Hollywood producers with ten-grand hair weaves and laser-whitened teeth are having a heyday. The most popular fictional archetype on the big screen today is that old Hollywood standby--the tart.
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T.A.R.T.S. They come fully loaded, with catwalk bodies and a pocketful of neverminds. They're sweater puppies yap-ping to be petted. They stick out their flat bellies and temptation smolders under all that exposed skin like unexploded ordnance. They sing "hello" in three syllables and shed their bras without being asked twice. They take aim, mostly over their shoulders, and say things like, "I wanna be your wide receiver." They are tarts--rump-shaking, eye-rolling, naughty girl actresses, born in the last quarter of the 20th century and ready to lick their way into the 21st.
Today, tartage is everywhere. On any given weekend, there are half-dozen movies featuring characters with names like Sasha or Taylor, played by actresses with names like Amber or Tara. Together, the two films with Norman Rockwell irony in their titles, American Beauty and American Pie, served up four sticky convections to keep the male animal's blood sugar levels spiraling: Shannon Elizabeth and Tara Reid in Pie, and Thora Birch and Mena Suvari in Beauty. The 18-year-old pop tart singing sensation Britney Spears stripped to her bra and hot pants for Rolling Stone. And as proof that the tart is the new American Princess, there's Tart, a feature film in pre-production about a precocious teen exploring Manhattan's underground club scene, with Lolita's Dominique Swain set to play the lead. And who's the costar? That would be Melanie Griffith, who began her career 24 years ago as the tart who pulled Paul Newman's tie in The Drowning Pool.
Tarts are, after all, nothing new. They were there when Hollywood was born (Clara Bow advised us to Call Her Savage in 1932) and they've blossomed off and on in their brazen little getups ever since. But blame it on "women's lib" or whatever, the last time we saw a cavalcade of jailbait like the one cruising the big screen these days was the early '60s--Sue Lyon, Diane McBain, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, Barbara Nichols et al. Melanie Griffiths come-ons in The Drowning Pool and Night Moves were cheerful throwbacks when they came along. And now, a lot has changed even since a 13-year-old Carrie Fisher tried to cream rinse Warren Beatty in Shampoo. Even since Phoebe Cates taught Jennifer Jason Leigh how to give head to a carrot in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Even since Drew Barrymore showed Tom Skerritt that what was on top of the hood of a car bear what was under it in Poison Ivy. With these gaps in tart cui-sine, there's no updated definition of tart that applies directly to the hotties of 21st Century Tartdom. As a public service, then, to the millions of young Paxil Nation wannabes looking for instruction, the following is a thumbnail sketch of the essential tart of today. In the spirit of the cheerleader, that archetype turned on its ear by tarts. Tartology 101 begins with a cheer.
T is for truthful. That's right, truth. A tart might use duplicity as a last resort, bur mostly she comes at you head-on, like a sidewinder missile with lip gloss on the tip. A good tart harbors a point of view and a great tart puts it out there for the whole world to see. In all her amorous banditry, the girl tells you where she's coming from and where she's going. As the blonde cheerleader in American Beauty, Mena Suvari not only seduces her girlfriend's rather, she tells her girlfriend (Thora Birch) of her intentions before she fires a single sexual shot. Does Dominique Swain, playing the title role in Lolita, the Citizen Kane of tart movies, know what she wants? Better still, does she make it known? Absolutely, Men are pelts: mount them, warm yourself with the fur, then mount them again--on the wall. As the blonde cheerleader in Varsity Blues, Ali Latter wants one thing and one thing only--to get out of small-town Texas. When her star quarterback boyfriend shatter his knee, she discards him like a broken jock strap and makes a brazen play for his back-up. As the blonde cheerleader (what else?) who runs away from her parents' Minnesota farm in The Big Lebowski, Tara Reid finds a rich sugar daddy who is to sexuality what autumn leaves are to toilet paper. What does she do? She propositions strangers and invites lovers for a dip in the mansion pool.
When a wolf is defeated he offers his throat; the tart shows hers out of defiance. Chin up, she waltzes with her own candor the way hippie chicks used to frolic in the mud at outdoor rock concerts. She never snarls. No--do not confuse the tart with the bitch. You can circle a tart's character flaws like areas to be liposuctioned on a 200-pound housewife, but when it comes to bitch content, the tart is low-calorie. Reese Witherspoon in Section is a bitch. Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding is a bitch. Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, Evita, Truth or Dare, Who's That Girl?, Body of Evidence and as an acceptee at any video, film or music awards show is a bitch. Ashley Judd is...well, you get the picture. The bitch often becomes our hate charm, deliberately rubbing us the wrong way like Sarah Michelle Cellar, bitch extraordinaire, in Cruel Intentions. The motivated tart, who knows how to get ahead and give it, is capable of being extravagantly human and funny. "My name is Dedee Truitt," Christina Ricci says, introducing herself to us in The Opposite of Sex. "I'm 16, and this is Carencro, Louisiana. Which is French, I think, for, like, fuck-tart," In the words of Molière (who blessed us with Tartuffe, by the way), the bitch "is laughing up her sleeve at you." The tart? She goes sleeveless.
