Dear 'Diary'
From whore to eternity
By Mick Farren
The ingredients all made sense: sex, authenticity, a rising star, more sex, and even a literary guessing game. Yet, as this exercise in mystery and titillation reaches its supposed apex – a premium cable TV series airing in the U.S. market – the only word is irritating. Showtime’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl can claim the even more unique achievement of making Billie Piper in high heels, stockings and little else become so tedious that the viewer starts to wonder when this eternity of faux-erotica will end.
The start was in 2003 when a Web log titled Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl was voted blog of the year by the British newspaper The Guardian. Naming herself after the 1967 Luis Buñuel movie that starred Catherine Deneuve as the bored bourgeoise wife who takes up afternoon hooking, Belle presented herself as a well-paid prostitute, happy in her work, free of addiction and neurosis, and whose only apparent fear was that her middle class mother might discover her occupation. Under cover of Blogspot, Belle detailed her tricks, her recreational boyfriends, her shoes, her taxes, and a quite considerable time spent shopping.
The way in which Belle’s blog both titillated and contextualized her profession quickly amassed one of the largest audiences in the comparatively new medium, attracting both men and women with her humor and enthusiasm. Moments occurred, however, when Belle could irritate by being just too damned pleased with herself, but then again, she had good reason. Blog success begat a book deal, a short-lived weekly column in London’s conservative Daily Telegraph, and a media mystery in which the local literati played guessing games about her true identity. Some claimed Belle was a work of fiction, others were convinced that she was written by a man: Martin Amis and Nick Hornby were among the suspects.
With another book on the way, and blogging sex workers across the planet seeking to emulate her, Belle quit the flesh trade. After a lengthy hiatus, she blogged again, but without the commercial sex vignettes, she was just another lady writer who shopped even more, ate a lot of lunches and, although still anonymous, complained of the price of fame. Readership dwindled, but what did Belle care? She had a deal for a TV series, and actress Billie Piper would play her. In the U.K., this was a coup. Piper was a chart-topping popette – recording first as just “Billie” and then under her full name – who had switched to acting when the hits became harder, but had received rave reviews for her TV and stage work, and was also the tabloids’ darling after being cast in the long-running science fiction cult series Doctor Who as the time-travelling Doctor’s companion, which was
almost as big a deal in Britain as being the new Bond girl.
All seemed set fair until, although a hit in England, Secret Diary of a Call Girl revealed itself to be a combination of mess and travesty. Piper, as Belle, constantly talks to the camera in serial asides, instructing the audience in the finer points of high class whoring, marveling at the foibles of the clientele, and, loyal to the spirit of the blog, being exceedingly pleased with herself, but without wit or insight. Worse still, Piper, as a serious young actress, removes only minimal clothing while plying her fictional trade, unlike, say, Natalie Dormer and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in The Tudors, who both bare all for reality. To cover this incongruity, the sex scenes are shot in Vaseline soft focus, which does nothing to mitigate the fact that the scenes themselves are hackneyed set pieces as pointless as soft porn with edges filed down.
Whores on TV? Cool, but let’s disrobe them with reality, like Paula Malcomson as the raw-edged Trixie in Deadwood who carried a .22 and violently reminded us that sex work is bruising rather than a blast in Manolo Blahniks.
Secret Diary of a Call Girl premieres June 16, 10:30 p.m.
Mick Farren blogs at Doc40.blogspot.com.
Published: 06/04/2008
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