'That Intern. That Vixen. Or, in the inescapable phrase of our 42nd president, 'That Woman.' It may surprise you to learn that I’m actually a person.' From the VFArchive: How Monica Lewinksy reclaimed her narrative and gave her past a purpose.
It was early 2001. I was sitting on the stage of New York’s Cooper Union in the middle of taping a Q&A for an HBO documentary. I was the subject. And I was thunderstruck.
True, this wasn’t the first time I’d been stigmatized for my affair with Bill Clinton. But never had I been so directly confronted, one-on-one, with such a crass characterization. One of the unintended consequences of my agreeing to put myself out there and to try to tell the truth had been that shame would once again be hung around my neck like a scarlet albatross. Believe me, once it’s on, it is a bitch to take off.
In my own case, each easy click of that YouTube link reinforces the archetype, despite my efforts to parry it away: Me, America’s B.J. Queen. That Intern. That Vixen. Or, in the inescapable phrase of our 42nd president, “That Woman.”n 1998, when news of my affair with Bill Clinton broke, I was arguably the most humiliated person in the world. Thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet.
I moved between London, Los Angeles, New York, and Portland, Oregon, interviewing for a variety of jobs that fell under the umbrella of “creative communication” and “branding,” with an emphasis on charity campaigns. Yet, because of what potential employers so tactfully referred to as my “history,” I was never “quite right” for the position. In some cases, I was right for all the wrong reasons, as in “Of course, your job would require you to attend our events.
I eventually came to realize that traditional employment might not be an option for me. I’ve managed to get by with my own projects, usually with start-ups that I have participated in, or with loans from friends and family. It was an unbearably tragic event, and while hearing of it brought me to tears, too, I couldn’t quite grasp why my mom was so distraught. And then it dawned on me: she was reliving 1998, when she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal.
So, trying to disappear has not kept me out of the fray. I am, for better or for worse, presumed to be a known quantity. Every day I am recognized.Sometimes a person will walk past me again and again, as if I wouldn’t notice. Every day someone mentions me in a tweet or a blog post, and not altogether kindly.
I field the usual calls from friends who lend moral support whenever these volcanic media stories erupt. They diffuse the tension with good-natured teasing: “So, are we changing your monogram to NET?” I try to ignore the former First Lady’s long-buried comments. Given my experiences with Linda Tripp, I know better than anyone what it’s like to have a conversation with a girlfriend exposed and scrutinized, taken out of context. But, even so, it begins to gnaw at me.
Me: And where exactly “didn’t” I say this? In which public statement that I didn’t make? In which testimony that’s not been released?I think what people are outraged about is the way that [Monica Lewinsky] looks, which is interesting. Because we like to think of our presidents as sort of godlike, and so if J.F.K. has an affair with Marilyn Monroe, it’s all in the realm of the demigods.... I mean, the thing I kept hearing over and over again was Monica Lewinsky’s not that pretty.
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