Female Role Models (update: December 11, 2008)
Though my peculiar habits as a boy of the cloth started around age 7, (Something my mom vehemently denies, despite my pleas to her to check with our then maid, who caught me playing with her Chanel No.5 perfume and lavishing around in cropped jackets and lipstick when I thought nobody was home) and the first girl I adored was our ever cheery Protestant pastor’s daughter, it was not until the early eighties when I started to form an image of the type of girl I would come to admire, emulate, and develop towards.
Long before Audrey Hepburn, the girls I fascinated over were fresh faced, ribbon-wearing, nice girls. It shouldn’t be any surprise as it sounds like a logical continuum from the pastor’s daughter. Keep in mind also that these were the Reaganomic years, when Preps were battling with hair band warriors: ruffle white blouses and pink ribbons was my idea of a hip outfit. My first one was purchased from Bamberger’s.
I recently saw a rerun of Meatballs II. As tempted as I am to go into a discussion on the comparative cinematography between Meatballs II and Eisenstein’s Batteship Potemkin, I have to answer to a greater calling. The whole look Kim Richards sports just brings back such a rush of memories.
I immediately realized that even my delight with Audrey Hepburn was simply a progression of all the things I loved about girls since the days I was just learning to walk: clean, prim, sweet with nice personalities, peter pan collars, ribbons in hair and a full frontal set of bangs. Ahhhhh! Who could ever forget Olivia Newton John’s Sandy at the beginning of Grease (lovely) before she turned into a permed leathered swamp creature (horrors!) at the end of the movie? Or Olivia Newton John full of ribbons and ruffles in Xanadu? To this day, the moment Susan Sarandon’s demure Janet Weiss disappears in the Rocky Horror Show (even before Frankfurter’s fishnets appear) I immediately switch the channel to something more interesting.
Perhaps that’s why aspiring to all the personae of sex vixens, powermad bdsm mistresses, porn stars, rock stars, muddied Aguilera goddesses like FHM foldouts continue to hold absolutely no appeal to me.
If you ever want to find me in a crowded establishment where stilettos and little black dresses abound, all you have to ask is “did you guys see that Quaker girl come by just now?”
You’ll find me.
