An over-the-top wedding followed by a whipsaw divorce is leading to what can only be called Kardashian backlash.
The family that captivated reality television and built the house of E! is coping with a vertiginous reversal of fortune.
“She thought she was teflon and she’s being proved wrong,” publicist Richard Laermer of RLMpr told TheWrap. “She’s the new Kate Gosselin.”
From opinion pieces penned by the New York Times columnist Frank Bruni to tweets from "Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie, everyone is lining up to take pot shots at Kardashian.
Rushdie was the first to take up the mantle, tweeting this irreverent limerick:“1. The marriage of poor kim #kardashian was krushed like a kar in a krashian” “2. her kris kried, not fair! why kan’t I keep my share?” “3. But kardashian fell klean outa fashian.”
Funny stuff, but nothing could compete with last weekend's acid “Saturday Night Live” parody that portrayed the Kardashians as airheads who prattle on about anal bleaching.
In the sketch, mom Kris Jenner is played by Kristin Wiig as an attention-seeking, plastic-surgery addict and soon to be ex-husband Kris Humphries is lampooned as a monosyllabic simpleton.
Also read: Kim Kardashian Gets 'SNL's' Treatment: 'Whoopsies, I Got Divorced': (Video)
“The only way people are going to stop hating her is if she goes away for awhile,” Laermer told TheWrap. “But I doubt this woman will ever do that. She’d go nuts to be away for even five minutes.”
The backlash not only threatens the ratings smash “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” but also imperils three E! spin-off series and brand placements for everything from weight-loss supplements to perfumes.
There’s a lot of money at stake. Last year the television show built on conspicuous consumption and botoxed family values reportedly netted the Kardashians an estimated $65 million. With a wedding watched by 4.4 million people, that reportedly brought in millions to the family, 2011 was shaping up to be an even bigger year for the clan.
Also read: The Kardashian Nuptials -- Wretched Excess of Charity Cheapskates?
But that might have gone up in the air along with the bouquet.
“People still want to believe that there’s still some sanctity to marriage,” Jessica Wakeman, a writer for TheFrisky.com, told TheWrap. “People can deal with the wedding being over the top, but to do that and get divorced 72 days later, that is hard to swallow in this economy. When people are struggling to pay bills and rent, it doesn’t make average people feel much compassion.”
Indeed, public relations experts and media critics told TheWrap that the damage to the Kardashian brand might be irreversible, due to widespread speculation that the wedding was a highly profitable sham.
“There’s a real danger that people will be angry because they feel that they have been taken for fools,” Glenn Selig, a crisis management expert with the Publicity Agency, told TheWrap.
