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Uncover their feelings on love, relationships, and marriage. Find out their strengths, ideals, and truths as a new generation of independent women.
Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79.
Chapter
One
 On Tuesday
evening, June 26, 2001, on the Late Show With David Letterman, the guest was
Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was promoting her latest movie, America’s
Sweethearts. When she made her entrance, she wore a sinuous dress with bright pink and
black, and the soft fabric outlined her thighs as she walked. The dress wrapped around her so that when she sat down, the cloth flowed
down hers sides which allowed her to show her long, sensual legs in dark, high
heels. To finish her look, she wore
her hair down without any pins to go along with the carefree, relaxed look of
her dress. The fact that she was a
mother made her sensual appeal even more significant, not only for the fact that
she was a beautiful woman, but that she had also given birth.
Her combination
of sensuality and motherhood projects the positive image of sex appeal. This is the kind of sexuality this book will mostly discuss. This positive force is one reason we continue to be drawn to
her and other female celebrities in the movies and in television. The kind of sex appeal that Catherine Zeta-Jones projects emphasizes the
positive force of a woman’s sexuality. She
illustrated this further when David Letterman mentioned that Michael Douglas,
her husband, had a son in his twenties from a previous marriage and now another
son that’s about a year old with Catherine. David Letterman seemed to be asking her what she thought of this fact, of
two sons so far apart in age. She
said, that for a man, this was wonderful. In
this exchange, she turned what could have been seen as something to frown upon
into something beautiful.
Is this the reason a star
becomes a star? Is it this positive
appeal? Britney Spears’ manager,
Larry Rudolph, said that stars have an inexplicable trait that’s hard to pin
down. Could part of this trait be
sensuality? The answer is yes. The qualities of what makes a star are further illustrated by
Trevor Wallace, a producer from Britain who was working in Hollywood who said of
Demi Moore, “She had the markings of a future actress of character even then. She had an alluring quality that directors and casting agencies look for. The voice was incredibly sexy. She
had the type of appeal that could translate to the younger male audiences who,
not to put too fine a point on it, judge their stars by bedroom imagery.” Producer Craig Baumgarten agreed when he cast Demi in No Small Affair because
he said, “From the very, very beginning she was going to be a movie star. I knew it when I saw the dailies. She
can rip your heart out, make you care. That’s
a rare quality and part of what makes a star. When she was in pain, you just wanted to make her feel better.” Another example is described by Parade magazine's July
29, 2001 issue which said that Jane Fonda's "cleavage spilling out of
her gown" as complained by one reader, is an "asset." Parade explains that Fonda is one of "vibrant women of any age [who] have the
right to flaunt their assets." From these viewpoints, they are reinforcing the fact that
positive sexuality, the kind that makes you notice, is an indefinable quality of
a star.
Another example of how
sexuality is part of what makes a star is illustrated by Julia Roberts when she
was a guest on the Late Show With David Letterman on July 10, 2001 to promote America’s
Sweethearts, the movie she made with Catherine Zeta-Jones who had appeared
in Letterman a few weeks before as mentioned above also to promote the same
movie. Julia’s entrance featured
her wearing a warm, pastel-peach outfit. The
fabric was soft so that it accentuated her every move. The slacks looked comfortable and were effective in showing
her long legs. The top was buttoned
down low so that when she bent slightly forward, Letterman’s reaction was
“Holy Cow. I can see right into
that, please, please, look out.” Julia
responded, “It’s not even a glance. It’s
just a glimpse.” Her response
here reveals the teasing quality of a woman’s sexuality. Letterman continued, “No. No. It’s all right there.” Again,
as shown here, Julia Roberts is very much aware of her sexuality, and uses its
positive powers to show an important aspect of what makes her a star.
