Samantha Brick goes transatlantic with awkward Today show interview

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2012/apr/06/samantha-brick-today-show-daily-mail

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The special relationship between America and Britain has come under unprecedented strain this week, at least as it relates to one half of the British nation. The female half.

Time was that British women were adulated on this side of the Atlantic for their grace, sophistication, learning and steely determination. By the end of this week, however, that reputation now looks in tatters, with 51% of the UK population coming across on this side of the pond as either pathetically celebrity-obsessed or laughably self-obsessed.

The latter recasting of the British woman in the eyes of their American equivalents has been achieved by Samantha Brick, whose Daily Mail feature proclaiming the downsides of her overwhelming beauty has prompted a global eruption of Twitter derision. If you are going to write an article about how other women hate you "for no other reason than my lovely looks", then you better make sure the photographs that accompany the piece live up to the description.

(There's also the question of Brick's husband's handlebar moustache and impressively rotund girth, but that's another story. He's male, and he's French.)

Brick, who appears not to have heard that old adage – when in a hole, stop digging – brought her argument of maligned beauty into American living rooms on Friday morning when she agreed to be interviewed on NBC's Today show. In a pre-prepared introduction to the segment, NBC had their little dig, showing pictures of the Beckhams, Penelope Cruz and Angelina Jolie over the soundtrack: I'm Sexy and I Know it.

"The less than attractive masses have no idea how truly lucky they are, or at least that is what Samantha Brick would have us think," NBC reported.

They also showed a clip of Barbara Walters, the doyenne of American female TV anchors, on ABC's The View. In the clip, Walters takes a look at a photo of Brick, flings her arm out dismissively, and says: "She's got a problem, she's not that beautiful."

Today's interview with Brick was not conducted by the show's main co-anchor, Matt Lauer. He was too busy counting the rumoured $25m a year he has just sealed in his latest NBC deal.

Instead, his sidekick Ann Curry took on Brick and did a job that paradoxically underlined Brick's main contention: that a woman's toughest critic is another woman. "When I first read your article, I have to be honest, I thought it was tongue in cheek," Curry began. "In writing this, are you serious?"

"Parts of the article were tongue in cheek," Brick replied, looking uncomfortable. "And parts have been massively misconstrued. When I first pitched it to the Daily Mail, the pitch headline was 'Does the sisterhood hate attractive women?'"

When in a hole, stop digging.

"You use the word 'I' at least 60 times in your article," Curry snapped back. "Are you aware of how narcissistic your piece sounded?"

The question was devastating, particularly coming from a programme as high-minded and serious as the Today show. It instantly shattered hundreds of years of meticulously cultivated transatlantic female bonhomie.

After such a grubby spectacle of self-adoring British womanhood, it was a relief to get back to the much more elevated discourse of American women. Next up on the Today show: Kim Kardashian.