Paris, Britney, Christina and Jessica: Battle of the Blondes

I don't begrudge Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, or Jessica Simpson their success. After all, I know their secret: Preference (by L'Oreal) and extremely intelligent agents. I guarantee that it doesn't take much more than that to replicate their fame and fortune.

Let's take a quick look at these ladies and see what exactly has propelled them to the top of pop cultural discourse:

• Paris Hilton is known for being a hotelier's daughter, for playing herself on "The Simple Life", and for her progressively oranger complection
• Britney Spears has almost been as good as her svengali, Madonna, at playing the virgin-whore archetype. Her dancing skills far exceed her vocal talents.
• Christina Aguilera actually can sing (setting her quite far apart from the other chanteuses in this collection). However, with every album people bet how much lighter her hair and body can go (hint: there's not much room)
• Jessica Simpson's naivete reminds us of her cartoon kin, Homer. She's known more for making an ass out of herself on reality TV than her singing. Again, tells you something.

At the same time, there's not enough room in the tabloids for all of them (keep in mind that Oprah, Tom Cruise and Lindsay Lohan are almost permanent fixtures, demanding a lot of print space). Who's the hottest celebrity to buy her fame from a bottle? Let's take a look at Google Trends:

Let's face it; the press is generally not kind to Paris Hilton (neither are the creators of South Park). Nevertheless, her frequent mentions in the press have kept her notoriety afloat, enough now to begin pitching perfumes and albums. With the exception of one rare blip in late June when Britney overtook in her search volume, Paris has been the far-and-away leader in capturing Google searchers' attention.

Britney Spears, on the other hand, just doesn't carry the gossip columns like she used to. What's to blame? Motherhood? Marriage to a gold digger? Returning to her (brunette) roots? Regardless, even a blip in mid-August in the news wasn't enough of an incentive for searchers to care. We're getting over Britney; that's all she's got. In fact, she's recently been overtaken by...

Jessica Simpson, dimpled ingenue and divorcee, seems to keep her name in the news by being a laughingstock. She has appeared in a few movies, like "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Employee of the Month", playing...blond bimbos (talk about typecasting), but what really propelled her in search volume was when she...lost her voice. Talk about a mixed blessing (bad for her, great for us).

The fact that Christina Aguilera still trails in fourth place says something about how little talent really matters. No one would argue that she's the most talented singer among the quartet. However, living a married life and trying to mimic the Marilyn Monroe look (like that hasn't been done before), has made her relatively staid. Almost boring. She might have to accidentally leak a sex tape or join a cult to help move her current album.

It doesn't come as much of a surprise to me that these young ladies are more popular outside the US than they are in it. I heard and saw more of Britney and Christina in Europe than I ever have at home (please don't let Europeans convince you that they're they're any less interested in the inanities of pop culture than we are--it's just not true).

So the #1 spot is the Philippines. As a good Filipino friend says "300 years of bullfights and 50 years of Hollywood have whetted our appetite for petty drama" so the present adulation of these bottle blondes doesn't seem surprising for a country that endured decades of Imelda, she of 5,000 pairs of shoes.

South Africa is a bit surprising, although Colombia and Mexico are not--pretty much all of their beauty queens have indulged in a little bleach here and there (Shakira and Charo come to mind...). From what I've heard, Turks are mesmerized by anything blond, Italians only slightly less so ("lira" means "gentlemen prefer blondes" in both languages, incidentally). As for Canada, Australia and New Zealand? All are rather small British colonies. They're probably all tired of hearing about Camilla and will take anything else.