.::Solid Gold::.

That Infamous Gold Dress

One of the most talked-about moments from the first Australian Idol competition involved Paulini and a gold dress she wore during one of her performances. Even now, months after the end of the show, the incident just wont die.

For some of Paulini’s fans the incident is too trivial and silly to discuss, but others consider it a great moment for Paulini who showed extreme professionalism and grace in the face of comments about her body image on national prime time television. Most people know that, in the scheme of things, this incident really doesnt matter to Paulini’s success as an artist. Only her voice and her talent will.

But like it or not, that moment in Australian television is permanently etched in millions of people’s hearts and minds. It has become the stuff of reality-tv legends in Australia and still provokes strong reactions in some people.

Now it seems the whole story is reaching across to the US as people from there have been enquiring about what happened. So for all of those people who didnt see it – for whatever reasons – here’s the official fanlisting webperson’s take on the event.

The Gold dress performance

Paulini wore a designer gold dress for one of her performances in the competition. She sang “Survivor” beautifully and did her usual brilliant performance. At the end of her song, one of the judges – Mark Holden – stared at her for a long moment and then said “Paulini what’s with what you’re wearing girl?”.

Another judge, Marcia, said [to Mark] “The point should be, what is with what YOU’RE wearing?”

Mark then said to Paulini: “You never fail to sing brilliantly but whoever convinced you to wear that I wouldn’t listen to ‘em again!” Paulini just laughed and replied “Thank You”.

The camera moved to Marcia for her comments. She said to Paulini: “Now to get back to the matter at hand… you’re slammin’. You sang the song!”

And then it was Ian “Dicko” Dickson’s turn, but Mark called across to him before he could speak: “Come on Dicko, tell the truth bruthaman”

Dicko spoke to Paulini: “Paulini… I have to say I thought that was a little bit breathless and horrid that performance, [followed by a resounding "BOOOOO!!!" from the audience] and also, this is really hard for me to say, but it’s the real world. You should choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds” (there were resounding sounds of shock and horror from the audience)

While the audience were clearly shocked and disgusted, Paulini just shrugged, commenting with a laugh on how much the dress was worth and who had designed it.

The next day, the media went crazy with the story and controversy flew across all layers of the community. Everyone with even a tiny interest got involved, Doctors. lawyers, women’s rights groups, child advocates! You name it. All of them getting stuck into Dicko for “promoting negative body images and attitudes” in young girls. They all ignored the fact that Mark started it (no-one pays him much attention) and focussed on Dicko. They also didnt take the time to look at what Dicko actually said, in my humble opinion. Very few bothered to point out that Paulini is a slim though curvaceous girl who actually wears an Australian size 12. In other words, while they were all going on about how bad it was to make a comment like that to an overweight girl, they didnt look close enough to realise she wasnt overweight at all. A small minority of commentators took the time to comment that Paulini had performed so incredibly well.

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Here’s Paulini wearing the dress at the moment when Dicko and Mark were having a go at her in the show. Personally, I think the dress is pretty ugly, but that’s just my taste. Paulini, however looks just fine to me. But that girl would look good in anything!

My personal opinion is that Dicko was very clumsily trying to help
her. I dont think he meant to say she was too fat, I just think he
wanted to say the dress would only suit someone who was a skeleton. I just dont think he liked the dress. But thats my interpretation.
Others think he was saying she was fat. Either way – he shouldnt have
said it the way he did. The truly negative impact of this is that Paulini’s reality-tv fan detractors were finally able to find something to insult Paulini with – her supposed “weight issues” while wailing and weeping about “sympathy votes” (a time-honored tradition amongst supporters of less-talented contestants in Idol shows). The positive is that Paulini was able to take what she needed from the whole thing and move on. She continues to delight audiences all over Australasia with no sign of having had that incredible confidence and poise of hers undermined.

The aftermath

Dicko apologised on the next episode of the show and Paulini was cool about it saying that she is perfectly okay with her body image so it wasnt a big deal for her.

Meanwhile, Paulini was careful to point out to people that she loves Dicko and has the utmost respect for him. Dicko, for his part, has been willing to humiliate himself mercilessly in order to send up the whole gold dress gaffe. At the end of 2003 he was photographed for a National magazine wearing the dress, shoes and all. Paulini and Dicko also included it in the Australian Idol concert as a humourous sketch in which Dicko is “revealed” to be wearing the gold dress under his suit.

Recent stupidity

This would all have died down and the respect for Dicko would have remained had it not been for more recent comments by Dicko which indicate he is obsessed with the whole gold dress incident beyond the point of decency. Dicko was interviewed outside the Australian Television Industry awards night recently where he commented on how he had “considered wearing Paulini’s gold dress but thought better of it”. Hmmmmm. Okay, that was a bit unnecessary, but not too bad.

Unfortunately, Dicko then appeared on The Footy Show a few days later along with the winner of the Australian Idol contest, Guy Sebastian. On seeing a member of the show who is clearly overweight, Dicko thought he was being funny when he said “Hello Paulini!”.

Now that takes the issue to a whole new level, being a clear insult against Paulini (who wasnt even involved) and an obvious, though cruel and inaccurate, statement about Paulini’s weight. Sebastian laughed while others looked uncomfortable. The question I have is, why didnt this comment, on a national television show with a large audience of mostly males, recieve the same media attention and condemnation from the community?

I, for one, think that this behaviour from Dicko should be condemned and Dicko should be told to pull his fat head in. He certainly lost a lot of respect from me and many other fans of the show with this behaviour. As for Guy Sebastian, his laughter in the face of this comment is a concern.

That’s about all I have to say on the Gold Dress brouhaha – I’m more interested in the actual talent and skills Paulini showed when she was performing in that dress! The incident is worth remembering for the young Paulini’s ability to cope under pressure, but other than that, its a mere blip on the screen of Paulini’s career.

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29/6/04 update: The above article has now been updated with an accurate account of what occurred during the “gold-dress fiasco”. Thanks to “naggindragon” for filling in the details for this article. Also, in recent days the continuing influence of this event has once again been shown. In the fansites of a certain other female contestant, for example, people are acknowledging that Paulini actually is very beautiful. This has come about due to her obvious beauty shining through on her CD cover, in her video and in Sony publicity shots. But interestingly, they still like drag things back to their moment of glory and carry on about her imaginary weight problem saying things like how she seems to have “lost weight” or “done work on herself”. Once again, her detractors focus on Dicko/Marks stupid comment as a subtle way of putting Paulini down. Except its all so tragic because they are clearly aware that Paulini is downright gorgeous and their insulting comments during the competition, about her weight and her looks, appear pretty lame now don’t they!
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