Lollipop-heads and trout-pouts

Half a dozen or so years ago, the term lollipop-head was coined to describe the actresses and the A, B (and D) listers who became so thin that their heads looked disproportionately large compared to their bodies. It described the then-fashionable wafer-thin Sarah Michelle Geller, Olsen twin and Nicole Richie, amongst others.

Despite the continuing swarm of chupa-chup starlets (the chicks from the new Beverly Hills 90210 and The Hills whose names I refuse to learn; and the likes of yo-yoing Lindsay Lohan) we don’t hear the term as much. But as I watch a rather-thin Miley Cyrus gyrating around on television, I can’t help wondering how their scrawny necks cope with the mountain of hair they carry upon their seemingly-large chupa-chup heads.

The thinness thing is not new, nor does it seem that it will ever get ‘old’. Weight (loss and gain) remains the fodder of women’s magazines which guilelessly feature articles on excessive thinness and eating disorders beside those on how to lose 20kgs in a week.

Given my recent predilection for TV on DVD and the ability to watch months of television productions over a weekend, I am finding myself intrigued with those actresses who become thinner as the show progresses. I suspect the change is more evident when – like me – you watch the series in one fell-swoop, rather than from week to week where the difference is more subtle.

You read about the ‘peer pressure’ on set when everyone else is thin. But the phenomenon that also interests me is the change between the ‘pilot’ and the rest of the season. Presumably Directors and Producers select actors who impress them – for whatever reason (talent, looks etc). So it is interesting that the timelapse – however long – between the filming of a pilot and the rest of the first season can bring about dramatic changes and I wonder why the actresses feel this need to ‘streamline’.

I have just finished watching the first series of the 2003 show, Dead Like Me. Foisted upon me by the helpful assistant at my local Blockbuster video store, I find myself entranced by the show centred around a bunch of grim-reapers.

The actress playing the lead role, Ellen Muth, isn’t your typical starlet. Not stereotypically beautiful, Muth playing misfit George (who is killed by a falling toilet from a Russian Space Station) is perfectly cast as the apathetic 18-year old and delivers her deadpan lines in her own alluring way.

I noticed nothing unusual about her as the series commenced, but she became noticeably thinner as the season progressed. I wondered then, when she had started to change and if her twig-like body had previously been hidden because of its vanishing girth. With a naturally round face, the lollipop-head phrase could have been coined with Muth in mind. Mid season she bares her arms and I could ‘barely’ look. Her forearms were actually larger than her biceps and so thin that an ever-present large vein looked like a tattooed racing stripe on her upper arm. I cringed every time I looked.

But, as I was loving the show, I squinted through the remainder of episodes. In fact I liked the show so much I went online after I had finished watching Season 1, to get information about the second (and final) Season. I am not sure why it is I keep discovering shows on DVD which were axed years before – Firefly, Pushing Daisies, now Dead Like Me. If I was more self-obsessed I would think there was some cause and effect thing happening and it was all about me….?!

My extensive research (hurrah for Google) also uncovered a made-for-DVD movie of the show, filmed only this year. Interested, I clicked on the link to take me to the movie’s website and that was my moment of disappointment.

The website featured an interview with star of the show and (new) movie, Ellen Muth. Now 5-6 years since the Season 1, Muth (who purportedly is a member of Mensa, so should not be unduly influenced by inane Hollywood fads) has done the unthinkable. She has (hmm….how to put it politely….?) “had some work done”. In fact, it almost certainly appeared that she now has the apt-phrased ‘trout-pout’. Already blessed with full lips, Muth’s mouth is now over-inflated and ridiculously caricature-like on her face.

I don’t understand it. I am not generally opposed to plastic surgery (as long as one admits to it – cos otherwise it is basically lying. I often fantasise about botox but know I would feel obliged to admit it to anyone who asked. Or even anyone who didn’t! And, my upper lip is a tad thin, so sure a bit of inflation would be great – but I wouldn’t dare go there as we have oft-seen the disastrous results).

I – like most of those on this orb-we-call-earth – was a huge Meg Ryan fan. Until the plastic surgery debacle that resulted in her cute impish beauty becoming the inscrutable mask, which has seen most of her recent movies tank in a big way. I recall the release of Kate & Leopold (possibly the beginning of the end), and everyone’s horror at what she had done to herself – and her career. I can’t help wonder if Nicole Kidman’s current fascination for smooth skin will also see the demise of her career.

While the plastic surgery horror-stories are many, what intrigues me are those who don’t seem to realise how ridiculous they look. When it first aired, I was a fan of TV show, Cold Case. I recall much of Australia was smitten with Kathryn Morris – she of the barely-pinned-up hair, fragile features and porcelain skin. I wasn’t actually smitten, but I could see why people thought she was attractive. And then, somewhere along the line something happened. I cannot pinpoint exactly when, but when a new season of Cold Case started I innocently tuned in, only to be horrified by the TV-cop who was once a favourite. She was all lips. I couldn’t focus on anything else. Kathryn Morris’s face barely moved – there were no expressions, just these swollen things in the middle of her head pouting and slapping together. I haven’t been able to watch the show since.