Julia Robert’s awareness of
her sexuality explains one of the reasons why people pay attention to stars, and
because the public continues to give support, she has power. In summary, by winning the crowd, she gains power. She illustrates this by how she was able to make the audience
pay attention wholeheartedly when she was talking about her breakup from
Benjamin Bratt. She collected
herself, paused, as if drawing from the honesty within, and began saying,
“Here’s the thing. I love
Benjamin. He’s a good man. He’s
a fine man. He is to the exultation
of the female single population not my man anymore. Sad but true. And
not ugly, not because of anybody else, parting of the ways. There you go. Make it what you want to make the money that you want and to
give away the soul that you want. But
that’s just all there is to it. And
we’re both, you know, just two kids trying to find our way in the world, and
I’ve never heard it so quiet in this studio in my life.” Her last sentence brought much needed comic relief, which
brought laughter from the audience after her heartfelt account of her breakup
with Bratt.
This silence is witness to
Julia Robert’s star appeal. She
was able to draw-in her audience with herself, as Julia, talking about her
personal life. By being herself, by being honest, by emphasizing her
confidence in her sexuality, she augments her power, as she was able to
completely hush the audience to pay attention to her.
What is the negative of
sexuality? The negative is what can be represented by what is known in
Hollywood as the “casting couch.” Delta
Burke alludes to this when she was asked to pull up her skirt during an
audition. Marilyn Monroe
experienced this when she took part in the “party circuit” and became a
“house girl.” Demi Moore
acknowledges this when she says, “It definitely exists, but I can’t say that
I was ever harassed, at least not to the point where I think I’ve lost a job,
or a role has been diminished because I didn’t provide sexual favors for
someone. There’s maybe one encounter where I can remember someone
encouraging me to undress to rehearse a scene…when I was young and much more
vulnerable. But it exists
everywhere, and Hollywood, obviously, is no exception. I just think Hollywood makes more colorful copy.”
Despite this, sex appeal and
its positive force, is an integral part of a female celebrity’s power, and the
women in this book have tapped into it to their advantage. By doing so, they have become rulers of their own destinies. Before them, women have had to fight for their rights, such as in the
women’s suffrage movement during the turn of the twentieth century. Another example is when tragedy was the only way women could make their
case known, in order to fight for better working conditions after such tragedies
as the fire that killed the women who worked in “sweatshop” conditions in a
shirt factory in New York. Today,
women continue to fight for their rights, and thanks to the women in this book,
they have shown it is possible to have the power to have more control of their
own lives. They have taken the
past, when a group of suffragettes successfully made it possible for women to
vote, and transformed this idea, newly instilled in human history’s psyche,
into more possibilities in the future.
The women in this book are the
future. Thus, by looking at them
within the context of women’s history, they have started a small percentage of
women, who, throughout human history, enjoy the rights and privileges that most
women before them only dreamed of having. What
are these privileges and powers? For
example, Elizabeth Taylor is able to have her own perfume line and can use her
celebrity status to campaign towards education and research for AIDS. Lana Turner’s fame possibly helped make the jury choose a favorable
verdict toward her daughter who murdered her crime-connected boyfriend; thus,
one cannot help believing that fame can sometimes make the law favorable. Marilyn Monroe was able to start her own production company as well as
negotiate a studio contract to have more control over her films. Delta Burke can have her own clothing line. Oprah Winfrey has her own production company and can hire politicians to
help pass a law requiring registration of child molesters in order to track
them. Demi Moore can have her own
production company and is also able to take on investments such as real estate. Britney Spears is able to financially support hospitals treating
children. These privileges are only
naming a few.
In such a short period of time,
because the film industry has only been around for about a hundred years and the
television industry half that, these women and their peers collectively, have
only begun, what hopefully is the beginning of more examples of women in the
future, who will have unprecedented powers as women. No, these female celebrities weren’t royalty and born into power, but
have instead become true, American “royal celebrities.” They earned this status by drawing on one of their powers, the positive
side of their sexuality. But it
would also be naïve to say that positive sex appeal is the only reason these
women have gained power in the media industry. There are many other traits such as talent, a strong personality, beauty,
intelligence, luck, determination, hard work, true spirit, and lastly, their
sensuality, which will be the focus of this book.
The female celebrities featured
here are Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Oprah Winfrey, Delta
Burke, Demi Moore, and Britney Spears. They
have revealed their attitudes on sexuality, and by knowing these attitudes, they
reveal how and why they are continuing and expanding the powers of women.
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