beauty: in the eye(heart) of the beholder

"I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves."Salma Hayek

My husband called me out on my last blog post. The one that included the recent viral Dustin Hoffman video, how his comments resonate with so many women, and how I don’t always see myself in the best light. He asked me some questions that were revealing in a way I didn’t expect. He peeled back the curtain of the male psyche just a bit to reveal something I did not know.

Did you also know that – despite what we are fed by TV, movies, magazines, and in advertising - men like real women just the way we are?

Did you know that men notice how other men look?

And that they worry about how they look almost as much as women do?

Source: imgur.com

what is like to be a woman in Hollywood? ask Dustin Hoffman

"And in the category of “Strongest Female Character in Film”, the award goes to…"

Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey playing Dorothy Michaels in TOOTSIE?

Seriously?

Twice in the past two months I have read articles about Strong Women in Film, and in both lists Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of a man who pretends to be a woman has ranked either near or at the top of the list.

It's hard to believe that, in 2013, with all the talented female actresses past and present, and all the strong female characters in movies made over the past 100 years, a character played by a MAN pretending to be a woman the most admired female character.

Mind boggling. And I never even liked that movie.

Then today, I saw this video of Dustin Hoffman discussing his role in TOOTSIE:

Makes me want to watch the movie again with new eyes.

I almost lost it when he said, after going through the makeup test, “When I looked at (myself) on screen, I was shocked that I wasn’t more attractive.”

Raise your hand if you’ve said the same thing to yourself when you looked at vacation pictures, family movies, or the Facebook video from your friend’s wedding.

Dustin Hoffman said to the makeup artists and producers, “You have me looking like a woman. Now, make me a beautiful woman, because if I’m going to be a woman I want to be as beautiful as possible.”

Don’t we all. Culture tells us if we are going to be women – if we are going to be considered worthy of being called a woman – we must be as beautiful as possible.

Beautiful by cultural standards.

Beautiful as in physically proportionate, preferably thin.

Beautiful as in groomed and coiffed and waxed and made up.

Beautiful as in sexual. 

Because if we aren’t these things, we aren’t called “women.” We’re called cow or hag or whale or butter face or bimbo or skank or other insults that I’d probably rather never know.

When the amazing Dustin Hoffman asked the crew to make him more beautiful as a woman, they replied, “That’s as good as it gets. That’s as beautiful as we can get you.”

That’s enough to make any woman choke up.

That was enough to make Dustin Hoffman choke up, too. Dustin Hoffman, a man, successful in every other way, choking up at the humiliation of being told he will never be a beautiful woman. No matter what. Never.

Many of us know the feeling. Even those women the rest of us think are the high standard, the pretty ones, the talented ones, the skinny ones, even they feel this way.

Why?!

Hoffman knew his character Dorothy Michaels was an interesting woman, but also knew that if he met her at a party he would never talk to her or take the time to get to know her, because she didn’t physically fit the idea of what men are taught to admire.

He tearfully admitted, “There are too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed….(TOOTSIE) was never a comedy for me.”

Just like being a real woman is rarely the romantic comedy we're made to think it should be.

I’m glad this video is making its rounds on Facebook and UpWorthy and YouTube. I’m happy that I saw it first on a man’s Facebook page. I’m impressed that Dustin Hoffman was able to experience the same self-doubt many women feel every day of their lives. And that he was able to articulate it for the world to hear.

I still think there are hundreds of strong female characters in movies played by actual women that should trump a female character played by a man.

But I will hand it to Mr. Hoffman. Dorothy Michaels wasn’t just Dustin Hoffman in drag. He may have created her, but she gave him perspective, humility, and depth. She took what he had and made him richer by the virtue of being in his life.

Just like every other strong woman I know.

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

As a writer, July 4th is one of my favorite holidays. It celebrates the final draft of a document, which is always a joyous occasion. But rarely in history does a final draft change the course of world history.

In a document dated July 4, 1776, the 2nd Continental Congress worked its way through the original text, comments and edits, yet maintained these fateful words penned by Thomas Jefferson at the opening of the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

We all know this sentence by heart. If we don't, we should. Because this simple sentence changed everything.  Every thing.

poetry and cheez-its: getting an edumacation in modern art

"Like many members of the uncultured Cheez-It consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art." - Dave Barry

I have a confession: I really like Cheez-Its. I know they are bad for you and full of questionable ingredients, but every so often I eat them anyway.  

