coiffed and boring and blank-eyed, for fear she may appear off balance or chunky and so frighten impressionable tweens. In fact, the notion Horan seems to push here – that female celebrities should restrict themselves to a particular hem length and a particular bedtime, that they must be graceful above all else, and that they must never lose control – is rather too sinister to chance adopting as standard. Young fans striving towards unattainable perfection and constantly berating themselves when they fall short? What a depressing thought.
Personally, I wouldn’t advocate Una Healy as a role model, but it’s because Una’s an entertainer, not a neurosurgeon. If my nine-year-old comes home and tells me she wants to be in a girl group when she grows up, I’ll probably roll my eyes and say something disparaging about the cost of fake eyelashes. That wouldn’t be half as disturbing as her coming home and claiming she wants a career as a dewy-eyed mannequin, Stepford-elegant with a silver ramrod up her jumper, though. Una Healy’s antics may well stop upsetting Niamh Horan when Niamh Horan accepts that Una Healy’s not an international ambassador. She’s a young, pretty popstar. Surely, then, she can wear her skirts as short as she damn well pleases?
So the Niamh Horan wearing skin tight gold shorts for this piece of ‘journalism’ – http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/health-fitness/dont-hate-me-because-im-thin-2029412.html – for the Sunday Independent, the biggest selling paper in the country, thinks that some random girl band member who had a bit too much to drink and wore something she wanted to is a bad role model for young girls.
That. Seems. Odd.
Cannot … be … unseen …
I’d say there’s plenty of opportunity for the Paps to catch a journo or two coming out of Lillis at 3 in the morning…
Yes, but why would they bother?
Well, look. The Sindo is a silly tabloid masquerading as a broadsheet, populated by silly people masquerading as journalists, who are willing to write all sorts of silly stuff in the name of “journalism”.
I think the real issue here is: who STILL buys this effing RAG?
And a side note: I think it’s possible to be an entertainer and a role model. I reckon there’s an amount of hard work/grafting involved, not to mention ambition and the capacity to keep going in the face of rejection – not quite the same as being supremely clever and the capacity to save a life, I know, but they hold some value in my book.
It is absolutely possible to be an entertainer and a role model; you’re right. I suppose my point is that Una’s in light entertainment; she represents frivolity and fun over art and depth. Expecting her to act with solemn gravitas all the time simply doesn’t fit her persona or career.
The boss at work usually brings me the Sunday Times magazine to read at coffee break on Monday morning. Last weekend, he bought the Sindo, and brought me in their magazine instead.
Dear God. Photos of Kerry Katona and a cover story on an Irish glamour model I’ve never heard of. Utter rubbish.
Agreed with JK – and quite amused to see that this story is filed under “opinion/analysis” in the URL – how priviliged we are to enjoy such expert analysis!
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/the-partys-over-una-sober-up-and-start-getting-some-sense-2507356.html
Don’t know much about The Saturdays. In general I’d be bothered by the marketing of highly sexualised pop acts at children, but there are plenty other acts to choose from: Pussycat Dolls being a pretty extreme example.
Una was never going to be a suitable role-model for young girls as she is IN A GIRL BAND! They sell sex and songs, in that order. They promote the sexualisation of young girls and boys (it cuts both ways here) and I mean YOUNG. So for Niamh Horan to talk about Una as not being a role model for getting pissed and being photographed – but not refer to the sleazy, male-dominated industry that Una plays in…that’s not being a role model. If you can’t see the exploitation of young people (incl. Una and her ilk) for your own prejudices – then don’t be a journo. I’ve nothing against Una Healy, am pretty sure that she is a nice girl, BUT trust me I worry far more about my six year old singing inappropriately sexual lyrics to songs because HE has heard them on the radio, words that if he used in a conversation we would be appalled – so shove it Ms. Horan Get some clarity on the situation and then make an informed and intelligent comment!
Hmm. In Horan’s piece, nothing is made of the sleazy papps who purposefully position themselves for upskirt images of drunk starlets, nor of the gossip-loving public who gleefully pour over such images. Perhaps a bit of victim-blaming going on?
