12.08.00, 10:54 p.m. || i feel like an unnatural woman
What's going on in the "I'm used to be a geek, but now I'm chic"
themed-talk shows?
I'm thinking of the many films since Audrey Hepburn's My Fair
Lady that portray similar transformations -- apparently
unsophisticated, bespectacled, "ugly" women somehow "blossoming"
(isn't that the word always used?) into stunning beauties by the
merest hint of heterosexual romance. Ally Sheedy's character in
The Breakfast Club was much more attractive and intriguing as
the raccoon-eyed kleptomaniac, pre-crush by the bland jock Emilio
Estevez and pre-makeover by teen queen Molly Ringwald. Does anyone
really buy Sandra Bullock as a "masculine" FBI
agent whose undercover gig as a beauty contestant finally
excavates her as a "real woman" in the new Miss
Congeniality? Didn't anyone notice that Rachel Cook in
She's All That couldn't possibly hide her fine bone
structure beneath even unreasonably thick black glasses?
Are the talk shows centered about the "geek to chic" about
reproducing this dynamic, of reeling in the inappropriately gendered
teens (too much tomboy, too much nerd) with unruly bodies (too tall, too
fat, too flat) and "proving" that even they can be redeemed by a
normative sex/gender/desire matrix? Is this supposed to be
hopeful?
Here's another question -- why do heterosexuals bickering in films
and television always turn to romance by the end? Does every Meg Ryan
film center on this tired plot device?