Women
of the Monthchosen by Stella
Women
of the Month|
In Praise of Non-Blondes 
Karina Lombard in the first season of the L-Word, Michelle Rodriguez in the second season of Lost. Beautiful, sexy, dark-skinned, dark-eyed women, playing bad girls -- in a vest. Works for me. There's even Eva Longoria in Desperate Housewives (though I grant you, she's a little … little.) And, in truth, I think I prefer Ms Longoria with clothes, rather than the dozens of semi-naked shots the Desperate Housewives producers would rather have us see. In many ways that's because who she's playing is so much more interesting than the alternative DH brunette. Unlike the Teri Hatcher character, she's not trying for nice or sweet, or motherly. And is, most blessedly, not kooky either. Dear God, when will they learn (actors, writers, producers, directors) how incredibly irritating kooky really is? I loathe slapstick. It's bad enough with the Keystone Cops et al, but when it involves screeching women and towels falling off and stumbling on driveways and dropping cake trays and accidentally being seen kissing the wrong man … it drives me crazy. I far prefer my televisual chicks mean, tough, nasty even. And yes, a little bit sweaty on occasion.Which brings me back to these three. Here's what I think happened (if we must analyse the object of lust, and hell, why not?) -- I grew up in a small town in New Zealand where maybe seventy percent of the population were Maori/Samoan/other Pacific Island. I grew up small and pale and red-headed and, with time, very freckled. I grew up in an era (1970's) when blonde was all any girl was supposed to be -- to want to be -- when Charlie's Angels might have had just the one blonde, but that blonde was the one all the men fell in love with week after week. I also saw that the little blonde girls at school (step forward you Debbies) seemed to get away with more because they were deemed 'cuter'. Yes, dumber maybe, but always cuter. Yet all around me I saw these gorgeous women. Not blonde women. Not pale women. Not white women. Not -- usually -- thin women. And they seemed so much more real and solid and sexy and utterly fanciable than the blondes on the telly. And … they still do. Oh, they really do. And perhaps this is because the non-blonde usually gets to play the hard woman. The bitch. The tough girl. The slap-happy dyke. The tart, whore, hooker -- and often without a heart of gold. And of course this is to do with all sorts of latent and not so latent racisms that view 'purely' white women (and who of us is purely anything?) as simple and uncomplicated, and any women of mixed races, of darker skin, as so much more 'complicated'. Yes, I've no doubt there are all sorts of political intrigues going on in that equation that most of us are not, on a simple level, at all aware of. And of course I know this is a double edged sword for actresses of any-colour other than apple-pie-pale. It must become a bind, day after day, playing tough, feisty, smart, aggressive, dangerous, sexy, sexy, very sexy women. When maybe all they really want to play is the 'good' cousin from the Patty Duke Show … But, for those of us watching it is a joy and a relief to see so many non-blondes on screen just now. A leap forward for all women, not just the non-blonde ones. To see Eva Longoria playing a sex goddess and not just a well-behaved (or worse, downtrodden) Latino housewife. Michelle Rodriguez not merely hot and sweaty because she looks good that way (and it's true, she does), but also because, in character, she packs a very mean punch. And Karina Lombard playing a lesbian predator (a lesbian 'baddie' -- now there's ground-breaking!) … what can I say? You can keep your thin blonde ladies with their thin blonde frames. (Yes, I know Marilyn wasn't thin. Nor was she blonde.) I'll take the women with real women's bodies (breast, hips, legs -- in AND out) and long dark locks. I welcome it. I want to watch it. And I see it as a feminist step forward. Phwoar. |
Tarts . .
Stories . .
Mom's . .
Man/Woman We Love . .
Route 66 . .
Studio . .