What Would You Do?

Imagine it: what would you do if you were given the chance to start over? We’ve all been asked at one time or another, “If you had the chance to do your life over, what would you change?”

            

Most of us like to fantasize other scenarios our lives might have played out while still expecting to meet our loved ones but avoiding the mistakes. Most people wouldn’t give up a beloved spouse or children. But what if…

            

Movies have been written with this theme. Think of Rose in Titanic. Wealthy, engaged to a rich Englishman, she feels stifled by the second class existence she’ll live as his wife. When fate, in the form of an iceberg intervenes, she is given a second chance, and she runs with it. On the rescue ship, she gives a false name, and gives up her chance at wealth in a quest for happiness. By all accounts, she finds it.

            

Yes, it is a movie, but isn’t it just possible that some survivors of the Titanic – or the Lusitania or any other ship that sank – made similar choices, and took on new identities?

            

There are stories of members of the SS eluding authorities and moving to South America to start new lives, avoiding the jail sentences they deserved. No doubt other, lower ranking participants in the Second World War, or even those from other European countries trying to evade becoming soldiers found ways of disappearing and reappearing elsewhere years later with new identities.

           

  Not everyone given that opportunity would do it. But not everyone who would do it is necessarily a bad person.

            

Imagine you’re in a bad relationship, but you’re significant other has threatened you harm if you ever try to leave. Imagine that on your way to work one sunny Tuesday, instead of going directly to your office on the 103^rd floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, you make a stop at a local drug store. As a result, you’re late for work, standing outside as the plane crashes into the building, your life saved. You can make the phone call telling people you’re all right or you can walk away, give up everything and start a new life.

            

While I don’t know quite how someone gets a new identity without being in witness protection, I can well imagine that at least a few people survived 9/11 who were listed as dead, as well as other disasters throughout the world.

            

While it’s interesting to fantasize about what you would do if you were presented with the opportunity to start a new life, I’m also reminded of a Night Gallery episode from the 1970s in which a young man finds himself transported from nearly dying aboard the Titanic to waking up on the Lusitania. From there he escapes death once again to wake up on the Andrea Doria. I think the lesson to be learned is: Be careful what you wish for.

What’s Wrong with Pretty?

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 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 at 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 with a lisp wanted to sing in commercial.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t find a child singing off-key – or lisping, for that matter – remotely cute. 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. It does speak to me; it says here’s a product that will kill any talent you may have had.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Searching for the Fountain of Youth

     I admit it: I’m vain

     Oh, I know I’m no beauty – more like the Beast. But in all honesty, I’m ordinary-looking. No one would pick me out of a crowd. On a good day, if the hair cooperates and the eyeliner on my lower lids goes on just right to make my grey eyes look a bit blue, I may even look nice.

     I’ve enjoyed looking younger than my actual age most of my life. But in the last five years, gravity has taken over. Wrinkles have taken command of my face. In the last year or two, I’ve noticed the left side of my face looks older than the right, the result of driver’s-side-window sun during the daily hour-long commute each way to and from work.
     The 25-year-old who lives inside this body now looks in the mirror in shock and thinks, “Oh, my Timelord! There’s an old woman in that mirror. Who the heck is she?”

     I am an eternal optimist. I really want to believe those too-good-to-be-true ads about skin creams that reverse the signs of aging giving one a youthful appearance. I’ve spent scads of money on the promise of regaining the face of my misspent youth, all to no avail.

     I’ve bought creams I didn’t believe in to help out friends or relatives who were trying to start up a business, more because I enjoy doing senseless acts of niceness, although I’d be better off supporting their Go-Fund-Me account for their next vacation. The result of most of these changes in my normal moisturizing regimen is a case of that scourge I never had as a teen: acne.

     I’m also a believer in that Judeo-Christian ethic called Karma. Perhaps if I help out friends and relatives with their skin creams, someday people will return the favor and buy my books.

     Not long ago, I again believed in a miracle face cream that promised youth in 30 days. It did look nice, and had no scent. The texture was rich and creamy. It felt nice going on. But it was, for all its pricey-ness, about as effective at rejuvenation as applying vegetable oil.

     Out of curiosity, I looked at the ingredients. What I didn’t realize when I bought it was that it supposedly contained snake venom. Wait, snake venom?

     I’m fairly certain no snakes were harmed in the production of this cream. More than likely, it was the result of some 30-something with a new chemistry kit. But snake venom sounds more daring than a string of unpronounceable polymers.
     I know what they were going for: the manufacturers wanted the public to believe that applying a topical toxin would have the same effect as an injection of botulinum toxin (aka Botox)

     It didn’t.

     But think about snakes for a moment. Even young snakes. Have you ever seen their skin? It’s positively scaly. I don’t even like snake skin shoes; I certainly don’t want a snake skin face.

     Into the trash went the promised snake oil, and I vowed I was through with promises of rejuvenation. My ordinary, Jennifer Aniston-endorsed, inexpensive moisturizer works just fine to keep my face from cracking.

     Enter the evil commercial from the competitor, another inexpensive lotion. “In just seven days you will see a decrease in fine lines and wrinkles,” they said – cue “In Just Seven Days” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show as you shake your head.

     Okay, it must do something. If I can see results in a week, it’s worth a try. Besides, it isn’t expensive snake oil.

     So, off to the local drug store’s beauty aisle I go. There it sits, just next to my usual cream. It has Retinol as one of it ingredients. That’s Vitamin A. That’s got to be good for you, yes? No.

     I gently washed my face each morning and studiously applied this lotion. It was sucked into my face – or the ozone – in seconds, leaving my skin feeling like it would tear if I cracked a smile.

     “Works well with any moisturizer,” the package said. 
     Okay, so it isn’t a moisturizer itself? I slathered on my usual moisturizer. Every. Single. Day.

     Each day, that 25-year-old peeked at the face. Day 1: nothing. Day 2: nothing. Day 3: some dry patches cropping up on my face. Each day thereafter, my face was redder and patchier. By day 7 it looked like it has looked in more naïve times, when I didn’t know about sun screens, after a day at the Jersey shore in strong sun. That was the only nod toward my youth that this cream provided.

     Fortunately, after a few days of simply using my regular skin cream, after I tossed out yet another failed promise of youth, my skin returned to its soft, although still just as wrinkled self.

     Once again I am determined that I will accept Mother Nature’s decree, and stop looking for the fountain of youth in a bottle. I can say that now, looking at a blank piece of paper, with no commercials or ads down the side of my Facebook page to lure me into another deception.

     I wonder if there’s a Fountain-of-Youth-Seeker’s Anonymous.