I have another confession: I really like poetry. And I'm not in college or psychotic or on drugs or a communist or any combination of those.

fat dumb and unhappy (or, so long Paula Deen and thanks for all the butter)

Poor ol' Paula Deen is in hot water up to her chubby little cheeks. First she is accused of being a racist. Then the government declares her cooking makes you sick.

Yep, that's right, there is a new disease in town. Last week the A.M.A classified obesity is an illness.

Now at least 1/3 of our country is officially sick. As if we didn't already know this. 

Miss Utah, I feel your pain

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." - Oscar Wilde

Quick, what’s the name of the new Miss America?

I have no idea. I don’t watch beauty pageants. But I do know the name of Marissa Powell.

I know Marissa Powell, aka Miss Utah, because the answer she gave to a question during the 2013 Miss America Pageant went viral. In a bad way. The only reason I watched it was because her bad answer supplanted the one given by poor little Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss Teen South Carolina in 2007. Anytime my home state can catch a break, I’m all over it.

Photo by Georgina Vaughan

But truly, I feel bad for Marissa Powell. I can’t deny that her answer is a complete wreck. It meanders around in a pointless way like a county fair bumper car driven by a blind person (which I have witnessed, BTW).

But Miss Powell didn’t make it this far in the pageant circuit by being clueless. While some beauty contestants are intellectually brilliant, none of them are as stupid as they are portrayed. As much as I dislike it, the pageant world is highly competitive and you have to know your game pretty well to make it this far.

So what went wrong?

First of all, the first part of the question she is required to answer is itself a train wreck:

“A recent report shows that in 40 percent of American families with children, women are the primary earners, yet they continue to earn less than men. What does this say about society?”

There are at least three or four issues rolled into the first part of that question, and none of them are related or explained appropriately.

·       Why are 40 percent of American families with children supported primarily by women?

·       Are there men in these households who earn less than these women, are men totally missing from these households, or do men earn less in these households?

·       What about the other 60 percent of households with children?

·       What about the households without children?

·       Is the question addressing the overall inequality of pay for women vs men for the same job, or is it suggesting that the pay inequality is just for women with children or women supporting families alone?

These issues, while badly stated, are hotly debated by economic, social and political experts on a daily basis. Did we really expect a beautiful woman in an evening gown to crystallize these issues in an impromptu 30-second verbal thesis during a televised beauty pageant?

Secondly, the last part of the question – “What does this say about society?” – is a complete non sequitur, a device normally reserved for comedic purposes. Sort of like “Nene Leakes is a famous reality star who asks questions on the Miss America Pageant. She must be smart and important.”

Maybe better questions would be, what does the asinine nature of this question say about society? What does the choice of hosts – a man whose last music video equates a bunch of scantily dressed white women shaking their assets in the bleachers with a revival, and a woman who polices fashion and delivers entertainment news in the nude – say about society? What does the existence of this beauty pageant say about society?

Answer me that.

Thirdly, have you ever stood up to answer a question and found that your mind sat down? I have.

I can write about stuff all day long with no problem, because I can refine the text unobserved until it says exactly what I want it to say. I can perform a role on stage in front of thousands of people with no problem, because I’ve rehearsed my lines and my blocking and know how my character moves and thinks.

But when I have to stand up and speak extemporaneously, something goes screwy in my brain. My mouth fills up with cotton, my neck flushes, I develop temporary blindness, and my IQ plummets by about 100 points.

Granted, I don’t have years of pageant training in giving pat answers. There are times when I think that could be useful. But training women to give pat “I would wish for world peace” answers to heavy questions is debilitating. Miss Powell is probably much smarter than her answer would indicate, and was just hobbled by the bright lights, vapid hosts, bad training, and a poorly formed question asked by a woman who is famous for being a former stripper who married wealth and gets to talk loud on a reality show.

Fourthly, look at Marissa Powell. She is gorgeous. Does anyone really think she was up on that stage because of her intellectual prowess?  If she develops a cure for cancer or erases the national debt or solves world hunger, more power to her. But the way her assets stand up, I doubt anyone will fault her if she doesn’t.  Besides, I don’t look like her and I’m no closer to achieving world peace or equal pay than she is.

So Miss Utah, rise above the noise and ride the wave of notoriety. Accept the invitation to appear on Saturday Night Live when it comes. Make the most of your 15 minutes of fame. Because honestly? If I had long brown legs that could crack coconuts and all my assets stood up like yours, I probably wouldn’t care too much when my mind sits down.