Miscellaneous, etc.

Top 100 lists are deadly ground for writers like me, because they are so enormous, and yet they practically beg for someone to attack them. By their very construction, Top 100 lists are built to offend roughly ninety-nine percent of their reading audience. There are at least one hundred opportunities to be wrong, just in sequence alone — and even more chances for error by merit of exclusion, let alone the inclusion of questionable candidates.

It’s mind boggling. I think at some point I used to know the kind of math you’d use to calculate just how many errors can exist in a sequential list of one hundred, but all I can remember now is that I think it was the kind that involved using an exclamation point, taught to me by a woman who was the closest thing to a robot that I have ever encountered. To even imagine calculating it now is making my head hurt; if I tried to take that number and then multiply it by the number of differing opinions about every error, it’s entirely possible that you’d get my brain to cave in on itself, collapsing the universe around it until all that was left was a very fine point of white light sitting on top of my neck.

You’d also get a number that represents roughly half the number of hours it takes to write an article making fun of a top 100 list.

But if I am nothing else, it is plucky, so I have made a couple of decisions that should help me in tackling the Maxim Hot 100:

1. I will not actually try to acquaint myself with the details of every single woman in the list. To do so would likely require me to read other issues of Maxim, the thought of which is enough to make me hug my knees and cry.
2. I will try to rate them out of 100 myself — in effect, re-compiling the list to something that might make sense to me.
3. I will not try to do so all at once, so I’ll kind of do the ratings one day at a time and see how that goes.
4. I will only do one page of the Hot 100 per entry, because otherwise I might go completely fucking nuts.
5. Yes, I do see the potential for disaster as clearly as you do.
6. Relax: It’s the internet. Nobody cares except for you and me.
7. Okay fine: I am the only one who cares.

The important thing to remember is that I am not all that interested in the women of the Maxim Hot 100 themselves so much as I am curious to divine the process by which a) someone found them attractive in the first place, and b) how they ended up being assigned a number that should describe their attractiveness in relation to the others on the list. On what basis does Maxim seek to tell me who I should find hot, and why? Precisely what are the parameters of a system that places, say, Nicole Richie twenty or so spots ahead of the likes of Naomi Watts, Gina Gershon or Shakira?

I must understand, and there is only one place to start:

100. Tamala Jones

Maxim Title: Sitcom Sexpot
Maxim Title Decoded: The attractive second-fiddle on some of those WB sitcoms you flip past quickly.
Why is she hot?: Tamala is the first of exactly ten black women included in the Maxim Hot 100, ensuring that exactly 10% of the women represented are not lily-white Europeans or heavily-tanned Americans. There might be some element of street cred attached to having Tamala in the list that I’m not aware of, but I can’t be exactly sure how — it doesn’t seem like they’re making much of a statement by putting the non-threatening co-co-co-star of Two Can Play That Game and Head of State at the flat-ass bottom of their list.

However, she is apparently willing to at least make it look like she’d touch her boob for a Maxim photographer, so that probably helped her bump Trish Stratus to #101.

Should have been ranked: Christ, the first woman on the list and I already don’t know. Probably in the 90s, considering I don’t get whatever the hell network The Tracy Morgan Show is on — but this is a list that also has God Damned Shannyn Sossamon on it, so I must make sure to leave lots of room at the bottom.

99. Amanda Swisten

Maxim Title: Whip Cracker
Maxim Title Decoded: The only thing you would ever know this woman from is that one scene in American Wedding
Why is she hot?: If you asked Amanda Swisten, you’d probaby get an answer like something on her official website:

Trust me, I strongly believe in education and believe you should have something to fall back on. But every situation is different. I am a very self-educated person. I chose to travel, model and work at a young age. Unfortunately, in the modeling biz, women have a limited window of opportunity … so I am seizing it now! However, I did manage to attend an interior design school in New York as a correspondent student. I apprenticed as a designer on some major projects and graduated with a certificate in interior design, as well as, a license to practice. I think this sums me up, for the most part. I feel as though I’ve told you most of my life story!!! But I hope it gives you good insight into the individual that I am and what I represent.

If you asked anyone else, it would be from that one scene where she totally showed her boobs in American Wedding. The fact that she has the biggest picture on page one, and that it doesn’t seem to involve interior design or the importance of education, you can probably guess who Maxim asked.

