Not long ago, my eleven year old daughter, Katie, ran a contest on her blog where she listed out some of the pop stars she thought were the prettiest. You can view that here. I wasn’t super-familiar with all the pop stars that she listed out as contestants. Three of them I would never have heard of if it weren’t for Katie herself. So it got me thinking.
Obviously, we’ve started to use celebrities as benchmarks of beauty. They offer a common cultural benchmark for many ideas of what is beautiful in our society. When I was much younger, a woman I worked with told me I looked like Tim Robbins. A comment which I didn’t take too well. In my head, I look like a young Captain Kirk or … I can’t come up with anybody else. I look like a young Captain Kirk. Alas… that just isn’t the case. I need to come up with a device that casts an attention-getting beam of light across my eyebrows. Maybe that would help.
Now that we’ve listed celebrities as our yard stick of beauty, let’s look back at some different eras and see what we can see.
In the 1970’s, I clearly remember my co-horts and I obsessing over celebrities like Farah Fawcett, Lynda Carter, and Lindsey Wagner. They were the women that commanded our attention over all others. Oh… and Daphne from Scooby Doo. Natch.
Nobody thought much of Margot Kidder.
In the 1980’s, it was Sigourney Weaver, Erin Gray, Madonna and Linda Hamilton. Other than those, no one’s really sticking out in my memory; other than flavor-of-the-month pop stars and models.
As I sit thinking about this, I’m struck that my benchmarks of beauty were all considered strong women. They were heroic characters with more than just beauty to set them apart.
Is that an accurate measurement of the ideas of attractive women over the different eras? Or is the list skewed because heroic entertainment is so important to me? Thing is… I don’t consider anybody on Katie’s list to be of particularly heroic character. And I’m having trouble thinking of any modern-day actresses who would come close. Maybe Erica Durance, who played Lois Lane on Smallville. But that seems like a really far stretch. Angelina Jolie! But she doesn’t seem to be working much anymore.
Who am I missing? Is there an angle I haven’t considered? Any input on this idea?
Thanks,
DCD
Erica Durance is so much of a stretch that Stretch Armstrong can't even stretch that far. If she had something besides the crap that is Smallville to judge her from it might be a different story.
ReplyDeleteAs for current beauties, the first ones that come to mind are Penny from Big Bang Theory, Natalie Portman and none other than the Black Widow...Scarlett Johansson.
Chuckie, you look JUST like a young Kirk! ...As long as you stay in the shadows like he does in that photo. Actually, you always reminded me of a young Yarnak, the rock creature from the episode with Abe Lincoln!
ReplyDeleteI think as we grow older, our definitions of beauty change. When we were young, we wanted only the hottest chicks, because media like television and magazines shoves all that down our collective throats. As we age, we begin to understand how reality differs from fantasy and we go from wanting Ginger to getting Mary-Ann. Still not too shabby, Mary-Ann I mean.
I remember going to college and in our Freshman year, not being too impressed with the selection of chicks available, and my friends at school thought so too. The next year, on move-in-day, we took note of how many more attractive women were around! The debate began to rage amongst our group; were there more hot chicks all of a sudden, or had our standards gone down to compensate with reality? The world may never know...
Among the geek and sci-fi shows that I've watched recently, I can think of several female characters who are both strong and beautiful. Larry mentioned Penny from Big Bang Theory. I would also submit Dr. Allison Blake and Jo Lupo from Eureka, Detective Kate Beckett from Castle, Echo and Sierra from Dollhouse, and Nina and Rachel from Alphas.
ReplyDeleteScarlett Johansson! Black Widow! How could I have forgotten her. And Steve you're absolutely right about your suggestions as well.
ReplyDeleteStill, all strong women. Does that say that our tastes culturally run to stronger female characters?