Perhaps there is some scientific basis to it all. I wonder if the whole inflated-lips thing helps the lollipop-heads’ balance, or reduces the pressure on their tiny necks? Akin to a helium balloon on a piece of string? Hmmm…. something to ponder.

But for now, I am flummoxed. Having recently discovered Dead Like Me, I can’t help wondering when Hollywood’s obsession with homogenization resulted in the lead actor, Ellen Muth’s decision to go-the-way-of-others-before-her and adopt the trout-pout. I hope I can at least get through Season 2 before I am distracted by her oversized choppers! From all accounts the movie is a bit of a dud anyway!

Felicidades – parte dois*

When I first returned (from living in Mozambique in Africa in 1996) I attempted to retain what little Portuguese language I had learned. At the time there was a Brazilian soap opera on one of our TV stations. It was called Felicidades – essentially meaning happiness in Portuguese. While the show itself was typically soap opera-like, I fell in love with the word (rarely used in its plural form).

Although I continue to work in jobs that (by their very nature) require me to constantly be ‘available’ I have been considering cutting back my hours. And no, I don’t mean just to start only doing 8-9hr days, but rather working a 4 day week. I have done the sums and I cannot really afford this. But I am getting closer and closer to approaching my boss about it.

And I wonder now about the concept. Of happiness. I have just written about two women’s searches for happiness, in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love (EPL) and the movie (based on a book and featuring one of my favourite actresses, Dianne Lane), Under the Tuscan Sun.

I defended both as not being self-indulgent, superficial quests for ‘happiness’ or ‘meaning’ but rather attempts to regain some of the lives the two women had lost when they unwittingly lost themselves in failed marriages.

I have never been a big believer in the concept of happiness. I talk to my mother often of my ultimate quest for a sense of ‘contentment’ rather than happiness. To me happiness is fleeting – something experienced when you are presented with a nice meal or buy a new item or clothing. Contentment (to me) is less transient. It is more about our sense of ourselves, than derived from external sources.

Having said that, I do believe that unhappiness is less transient and more pervasive. I also believe it is possible to talk ourselves into unhappiness. One minute we are going along okay and then we look across the road and see someone else who has more, or better, and then we feel like we are missing out.

I am a walking-cliché. Constantly feeling discontented with my life, I constantly change things around me (usually jobs) searching for a possibly-unattainable state. I often describe my emotional state as bereft or melancholy rather than ‘unhappy’ which I think sounds as if someone has made me so. Sure, a lot of my discontentment is superficial or materialistic. I wish I had a bigger tv (as I am still living with the large black box instead of a flat-screen LCD or plasma tv), a new lounge suite, or fabulous rug. But, much of my malaise results from my lack of contentment with – well, me and what I have (or have not) achieved, what I do (and don’t do) with my time – essentially, how I live my life.

In EPL and Under the Tuscan Sun, both Elizabeth and Frances lost themselves in their marriages and it was only the end of that institution which led them to sit up and wonder where the hell ‘they’ were. I don’t have that excuse. Only in a work-sense have I had to compromise who I am and who I want to be. While I hate that I have always been single, I am fiercely independent so haven’t spend my life waiting for a partner. I have gotten on with things. But like Elizabeth and Frances, I find myself often wondering if there is anything ‘else’. I can’t help but wonder, “Is this it? Is this all there is?”

In the ‘war of generations’, we talk about Generation Y being even more self-absorbed than Gen X. I watched something recently where a ‘Baby Boomer’ – the generation who led the fight for rights which we now take for granted – called Gen X & Y the ‘I want it all’ generations.

I agree that we are becoming more and more demanding. Not just of others and of service and technology, but also of ourselves. We expect to be happy. Here in 2009, in some time-warped anomaly, we want the material possessions of the greed-is-good culture of the 1980s and we expect the fulfillment of the navel-gazing 1960s.

Once we scoffed at those who stopped and pondered on the point of it all. They were the hippy-wannabes or those who dropped out of life to live on the poverty line as potters or poets. We judged them and suspected that – clad in tie-died kaftans – they weren’t really happy, just constantly too stoned to know any better.

But in the dawn of the new millennium we are taking stock of our lives. In a post-September 11-world which has become more and more demanding (we are always at the other end of electronic media and constantly available), it isn’t only the disenfranchised and the recent divorcees who are poised at the precipice for change.

Some of us are ‘down-sizing’ or taking a sea- or tree-change to improve the quality of our existence. We realise that it isn’t all about money. And we are making selfless choices to improve our environment and the lives of future generations.

I have mulled over the idea for years. But, as a single woman, it is hard to justify. I don’t have the standard excuses – study or children. But I want to make a statement – that my life is not entirely about work. I want to give myself time to do other things like exercise, writing, catching up with friends and just doing chores at home.