Competitive swimmer, interior designer, self-educated actress, artist, performer, and French maid who flashed her breasts that one time, who then was in that Elisha Cuthbert porn-star-romantic-comedy that opened and closed the same weekend: Amanda Swisten, Renaissance Woman.

Should have been ranked: Ensuring that there is enough room for Shannyn Fucking Sossamon down at the bottom, 99 seems pretty accurate. Had the boobs she was flashing in American Wedding not been quite so icky and fake-looking, this could have been so much higher.

98. Missi Pyle

Maxim Title: Pillow Talker
Maxim Title Decoded: You probably have no idea who this is, and we… we just can’t help you
Why is she hot?: Missi Pyle is like that girl in high school that you found yourself looking at and not quite understanding why, because she was taller than everyone else, and was just a little scary for reasons you couldn’t put your finger on. Maxim doesn’t help by providing a picture that makes you think she’s about to pull a knife from behind her back and gut the photographer, either.

Those are inevitably the women that you run into around your second year out of high school, at the mall during Christmastime, or God help you, when you have to serve them at your retail, no-this-isn’t-what-I-do-now-it’s-just-a-summer-job job. They’re still taller than everyone else, but they’ve gotten just comfortable enough with themselves that you regret your 11th-grade appetite for cheerleaders. Missi Pyle has that posture to her, and carries it one step further by exploiting it everywhere: there she was in Galaxy Quest, and there she was in Dodgeball, and there she was again at the very end of Anchorman, playing with how odd and compelling she can actually be.

Should have been ranked: Funny women never get enough credit. Missi should at least be in the 50s.

97. K.D. Aubert

Maxim Title: Cajun Queen
Maxim Title Decoded: She’s cajun, and “queen” alliterates with it. Shut up, writing magazines is hard.
Why is she hot?: K.D. is the second of the ten black women included in the Maxim Hot 100, and the second of three black women that are in the bottom 10% of the chart. Now, I’m no scientician, but it kind of feels like Maxim is kind of trying to get their demographics filled out here in the first couple of pages, doesn’t it?

There are two things that you’re supposed to be interested in about K.D. Aubert, as follows:

• She was on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer a couple of times, which I think I vaguely remember happened during one of the good seasons, and
• she is Cajun.

But if you look hard enough, you’re going to notice something else that’s way more interesting and creepy about her: K.D. Aubert is the black Angelina Jolie!

THE PROOF IS RIGHT BEFORE YOU!

Everything else, when calculating hotness, should really have fallen by the wayside. If you keep in mind that Angelina Jolie is indisputably hot, then by what reasoning would a younger, darker-skinned, French-speaking version of Angelina Jolie be less hot?

Apparently, only Maxim’s.

Should have been ranked: Given that Angelina is somewhere up in the teens, and that this woman is merely some kind of Cajun Clone of her, she should at least be in the twenties herself, after the appropriate penalties for obscurity and appearing on Buffy are applied.

96. Tamie Sheffield

Maxim Title: Brainy Beauty
Maxim Title Decoded: She’s a wrestler, but we’re calling her brainy — are we being ironic? Are we stupid? Wouldn’t you like to know! Maxim toys with you!
Why is she hot?: Because there are a certain number of guys out there who really love wrestling chicks, there always has to be a wrestling chick on one of these lists. They have to be photographed just right, they have to have their cleavage pushed up and out, and they can’t have to much detail of their leathery-muscley skin available for review — that, or risk blowing the fantasy that well-trained, breast-implanted women really are interested in the average male Women of Wrestling fan.

As a side-note, Tamie’s photo is the first exhibit of the magical Maxim phenomenon of the vanishing pooter, where all details of feminine anatomy below the waist are totally obliterated in the photo editing process. See-through underwear and legs akimbo be damned, say the editors — let no man believe that region isn’t just as smooth as the hood of a car.

Should have been ranked: If this was any other attractive female wrestler, I would be pushing for at least something up in the 80s — but since they’re all over doing Playboy shoots, I guess this is really the best that Maxim could come up with. High 90s is fine by me.

