Icon of the Week: Amanda “Foxy Knoxy” Knox
I first heard about Amanda Knox at a holiday party last week. It was at a fancy upper East Side apartment, and everyone there was so wealthy that they had a reputation. I arrived for desert, and was immediately seated at the end of the table, next to a woman who was flinging the f-bomb like it was golden shit.
I immediately fell in love with her.
It turns out that besides running one of the biggest film festivals in the world, she is of Irish Catholic descent. Her aunt was a model who married an Italian man, and bore him three strong, healthy Italian babies, just like Tilda Swinton in I am Love. One of them became a lawyer, and he is defending Amanda Knox in her murder trial in Italy.
Now, I had no idea who Amanda Knox was until the English woman sitting next to me practically sprang in the air at the mention of her name. “Everyone in London knows about Amanda Knox!” she proclaimed. “The girl is guilty!”
Amanda Knox was an American student from Seattle living in Perugia. She had a British flat mate named Meredith Kercher, and an Italian boyfriend named Raffaele Sollecito, who was from a wealthy Italian family.
Amanda Knox is not from a wealthy family. According to the New York Times, in a bizarre turn of phrase, she was educated by Jesuits, and had worked three jobs while in school to save up for the trip to Italy.
Long story short, Meredith Kercher was found lying in a pool of her own blood in her bedroom on November 1, 2007. Her roommate, Foxy Knoxy, seemed very confused about her whereabouts when it all happened. Her statement kept on changing. At first, she was out of the house. Then she was in the kitchen when she heard a scream. The only thing that was certain was that she was with her boyfriend, Raffaele, and they were both indulging in a little bit of hashish.
The Italian police said, cut the bullshit, we only work for 4 hours a day. We don’t have time to take all of these statements. And they threw her in jail for 25 years.
Which has caused a huge media circus about whether or not she was treated fairly, against allegations that she was knocked in the head and told she was stupid while giving her statements. I assume that all of the abuse happened after the Italian police whistled at her, walked up behind her, grabbed her ass and then pretended like she was an American foreign exchange slut who wanted to be sexually molested. For anyone who studied abroad in Italy, as I did, knows that this is not beyond the realm of possibilities.
It’s pretty clear that Foxy Knoxy was on the scene when the murders occurred. Whether or not she and her boyfriend Raffaele raped Kerchner and then brutally murdered her is still up for debate.
All of this sounds like a pretty standard Law & Order “sex orgy gone wrong” case to me. There are two things that make it sensational:
1. Foxy Knoxy is very, very pretty.
2. The Italian legal system is incompetent and the police have completely bungled all of the evidence. So the case will never be solved, not while the foreign media is so closely watching.
Foxy Knoxy’s appeal started this week. If she loses it, I think she goes to jail for 30 years, although I can’t really get a handle on the details. The only paper I’ve read on the matter is the Daily Mail, and their reporting is worse than Star Magazine.
One things for certain. As the trial goes on, Foxy Knoxy has begun to take less care of her appearance.
Which I assume is deliberate, the architecture of the seasoned PR firm that the Knox family hired to improve Amanda’s image after she appeared at court wearing things like this t-shirt.
It’s completely infuriating to read the British press coverage of the trial. Guilty or not, Foxy Knoxy is constantly judged for her appearance, for smiling in court, for being Satan disguised as an “Angel Face.” They’ve gone back to her hometown, and found people to testify that she was a sex-crazed, drug-addicted maniac.
For example, in the Daily Mail’s expose of Amanda’s pre-Italy life, entitled “The Wild, Raunchy Past of Foxy Knoxy,” Andrew Malone describes one of the parties she attended like it was the final days of the apocalypse:
The officer suspected “some kids” were just playing their music too loud, but what he found was no run-of-the-mill summer student party: he later told colleagues it was like a scene from Baghdad.
Gangs of students, high on drink and drugs, were hurling rocks into the road. Cars were swerving to avoid them. Debris littered the road. It was mayhem.
Is it really Amanda Knox’s fault that she looks like Lauren Bush?
Somehow, her Italian lover, Raffaele, has managed to maintain his appearance, and perhaps even to improve it, as the trial goes along. Here’s him at the appeal earlier this week:
A fur-lined hoodie with a turtleneck? Really dude? Oh yeah, you’re Italian.
And here’s Amanda being dragged to the front of the courtroom like she’s Rosemary Kennedy, lobotomized and receiving shock treatments.
For you, Amanda Knox. For being called “Luciferina.” For doing cartwheels during your interrogation. For appearing to be guilty of nothing else but being a little bit stupid. For fair trails, for worldwide petitions to free you from jail. For getting yourself a proper haircut when you do. For learning not to date a rich Italian man who won’t have your best interests in mind. For staying away from the Polizia. For pretty blue eyes, for tragic legal battles, for lambasting the British tabloids. For you, Amanda “Foxy Knoxy” Knox, you’re my icon of the week.
Note: Rony is mad at me for not mentioning that making Foxy Knoxy my Icon was his idea. So here’s your bone, Rony. Fetch!
