Paul Thomas: How a simple pin-up boy became a global brand

COMMENT

Bored with the Beckhams? Appalled by chequebook journalism and the trivialisation of current affairs?

Get off your high horse: this isn't just about sex.

Even allowing for the trite descriptions of the alleged encounters - they read like excerpts from I Was A Teenage Soccer Groupie - the least interesting aspect of this story is the sex, which appears to have been of the meat and two veg variety. The closest we get to deviancy is Beckham's vicarious thrill over his mistress' bisexuality, a girlie magazine cliche if there ever was one.

What makes this story significant is the Beckhams' royal status in our celebrity-crazed culture and the ambitiousness with which they've parlayed their fame.

The Beckhams reportedly set out to become the most famous couple in the world. That isn't quite as fanciful as it sounds: most famous people are in show business and showbiz relationships tend not to last.

The project has been increasingly driven by David Beckham's popularity, which is a phenomenon, not least because there seems to be nothing substantial underpinning it.

It seems this simple: he's the most media-friendly, nicest-looking, really good footballer who's married to a pop star.

As the only truly global game, soccer has been the big winner from the satellite television revolution. It's now part of the entertainment industry, following the American model but with worldwide appeal.

The Beckhams and their advisers exploited these developments to turn a pin-up boy into a global brand.

The constant tinkering with his hair is not simply or solely narcissism: the object of the exercise is to thwart the rip-off merchants flogging bootleg product. After all, there's nothing more yesterday than a Beckham doll with last month's hairstyle.

Real Madrid regarded his $70-odd million transfer fee as a bargain, confident that the boost he'd give the club's profile - and, therefore, sales of its merchandise - in Asia would provide a swift return on investment.

How much of the brand-power derives from Beckham's image as a devoted husband and family man is now a very big question.

His nemesis, The News of the World, claims to have exposed a gigantic con by revealing that the marriage made in heaven is, in fact, a marketing strategy. However, when tabloids offer high-minded justifications for their scandal-mongering, it should serve to remind us that it's not the smut per se that makes them objectionable but the combination of smut and sanctimoniousness.

That isn't to deny that part of the story's appeal is that the Beckhams much-trumpeted mutual devotion might, in fact, be a false prospectus or a hypocritical facade or, simply, a delusion. Who can honestly say they aren't overjoyed whenever one of those God, Mom and apple-pie American television evangelists is discovered holed up in a motel room with an anthill of cocaine and a chorus line of hookers?

There are echoes here of that great cultural litmus test, the Monica Lewinsky affair. It was whispered all along that President Clinton's union was more a political alliance than a marriage, and Hillary's readiness to forgive was seen as confirmation of that.

If he'd broken her heart, as opposed to compromised the Clinton political brand, she might have found it harder to overlook his low-rent infidelity and her hideous humiliation. The same may soon be said of Victoria Beckham.

The Lewinsky affair had its low comedy - the multi-purpose cigar, the lovingly preserved semen stain, the ludicrous lie ("I did not have sex with that woman") - but it was, above all, a ferocious political-cultural battle with many casualties, most notably Al Gore.

Here the stakes are far lower and the implications largely personal. Posh comes across as a tough cookie, but in her private moments she must churn with apprehension.

She may wear the trousers but her husband long ago overtook her in the glamour, fame and popularity stakes. Following the winding-up of the Spice Girls, that machine designed to separate parents from their money, she has struggled to kick-start a solo career. As abrasive as her husband is bland, she is demonised as a Lady Macbeth figure and blamed for everything from his departure from Manchester United to his risible forays into cross-dressing.

As she teeters through airport terminals pursued by the media wolf-pack, tanned to a crisp, disturbingly thin yet somehow extravagantly bosomed, Posh must realise that her faux-royal status depends more than ever on her sex-symbol husband. She has no choice but to stand by her man, wherever he may be.