This is the thing that gets me: why does everyone in the public eye have to be a “role model”? Who decided this – obviously the Daily Mail make it their lifes work to perpetuate this notion – and the other trashy media happily follow suit.
It reminds me of the time Kate Moss was absolutely blasted for saying “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. What kind of role model is she shrieked the red tops. Well no type of role model friends, duh, – she’s an extremely sucessful model and obviously her whole life revolves around skinny. She’s never pretended otherwise.
People love to get all morally outraged about nothing. I mean I once put up a ‘not leaving much to the imagination’ image of a purse that looked like a vagina to give people a giggle. Along with the laughs someone left a comment to say I should be ashamed of myself because “don’t I know that children read this site”.
Huh? I didn’t actually. And if they didn’t know what a vagina was before they saw the image then I’m happy to have educated them.
Anyway – long comment. Una Healy the next time you’re in Dublin look me up for a drink or five.
This is the thing that gets me: why does everyone in the public eye have to be a “role model”?
Cos it’s a stick to beat women (or black men, or Asian men, or disabled people, or queer people or whoever else) with. It’s all about the message that if you come from a particular group that isn’t white, male, able-bodied etc., anything where someone can decide you’re representing a whole group rather than just yourself, then you WILL be judged, and you’ll probably be found wanting.
I’d never bother reading anything with her byline – if memory serves, Niamh Horan is the same one who made a splash with her anti-chubby people stance, saying that anyone overweight must de facto be unhappy and unfulfilled. This generalisation was apparently justified by the fact that she herself was miserable when she was (shock, horror) a bit overweight. She totally lacks credibility – her attempts at taking a controversial stance are painfully transparent as mere tactical posturing to boost her media profile. Yawn, bo-ring.
A friend sent me an email of this article, ‘cos we remember Una Healy from our college days, and always had a feeling she would go far. There was something about her that just stood out, not just her looks but her personality too, she certainly possesses a type of ‘X’ factor. She was so lovely and funny, not at all up her own arse like a lot of the Krystal briggade Irish ‘celebrities’. – she has surpassed a lot of Dublin’s clique in measure of her success. I was shocked and disgusted while reading it. My gosh Miss Horan is a nasty piece of stuff…her jealousy of Una Healy, with her talent and beauty must be eating her alive that she resorted to writing such a degrading condescending article. What harm had Una done to anybody anyway? I wonder is it something personal to be so driven to write those things. When I first saw the headline she used ‘The Party’s over Una, sober up and start getting some sense’ I thought maybe Una’s band had been dropped by their record label (not at all) their tour had been cancelled (It’s a sell out) or that she had been booted out of the band altogether (not this either, she’s a very popular member of The Saturdays, and has countless fan pages on Facebook and Twitter dedicated to her. Does Niamhy girl find all this a bit too hard to stomach? Maybe…
Looking for notice I’d say she is. Well she’s getting it now !! She seemed to be so concerned about how Una’s family and friends feel when being subjected to dodgy pap pics of her when they pick up the paper….well I’d say it’s nothing in comparison to how they felt if they read her article, the horrendous attack on their darling girl. I myself felt my blood boiling while reading it, even though I only knew Una for a short while years ago, could only imagine how her hurt her poor folks felt (actually I hope they didn’t read it but that’s highly unlikely in a small country like this). I suppose her own family had high hopes for her when they packed her off to Journalism college, and look what she turned into – oh to be so young and so bitter !!!
I remember Miss Horan’s attack on chubby people ‘Don’t hate me because I’m thin’ for which she posed in a pair of Kylie-esque hotpants (except they were WAY too tight on her and she looked riciulous -complete with see-through top = why does she get all high-horsey then on Una in a short dress, what a hypocrite !! Take a look in the mirror Niamh love, and ponder on this – people don’t hate you ‘cos you’re thin, they hate you ‘cos you’re a nasty bitch. I wonder what will she say if she ever comes face to face with Miss Healy? Probably lick her arse, or cower away altogether I’d say. Sorry for long post, had to have a rant !!