"Everyone's friend and Dionne's totally on-and-off boyf Donald Faison says that his pregnant wife Cacee Cobb and her pregnant best friend Jessica Simpson think that having their wombs full of cells at the same time is so fetch. 'Imagine if you and your best friend were pregnant at the same time – Cacee's loving it. They hang out all the time anyway, but now they hang out and talk baby stuff, look at baby stuff online, and go shopping for baby stuff together.' A nice break from their usual chats about nuclear fission. "
Months before, a different section of the blog ran the story "Former Us Weekly Editor has some Nerve being Pissed about the Post Baby Body Obsession," which pointed out the hypocrisy in former editor Janice Min's stance on the harsh discussion of women's bodies when she herself made a living on photographs of these women (Simpson is cited by name as one of Min's victims). What strikes me as interesting here is that this article's stance is to defend Simpson's female body against ridicule, while the Dirt Bag gossip dig targets her intellectually.
I get it, different writers, different rhetorical purposes, and it is just a joke. But at the same time, a site that writes incredible critiques of the wearying, unfunny and CONSTANT barrage of jokes that rely on tired, old stereotypes (feminists are unfunny, guys like boobs, ::ahem:: blondes are dumb) should try and avoid the pitfalls of making them.
I, by the same token, will try to avoid a similar pitfall of mocking Jezebel in a mean-spirited, self-serving way, (the post label Jezehell not withstanding) but will instead try and critique some of the more problematic aspects of the blog. I think this joke at Simpson's expense is one such problematic moment, in which a closing zinger feels both catty and completely unnecessary and undermines some fo the great work that Jezebel does offer those folks in the middle of the pop culture and feminism venn diagram.