Who I want to be when I grow up...
It's interesting - girls reactions to other girls. I wonder if young boys have such a relationship with males in the public eye. Apart from Daddy, do boys idolise other men while growing up? Do they want to grow up to look like another man, say Justin Timberlake or The Rock? As teenagers going through puberty do they aspire to be them in the same way that girls aspire to be other women? We look at other women and we want to be them...I put on my cloudiest suit [Miscellany]The paragraph above is part of Mez's ode to Kate Bush who she idealised as a teenager. And then in my post of Monday Rhi talked about Morticia Addams and I said I preferred Lily Munster, and it's got me thinking...
Mez is right... girls react to other girls, look up to them, idolise them, want to be them... so who do I want to be? Any of, or a combination of these women, both real and fictional, would suit me just fine... it's funny, that Mez's idol was a singer, and most of mine are either fictional characters or actresses...
Lily Munster, as played by Yvonne DeCarlo. I loved Lily... she had style... but she loved her man, even if he was a doofus.. and her family. I thought she was pretty, she was curvy, not a stick figure, which was important to a girl who started developing lumps and bumps at a young age. I'd love to do the dramatic white streak through my hair...mmm
Jo March, Little Women - I'm going to write in more detail about Little Women at some time, but needless to say, I was given a Junior edition of the story when I was six, have my Mum's copy of Good Wives, which she was given as a teenager, and bought myself the whole Louisa May Alcott collection as an adult. I wanted to be Jo - creative, writing in her garret. I wanted to be brave enough to cut my hair, and already knew I was clumsy enough to singe my gown on the fire. Still want someone like Professor Bhaer, an intelligent and kind man, who will recognise my talent and loveliness...
Colleen Dewhurst, Actress...if I grew up to be Colleen Dewhurst or some of the characters she played, I'd be happy. I think she was strikingly beautiful, both as a younger woman and as she got older, with a deep throaty voice, and a booming sexy laugh. The first time I saw her was in The Women's Room, and then in And Baby Makes Six, as a middle-aged mother of 4, who discovers that she is pregnant. She was Marilla in Anne of Green Gables, and Murphy's mother, in Murphy Brown. She won 4 Emmy awards, and two Toni Awards, and was president of Actors Equity in the years prior to her death in 1991 from cervical cancer.
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery... speaking of Anne... I loved her too... came to these stories late, after the production of Anne of Green Gables for TV that starred Megan Follows... but ended up buying the books for myself, and read the first one on an overnight train trip to Sydney to see Noiseworks film a concert for MTV, talk about a contradiction in terms... I was about 26 at the time.
Catwoman (particularly as played by Julie Newmar) - can remember playing Batman and Robin, with me as Catwoman, with Peter, who lived in our street... I had a crush on him. He got really upset, cause I tried to kiss him... Catwoman was bad, evil and Batman shouldn't kiss her... was I the only 6 year old to understand the URST (unresolved sexual tension) between those two?
Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ... she was a nerdy, bluestocking girl, who discovered her own power... and she got to make out with Seth Green... but I love her character for saying things like this ... When I'm with a boy I like I can't say anything cool, or witty - or at all. I can usually make a few vowel sounds, and then I have to go away... and this... We can come by between classes. Usually I use that time to copy my class notes with a system of different colored pens. But it's been pointed out to me that that's, you know, insane... and this... Okay, the Angel thing went badly, I'm on board with that, but that's not your fault. And anyways, love isn't always like that. Love can be... nice. 
Lili Taylor, Actress... she's one of my favourites, I've loved her since Say Anything, particularly in Dogfight with River Phoenix, and Household Saints with Vincent D'Onofrio. Was thrilled when she joined Six Feet Under, my favourite actress in my favourite TV show. She's mesmerising.
Claudia Jean (CJ) Cregg, The West Wing... one of the best female characters created for television... having just watched the final episodes of The West Wing, I'm struck that regardless of the overabundance of mucho macho men, both actors and characters... it is CJ that is the most memorable... in some ways, particularly in the later seasons, she became the heart of the show. Alison Janney is a goddess...
Katherine Hepburn... ah, Kate. Fiercely intelligent, independent, unique, a man's woman, but loved by women as well... who wouldn't want to be her? She was a Jo March too... as well as Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby, Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story, Rose Sayer in The African Queen and who can ever forget her with Spencer Tracy in Adam's Rib, Pat and Mike, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and my personal favourite, Desk Set, where she plays Bunny, the head of a research department, to Tracy's Richard, who has been brought in to introduce Memorac, a computer to assist them.Bunny: I don't smoke, I only drink champagne when I'm lucky enough to get it, my hair is naturally natural, I live alone... and so do you.
Richard: How do you know that?
Bunny: Because you're wearing one brown sock and one black sock.
