I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been bothered by Rachel Zoe and would like to comment (and vent!).

When I first watched her reality show, I was stunned by her self-importance, her shallowness, and her inability to speak like a literate adult. I wondered how a person can actually procure work dressing people (and well, it would seem) whilst coming off as so unintelligent and without having a sense of proportion about what she does for a living. I’m still wondering about that.

A few episodes passed and I began to wonder more about her psychopathology. A few of her more noticeable traits:

– She seems genuinely unable to take pleasure in her job. Rather, it causes her great angst and anxiety — which she spreads around like a dark cloud expanding into every part of the sky. The woman seems to live in a perpetual state of fear and (yes) terror.

One very memorable example: she had several clients for the Golden Globes. Rather than getting to work, she proclaimed that she felt as though she’d gotten hit in the chest.

– She is passive-aggressive. She rarely confronts anyone. When she does, it is through a back-handed compliment, which must be very demoralizing for everyone around her. Further, she won’t come out and just say she doesn’t want a baby; instead, she delays, delays, delays. And she frets so that people around her will have to worry about her and try to figure out her thinking.

– Her passive-aggression is cruel. I disliked her husband at first, but then came around to having a lot of sympathy for this puppy dog who follows his wife around begging for crumbs of her attention and a straight answer about the baby question. (Rodger is interesting though. I can’t figure out whether is gay or bi and hiding it through marriage. It may very well be. Still, if they made a pact to have a kid, Rachel ought to straight come out and say she’s changed her mind instead of garnering attention by fretting about her physical and mental strength.)

Rachel is passive-aggressive with her employees too. She won’t just come out and state anything; rather, she makes them guess what she wants and worries them with her constant angst.

– She needs to be the center of attention. She does that through her dress, her chronic fretting and her adolescent speech. She controls her husband (although it would seem she pays for him) in myriad very sneaky ways. The worst is forcing him to beg for her attention, as that is a statement about his value to her. It’s cruel.

– Finally, this is stated above in other ways, but here it is: she creates chaos around her.

Perhaps inside Rachel Zoe is a very unhappy and insecure person, considering the ways in which she exerts control upon those who surround her. Her weight has been a source of speculation — if she has an eating disorder, that would be a way of controlling her body.

Unhappy and insecure though she may be deep inside, I find it hard to stomach her because I find her ploys offensive and demeaning. I’m trying to have more sympathy for her, but I find it difficult because she acts as though she is curing cancer rather than dressing actresses.