95. Brody Dalle

Maxim Title: Problem Child
Maxim Title Decoded: Here is our token punk chick. Look, just… just keep reading and it’ll get better, we promise.
Why is she hot?: Fans of tattooed porn like Suicide Girls probably have a much better idea of who Brody Dalle is than I do, and after a whole lot of soul-searching, I think I’m fine with that. Can I really consider myself the kind of person to evaluate a Best Of list like the Maxim Hot 100 if I don’t know who all the terrifying punk women are? Do I really have a complete enough aesthetic to appreciate the frightening, harrowed, disheveled rocker look?

In reverse order, no, and yet, yes. Apparently Brody wrote every song on her album, prompting the copy writers for the Hot 100 to “so want to get on her bad side.” Because presumably, as a punk rocker who dyes her hair black, chews on her thumb and wears a lot of red lipstick, she’s going to fuck you harder if she hates you.

Women are complex like this, guys. Wrestlers are brainy, and bad girls are hot, even when their eye makeup says, “Run! Run far away and fast!” We’re learning a lot from this Maxim Hot 100, and we’re not even through the first page. We’re on a journey of knowledge, and we’re taking it… together.

Should have been ranked: Out of 100, she should have been ranked about 10,000,00000,000000. This is based entirely on my purely impartial impression that she not only learned at the feet of Courtney Love while attending the dojo of Frightening, but also defeated her in combat and now carries her sword.

94. Giuliana DePandi

Maxim Title: Ravishing reporter
Maxim Title Decoded: She is a reporter who is ravishing, and no, alliteration is not laziness.
Why is she hot?: Maxim wants you to think it’s because Giuliana’s an exotic foreigner who’s invaded American television and is in the process of taking it by storm. “This Italian emigre co-hosts E! News Live,” the Hot 100 gushes, and goes on to add, “But in Malibu’s Most Wanted she’s a masseuse. May we request a happy ending?”

There are so many things wrong with this, I’m going to have to assign them numbers:

1. Having won Miss Maryland, and having received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree while studying in the States, it is very likely that she is about as Italian as I am Iranian.
2. Nobody is going to take anything through any kind of storm by doing news for E!.
3. Requesting a happy ending is gross. Girls take a dim view of guys who joke about being jacked off, and amazingly, so do other guys. Jack-off jokes are more or less universally reviled, Maxim. They are not Hot.
4. “Ravish” is actually an old-fashioned word for “rape”, so it’s not actually that complimentary — particularly when combined with the previously-mentioned, and still universally reviled, jack-off jokes.

Should have been ranked: Eeeeennnnnnnnh. And if “eeeeennnnnnnnh” were a number, it would probably be about a 97 or a 98. So Maxim’s not actually that far off.

93. Nadine Velazquez

Maxim Title: Hot tamale
Maxim Title Decoded: Get it? Because she’s Spanish.
Why is she hot?: Aside from her alarming resemblance to Teri Hatcher, back when Teri Hatcher was the most downloaded woman on the internet, Nadine has three things going for her:

1. She is capital-L Latin,
2. she is the Bud Light Girl,
3. and her first movie ever was Biker Boyz, in which she could probably not help being absolutely the best thing.

Like a couple of the other women already mentioned here, Nadine is enjoying the Maxim Publicity Outreach program. In exchange for taking off the majority of her clothes, Maxim has generously stimulated a certain amount of hype around her name, despite having relatively little (non-physically) to go on, aside from a stint on Passions and a supporting role in Biker Boyz to demonstrate her potential.

The benefit to Maxim is that they have someone to put in their June issue, if Victoria Silvstedt is busy or Van Helsing turns out to be a flop; the benefit to stars like Nadine is that a few more young men might decide to go see her movie, if only because it makes their pants temporarily tighter.

Plus, she’s attractive, and she’s Hispanic, so… hot tamale!

Should have been ranked: Ahead of the freaky goth chick, the “Italian” reporter, and the wrestler for sure. Not ahead of the Angelina clone, or the funny chick.

And with that, we have survived page one of the Maxim Hot 100 — or as the editors no doubt call it, “the first crop of filler.” I hope you’re looking forward to our next installment as much as I am, when we’ll tackle more baffling choices, more creepy jokes, and more women you absolutely will not know!

I can’t wait!