One of new British pop star Mika’s most popular singles is a track titled “Grace Kelly”, in which the effeminate singer carries on about how he tries and tries but just doesn’t fit in. Clearly confused as to his own identity, the singer whines “Why don’t you like me? / Why don’t you like me?” as he tries on a slew of various images in order to gain acceptance. His refrain directly addresses Grace Kelly’s image, repeating, “I tried to be like Grace Kelly / But all her looks were too sad,” implying that Kelly’s grace and elegance were a false exterior put on unwillingly. Meanwhile, the entire song acts as a vehicle through which to knock the near-perfect image Kelly presented, associating her with an unhappy quest for identity and acceptance. Mika, though trying to compare himself to Kelly, fails to acknowledge the fact that Kelly perfected her feminine role and was accepted and admired because she embraced her true nature, not an artificial nature imposed on her by others or one created out of a desire to be a non-conformist. Perhaps Mika would be a lot less confused if he followed her lead in this respect rather than just trying to duplicate her femininity.

Another unfortunate attempt to sully Kelly’s image comes in the form of the latest celebrity biography from Wendy Leigh, a woman whose credentials include sex advice columnist; resident expert on Madonna and Sylvester Stallone for The News of the World, a British tabloid; and author of the unauthorized biographies of JFK, Jr., Liza Minelli, Zsa-Zsa Gabor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Prince Edward. True Grace: The Life and Times of an American Princess is Leigh’s attempt to portray Grace Kelly as a promiscuous, sexually aggressive actress willing to jump into bed with anyone in order to advance her career, and to portray Kelly’s marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco as an unstable alliance fraught with affairs. Yet Leigh bases her claims upon the most unreliable of sources, including a man who insisted that he and Marilyn Monroe had been married for a brief time even though there is not a shred of evidence to support this.

So where did Mika and Leigh even come up with such unsubstantiated, defamatory ideas about Kelly? By applying today’s cultural standards to Kelly’s life, of course. Romantically linked to several of Hollywood’s leading men prior to her marriage to Prince Rainier, Kelly was clearly not a saint. And, in a society that looks down upon propriety and celebrates those who have affairs, rocky marriages, and illegitimate children, critics jumped at the slightest sign of a flaw in Kelly’s near-perfect exterior, simply because flawlessness no longer makes for a good story. Just look to today’s top magazines and news shows - sources like US Weekly, People, E! News Daily, and Entertainment Tonight - and you’ll see that the American public is most interested in what seemingly perfect couple just separated, what actor just entered rehab after a drunken tirade, and what former pop princess just shaved her head. Our culture is no longer looking for fairytales; it’s looking for fairytales that have fallen to pieces.