SNP’s word of the day: Man-acle

Date July 20, 2011

Word: Man-acle

Definition: One who makes slaves of men; serial heart-stealer; divorce queen. Okay, I semi-made it up from the word for handcuffs, manacle. P.S. I definitely do not mean ball and chain; gross.

Usage: “She’s a total man-acle—On, like, her twenty-fourth catch.”

You should know it because: Jennifer “Jenny from the Block” Lopez is getting divorced from Marc Anthony (it’s definitely not the other way around). This is a rare celebrity split, for me, in that I actually knew they were together. It’s kind of crazy how long they were together. J. Lo is the airbrushed picture of health and vitality; Anthony generally looks like he got half erased by accident. J. Lo is a major star; Anthony, a scraggly shadow. And yet if rumours are to be believed, which they are not, Anthony was the controlling one who micromanaged Lopez and her every move, causing her prolonged emotional distress, et cetera. Um, couldn’t she just sit on him?

The upshot of this split is that Ms. Lo, who has already been referred to as a Latina Elizabeth Taylor by at least one blogger, is now—as the National Post‘s Shinan Govani tweeted the other day—fully on the Liz track. Certainly, she’s a man-acle. This is her third marriage: The first two were to a waiter and a backup dancer, respectively. She also dated Sean “Puffy” Combs for long enough, and pre-Anthony, she was engaged to Ben Affleck by means of a $1.2 million pink-diamond ring. Makes you want to pink-vomit, no? Anyway, we all know Lopez has got the rocks. And, like Elizabeth Taylor, hot-selling fragrances. But, unbelievable as it may seem, she’s 42. By that age, Elizabeth Taylor was already on her fifth divorce, from Richard Burton.

But Lopez will have to fight another to be the New Elizabeth Taylor Minus the Oscars and Stuff. Her contender comes in the incredibly zaftig form of reality television performer and sextape star Kim Kardashian. Kardashian, at 31, is getting married for the first time. Sure, she dated four or five dudes between the years 2007 and 2010, but honestly, that’s kind of weak.

But Kardashian has a klaim to the krown in that she once interviewed Elizabeth Taylor for Harper’s Bazaar (sample question: “What’s your advice on how to be a queen?”) and posed as Cleo—er, Kleopatra—for the same issue. On the surface this seems desperately sad. But Taylor’s life was in some ways her greatest role. Maybe, for better and for worse (and for better and for worse again, and again), it’s the one for which she’ll be most remembered. And certainly she’ll inspire legions of famous-for-living people. Sigh. I’m so tired already.

But if I can just say one thing, girlfolk? There’s nothing desirable or to be imitated in Taylor’s serial man-acling. She only did it, she said, because she was old-fashioned and felt that affairs should lead to marriage. Cute, but stupid. By now the idea of serially ensnaring men, then locking them down for as long as you can, is ages old and ragingly anti-feminist. Handcuffs are for bedposts. #wink