Unlike Elizabeth or Frances, it hasn’t really taken a crisis to bring me to this point, but a number of things, including my decision this year to try to have a child; and my (particularly confronting ) time at a fat camp recently.

So, love it or hate it, more and more of us are contemplating our lives. I can almost pinpoint those in my social-circle who will ask ‘why’ I would contemplate a 4-day week. It is easy to make fun of those who are searching for ‘meaning’, happiness or contentment, or even just trying to rediscover our lost selves. It is easy to roll your eyes at those who stop to ask themselves if they are happy.

But I think that asking if you are happy is akin to asking yourself if you are in love. If you have to ask, then you probably aren’t!

* Portuguese (hopefully)

Felicita – parte uno*

Why is it that (in novels and films) people have to ‘leave’ to find themselves? Perhaps that is the only reason the novel exists. If, for example, Mary Smith discovered a sense of her real self between making the kids lunches and vacuuming, she wouldn’t probably bother to document the journey. But, had she traveled purposefully across the country or the world to stave off her inner discontentedness, well… then she might have a bestseller on her hands.

Coincidentally I came across two of these journeys in a weekend recently.

I read the book Eat, Pray, Love (EPL) for the first time and I watched a rerun of the movie (from book of same name) Under the Tuscan Sun.

The same morning that I discovered EPL at my local library I came across an article – scathing in its disdain about society’s current search for happiness. Berating our expectation of happiness along with the myriad of self-help type books, the journalist quotes EPL as being a favourite of some Hollywood-types for whom the book is akin to an existential ‘how-to’ guide. It seems fateful then that I venture across the book later that day and borrow it to see what the fuss is about.

I tend to dislike non-fiction. Well, I actually hate it, and usually don’t go anywhere near it unless forced. When I scanned the book along with my library card, I had no idea that EPL was in fact non-fiction, until I read the cover on arrival home. Nevertheless, I decided I could battle on and see how far I could get before suffering disdain equal to that of the journalist or just giving up out of boredom.

I read it in one sitting. And I loved it. I don’t believe it to be a search of happiness – as blithely condemned by the aforementioned journalist. This implies a glib, superficial self-indulgent search for utopia, or something equally clichéd (Edina’s constantly-changing religions in Absolutely Fabulous comes to mind).

Perhaps if someone told me of the book’s premise, I would laugh. OMG…. A middle-aged well-educated woman suffering from an existential crisis goes to an Ashram in India. True, Elizabeth sounds like walking cliché of a divorcee going through a mid-life crisis.

But, to me, her search through the world’s ‘eyes’ – Italy, India and Indonesia, is actually more about her actually discovering her (lost) self rather than a superficial search for happiness or even some self-actualised meaning of life – despite some of her sources of intellectual and spiritual nourishment!

I read an interview with the author of EPL, Elizabeth Gilbert. She was asked if taking a year off to travel around the world to ‘find herself’ was selfish? I wonder about this question. The notion of selfishness implies that our acts negatively impinge on others. As a single thirty-something year old woman, with the finances to fund her journey I find it bizarre that anyone would question her motivations. We don’t question the selfishness of 20 year olds who want to backpack around the world. Why are the expectations of a 30 year old professional female so different?

a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26073312@N08/5105580631/" title="Under the tuscan sun by jovisala47, on Flickr">Similarly, Under the Tuscan Sun, features Frances, a bitter divorcee (do I sense a theme?!) who takes off and buys into a new life rather than returning to her old one.

Again it is about a woman trying to find her feet. Trying to find the person she may once have been, but no longer is.

In both the film and book, it takes a crisis for the two women to ‘act’. What does this mean for the rest of us? For those of us not really expecting a life of joy and happiness, but aware of the chunks missing from the jigsaw that is our existence.

Do we need to wait for a crisis? Or is the crisis itself the only reason we venture on such a journey? If there is no crisis, is there no rainbow?

And (crisis or not), is it possible to complete this search as we go about our everyday lives? In between our work, domestic and family commitments? Does this give us the time, energy and opportunity we need to take stock, or do we need to follow Frances’ and Elizabeth’s ‘selfish’ leads and take time out from our everyday lives.

Both of our heroines Elizabeth and Frances, ultimately live happily ever after, having successfully navigated their searches and peeled back the layers of their former lives to rediscover their selves. But, as is so often the case, it isn’t actually the rainbow at the end of the quest that provides them with the answers they seek. It is the journey through which they travel to get there. Frances’ eventual contentment in Tuscany is not arrived at despite the highs and lows during the restoration of her Italian villa, but because of them.

So, in addition to wondering if success is as sweet if there is no preceding bitterness, I wonder now if what we seek comes easily, would it be as fulfilling? Like a math problem, if we are given the answer without actually working out HOW to solve it, we are perhaps no better off than before...

* Italian (hopefully)