Tips for Girls

The Importance of Having a Job

My mother stayed home to take care of us so, of course, I loved all the women in movies who worked. They got out of the house, got to wear those fab dresses, got to trade barbs at the office with guys who were witty and urbane.

"When I was growing up in the Bronx," says Annie, age 40, "all the women in the neighborhood were housewives. The one woman who worked was considered a tramp! All I had was Saturday at the movies, so Susan Hayward became my idol and my role model. In the '50s, she was the independent, powerful, career woman. Didn't matter what job. She was everything I wanted to be. And she smoked cigarettes with incredible style. She was strong and smart, and very independent. It wasn't whether she got the man or not: the impression was that she could stand on her own two feet."

Not to mention that she was usually a raving drunk. "Really?" said Annie. "I never noticed that."

Helene loved Working Girl for what it told her about having a job in a large organization. "It taught me that if you fight hard enough, you'll get there. If you believe in yourself, you'll make it. And you don't need anyone else to believe in you." Obviously, I saw a different movie, one that made it clear you should do anything except work in a large office building in Manhattan, where your ultimate reward was having a tiny, sterile office to yourself. I also thought Working Girl had another hidden message, just the kind of lesson moviegoing women must steel themselves against. For what is Melanie Griffith saying except, "Don't worry about all the advice you've been given. It is all right to sleep with your coworkers. And using sex at business parties is a great idea. Use your brain till five, then turn on the sex appeal. Everyone who works with you will love you and think you're terrific. No problem with ethics there."

Frankly, I'm certain that all the women I know who work have gotten wherever they've gotten without benefit of cinematic inspiration. You have to believe what you're seeing on the big screen to be inspired--or at least you've got to suspend disbelief. Try suspending disbelief while reading the following list of occupations actresses have had on-screen:

Sean Young as a helicopter pilot

Barbra Streisand as a psychiatrist

Melanie Griffith as an undercover cop

Demi Moore as a lawyer

Laura Dern as a paleontologist

Ellen Barkin as an opera singer

Kim Basinger as a bank robber.

My young friends, whose mothers all work, said that they hated that all women seem to have careers in the movies these days. "Don't any of them want to stay home and take care of their kids?" one asked. We older women stared back with flat glazes. "Just the mother in Home Alone," I told them.

How to Dress

This is, ultimately, the best thing the movies show us. When Richard Gere wanted to impress Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, did he bring her to the hospital ward he had recently endowed, or introduce her to the orphans he had saved from near death? No, he took her directly to Rodeo Drive. And women the world over lusted for a brown-and-white polka-dot dress that would have made most of them look like heifers at a shooting range.

I mean, really, do you think Demi Moore slept with Robert Redford for the money? Redford, the old fool, could have saved the million if he'd realized that she was willing to let him have his way because he'd been thoughtful enough to buy her that black dress (which could later have served as a hammock in the backyard where Demi and Woody were no doubt reduced to sleeping after giving all the money to a hippo).

Anybody remember the plot of Intersection? No, but few women failed to note Sharon Stone's creamy cashmere sweaters. And what else could have gotten so many women to treat bras as outerwear if not Madonna's vulgar display in Desperately Seeking Susan?

Audrey Hepburn was the fashion guru to a whole generation in the '50s and '60s. "The funny thing about Audrey Hepburn," says Linda, who has a body very similar to Audrey's, "is that she made the biggest impression on me, in terms of clothes, in Wait Until Dark, where her character was blind and couldn't see herself in the mirror. Remember those corduroy pants, and turtlenecks? She was just so elegant. Only later did I realize it didn't matter what she wore."

Margie agreed: "Any Audrey Hepburn movie, except The Nun's Story, was my fashion Bible. So many of her movies were showcases to dress her--_Sabrina_, Funny Face, even Breakfast at Tiffany's. She had that incredible shape."

Michelle almost gagged at this: "Audrey Hepburn gave me the creeps from early on because I knew that I was being fed an image that was impossible to attain. She may have devoted years of her life to easing hunger among children in poor countries, but she inadvertently encouraged starvation among young females in industrial nations."

My cousin Barbi took hints from Jane Fonda in Barbarella: "Those short shorts, those space outfits, the colors that were so wild, and those vinyl boots! I can't remember how many pairs I had, but I'm sure I had them in every color."

The younger women I spoke with were predictably bowled over by Julia Roberts's clothes in Pretty Woman, but they all admitted that they knew they didn't have the body, the wallet, or the hair to pull it off. "Every girl I know who tried the Pretty Woman look went for the hooker attire," explained Rosie, "because the Rodeo stuff was too expensive and not as much fun to wear."

Annie Hall's, over-the-top layered men's look rocked my friend Karen, age 35, along with a lot of other women. "I'll tell you, when that first came out, I went and bought everything I could find in the boy's department of Macy's. It was the first time that you could look good, and sexy, without positioning yourself to look like a slut."

Chris only likes the clothes from before 1900. "I went wild for Valmont," she says. "A lot of the new stuff in movies is just everyday wear, but the early clothes were so romantic and so inspired. Then again, I never wear Valmont. I wear Reality Bites."

As for hair, there were three "don'ts" that came up repeatedly in my survey: Ricki Lake in Hairspray, Joan Cusack in Working Girl ("My God," said Traci, who sports some major big hair herself, "it made you want to scream and run under the shower!"), and Mary McDonnell in Dances With Wolves. "She was an Indian, but her hair was cut in a shag and had mousse in it," says Elizabeth. "I say, when you're supposed to have been raised by Indians, ixnay to the bouffant."

The bottom line here is that women take their cues from real life, not reel life. They aren't watching Linda Hamilton and thinking that a semiautomatic makes a good accessory. They're not viewing Thelma & Louise and deciding to shoot every asshole trucker they meet on the road. They're not becoming mute in the hope that a tattooed man will loosen them up and talk dirty to them.

No, women look for their role models in actual life. They look at women like Janet Reno. After all, as Attorney General, you get to travel, lead important meetings and open fire on stupid cults. Of course, you do occasionally have to have lunch with Barbra Streisand, but nobody's life is perfect. Nevertheless, as any woman who has been to the movies could tell her, Janet needs a better hairdresser and some good advice from a costume designer. She'd certainly get our attention if she wore that brown-and-white polka-dot dress.

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Martha Frankel interviewed Brendan Fraser for the March Movieline.

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