Maxim magazine’s 100 Hottest Women of 2012 list is a thing of beauty, literally. It’s also a thing of sexiness, popularity and high visibility.
Heavily skewed toward young actresses and super models with a handful of recording artists thrown into the mix, the list also includes one male political satirist and a cartoon housewife, presumably just to make sure all the pulchritude hasn’t dazzled us into a stupor, and that we are still paying attention. Should Stephen Colbert and Lois Griffin have been disqualified on the grounds of not actually being women in the conventional anatomical sense? I think this more inclusive set of criteria is something to be commended. But that’s just me.
This was the first time that the list was determined by a reader’s poll. Other than the guy and the toon, there were not a whole lot of surprises, which is not to say that there were none. The Maxim readership likes the mainstream hotties as well as showing a willingness to vote for some chicks that push the outside of the conventional beauty envelope.
Hot babes who also happen to be able to act, as well as hot babes that appear in films but mostly serve as window dressing, were well represented.
Some hot babes who can actually sing made the list, and also some hot babes who look good in music videos and are ever so marketable, but you might not want to hear their vocal efforts without some studio sweetening and a stage full of dancing distractions and guest rappers in concert.
There are also a few beauties that make movies, also make music, and appear as spokesmodels ( you gotta love that term ) for various products included on the list. The lines have been steadily blurring recently between these distinctions: model/actress/ singer/fragrance designer/ cat whisperer/ corporate CEO, and on and on.
A few of the women on the list don’t have the kind of in-your-face sexiness that as Jerry Seinfeld once observed, “appeal to the superficial man.”
Actress/singer Zooey Deschanel, who made the list at number 41 is the epitome of quirky but cute. She has a retro ‘60s, big-eyed mod girl thing going on that won’t quit. But she is not really a va va voom bombshell from the traditional mold.
Taylor Swift who is loaded with genuine musical ability and also has a wholesome fresh scrubbed appeal, surely did not provoke anything like wholesome thoughts in the mag’s readership. She’s at number 26.
There were a number of sweet young things that first came to prominence as teen ingénues and have since graduated to full-on babe status, such as Selena Gomez and Jennifer Love Hewitt who has morphed into a big-time sexpot, as well as that recently notorious duo Miley Cyrus and Amanda Bynes.
For genuine notoriety the list includes convicted murderess Amanda Knox, who recently had that conviction over-turned. She is somewhat cute but you have to assume a certain degree of perverseness went into casting a vote for Ms. Knox.
For fans of ultra curvaceousness, number 77 Christina Hendricks is all that they could ever ask for and more. As Joan Harris, she’s what drives all the Mad Men mad. Sometimes on that AMC show her degree of sexiness is like a computer generated special effect, but it is in fact, all her. She also does commercials for Johnnie Walker, which could drive some of us to drink….
Another in that basic category of voluptuous TV vixens, but in this case a Latina firecracker, would be number 71, Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara. She’s also a spokesmodel or pitch woman or something for Diet Pepsi, as well as supposedly designing clothes targeted at soccer moms (what?) for K-Mart.
The Maxim top 100 list is a reflection of the many and various embodiments of America’s ideal fantasy woman. With so much media putting beautiful women in our visual field, and hence our imaginations, 24/7 these days, it’s no small achievement for these 98 women (plus a man and a cartoon) to be singled out as the most desirable.
