What's Wrong with Pretty?

 [This is a reprint of a blog that  was posted early on in my blog career that only one person read]

Perhaps I’m a victim of my time. When I was growing up, movie stars were gorgeous. They were not overweight, their hair was beautifully coiffed at all times in public and they wore lovely clothes. They did not look like anyone I knew.

Even on TV people were nice looking, although perhaps not as glamourous as movie stars. With the exception of very few shows, like The Honeymooners, leading men and ladies were not overweight, and men never had a five-o’clock shadow, much less a beard, unless representing another century. The only negative piece was that all of the lead roles were white people.

I’m not saying here that I lived in ugly town. Quite the contrary. The people in my neighborhood were nice looking, but average. The women looked like – well, moms. A testament to the fact that mothers weren’t always perfectly coiffed was the fact that before we went to any of the shops, mothers of my neighborhood changed into a dress – or at least a skirt – combed their hair and applied lipstick.

 And I never knew my mother to own pearls, much less wear them while vacuuming, as Beaver Cleaver’s mother did. My dad didn’t wear a sweater while sitting around the house, although he did carry a brief case, as the dads did in shows such as Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. My parents didn’t have a maid or a nanny, either. My mother did sometimes break into song for no apparent reason, so I assumed other mothers behaved the same.

With the advent of color TV, something else happened. Leading roles began to be performed by people of color. Diahann Carroll was the first breakthrough African American actress to have her own show, Julia, in which she played a single, widowed mom who worked as a nurse. While having a show that portrayed a black family having the same trials and tribulations as a white one was groundbreaking, Ms. Carroll was a strikingly beautiful actress who fit in with the other actresses of the time.

But her show paved the way for other programs featuring African American actors, such as The Mod Squad, Amen, Star Trek – which featured the first interracial kiss on TV – and The Cosby Show. In time other ethnic groups were represented in the weeknight lineup, and more recently, more sexually diverse characters.

But gradually over the years, leading ladies and men in both film and TV became less elegant. Perhaps it was the revolutionary atmosphere of the ‘60s that started it. Male leads no longer looked like my dad, but more like The Beatles. Female leads no longer acted in ways my mother would. People who had heretofore been relegated to supporting roles because they lacked the beauty, the elegance or the trim figures of stars of earlier days, were now starring in their own shows.

It wasn’t just the shows that made this change. Commercials also reflected this change. Where once a beauty queen would have hawked butter, now a somewhat dowdy beautician soaked people’s nails in dishwashing liquid to prove it was gentle on hands. Margaret Hamilton, best known as the Wicked Witch of the West in the original Wizard of Oz movie, and looking less elegant without the green skin, sold Maxwell House Coffee. And commercials that required singing turned to the tone deaf to croon the jingle.

I wonder if the casting calls looked like this: tone deaf child wanted to sing in commercial. Lisp appreciated.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t find a child singing off-key – or lisping, for that matter – remotely cute. I just want to send them for speech therapy.  And it certainly doesn’t encourage me to buy a product. In fact, I find that worse than having 10 different adults singing a jingle one at a time in different keys. 

I'm not trying to shame anyone here. Lots of people have speech impediments. But there are methods to correct them, and most elementary schools in this country have speech therapists who work in them.

People may like the fact that actors in film and TV are just like them. Maybe they enjoy watching people like Roseann or Archie Bunker make fools of themselves. That was never my cuppa.

It is reassuring to know that just because you don’t fit a narrow image of beauty like, perhaps, Marilyn Monroe or Twiggy, doesn’t mean you can’t have a career in acting. But I’d like to see people make an effort to look good to the best of their ability if they want to be stars. In fact, I also don't like the fake enhancements, either. Just be your best self.

I want my leading men and women to be beautiful. I want the singers to be able to sing, and I don’t want the speakers to have a speech impediment. Is that too much to ask?

When I was in college, I auditioned for plays, and I often didn't get the part because I couldn't dance. They didn't give me the part and then let me make a fool of myself. They gave it to someone who had the talent.

Perhaps it’s because I see film and TV as fantasy, not reality. I want the actors to reflect the fantasy of how I wish life was. Reality I can get without leaving home. Yes, when I was a child I dreamed of growing up to be the singers or actors of whom I was a fan. But I knew then that’s what it was: a dream. I wasn’t going to have plastic surgery or starve myself to turn into a fantasy.

I don’t look at actors as role models. They are human, just like the rest of us. But they are the cream. The people in my neighborhood don’t look like David Tennant or Meryl Streep. The lady next door could most likely not get up in front of an audience and perform in a Shakespeare play. (Of course, I'd like to think I could.)

When I turn on the TV, I want to be entertained by someone who would never be my next door neighbor. I want to be enchanted, captivated and taken to a fantasy land, that place we only find in dreams. Otherwise, I’m just looking in the mirror and not liking what I see.