The exemplary tart uses the tease not only as a means to an end, but as a form of self-reverie. Mena Suvari's cheerleading sequence in American Beauty, for example, was ostensibly created as a fantasy for the terminally socialized Kevin Spacey. Bur look at her, captivated by some privately held sexual rhythm coursing through her hips, rolling her eyes back in her head like a great white taking down some serious flesh. It's as if she's saying to Spacey, "Lose the moaning, baby, because I can make it with a frigging tennis racket if I want to." Put simply, a tart enjoys being a tart.
A is for ass. At her pivotal moment in Varsity Blues (she's trying to switch boyfriends), first-string tart Ali Larter is shown from behind, a heart-shaped "beat 'em" patch embroidered on the back of her cut-offs. What's the first real glimpse we get of Jodi Lyn O'Keefe in the off-the-rack teen movie She's All That? It's a shot of her caboose, shrink-wrapped in a pudenda-pink skirt. There's a piece of Starbucks observational psychology that says people who can't parallel park are self-conscious about their back-sides. Well, an accomplished tart could back a semi into Peter Brady's lower bunk and not scratch the Spider-Man decals on the headboard. Tartis Maximus, the tart's tart, knows that pound for pound, the tush rules over the tits. Why is that, you ask? Try and hang with me on this. The primacy of today's ran just might have to do with that flabby, narcissistic voting block of baby boomers who not only gave birth to the Tiffani-Amber Thiessens, Thora Birches and Jaime Presslys of this earth but subjected them to the kind of empowerment parenting that encouraged, well, expression. Sec that little girl in the pancake joint who's screaming that head oft, slugging her mother in the arm and pouring blueberry syrup over that dad's cell phone while they both smile? She's a future tart. Naughtiness is nurtured, for bet-ter or worse, and naughtiness in the form of the unspanked butt, coupled with precociousness, equals unbridled ass. Dominique Swains Lolita might be too young to have breasts, but even a 12-year-old can have the rump of a sophisticated lady. A misbehaving tart leads with her ass.
R is for risqué. "Are we gonna screw soon? 'Cause I'm get-ring kinda antsy," wanna-be tart Alyson Hannigan prods in American Pie. Today's movie tart might have things to accomplish and places to go, but there's nothing like some good old-fashioned potty talk and a chance to take your clothes off to make the journey a little less ho-hum. Tarts are like swallows and sex is their Capistrano--they always return. It might not work out the way they originally intended it to. In American Beauty, Mena Suvari's virginity issue kind of spoils the fun. Still, to a tart, nothing says lovin' like something from the oven--witness the smokin' body of work of the aforementioned Miss Reid. In The Big Lebowski, she takes time out from painting her toenails to say-to Jeff Bridges, "I'll suck your cock for a thousand dollars." In Urban Legend, she simulates a blow job with a microphone and gives world-weary advice to sex-distressed callers. "Didn't you know that ingestion of bodily fluids is a major safe-sex no-no,' she scolds a caller who has, in Reid's inimical tartalogue, "had a little frat boy protein shake." Later, hunted down by the homicidal maniac who turns out to be Rebecca Gayheart (who could be classified as a demi-tart in Jawbreaker; Rose McGowan is the tart in that one), Reid doesn't just cry for help, she raises an unholy racket. Tarts detest being killed--it makes them so angry, they could spit--it swallowing wasn't such a cool thing to do. You won't find a tan line on a tart. For the seduction scene in Varsity Blues, Ali Larter wears a whipped-cream bikini. About the only thing Shannon Elizabeth kept on in American Pie was a Czech accent. Denise Richards offers her breasts as nipple kibble to Matt Dillon in Wild Things. Poison Ivy 2: Lily features a topless Alyssa Milano, whose motto is "Nothing Hidden; No Secrets."
T is for thoughts. As in smarts. Today's Hollywood-issue tart is not a bimbo. There are exceptions, often spectacular ones (the artist-tart Alyssa Milano played in _Poison Ivy 2 _was jug-headed, and Michelle Williams had a heck of a rime figuring out which end of the knife could hurt in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later). But for the most part, a good tart is like a good religion--she has an answer for everything. Prom Queen-nominee Jodi Lyn O'Keefe tells her nemesis in She's All That, "To everyone here who matters, you're vapor." Amen. What's more, like most tarts, O'Keefe uses the double whammy of smarts and looks to divide and conquer, which brings up a point worth bearing in mind-- never underestimate beauty. Many future tarts come from the silk-lined barracks of the modeling world; the catwalks and runways in Paris and Rome are wonderful booty camps for the honing of the tart jiggle and the signature metronomic sauciness of the wriggling derriere. Still, whereas tart cadet Bridgette Wilson, who registers on the Tart Richter Scale as The Big One, could purchase anything she wanted with her good looks, Christina Ricci's currency in The Opposite of Sex is mostly brain power. Here, as Dedee, Ricci is the quintessential smart-tart, a tart hitting on all eight cylinders. First shot of Ricci: her torso in a black slip, walking away from the camera as the first words out of her mouth tell us: "If you're one of those people who don't like movies where some per-son you can't see talks the whole time and covers up all the holes in the plot and at the end says, 'I was never the same after that summer,' or whatever, like it was so deep they can't stand it, then you're out of luck." Now, facing camera, looking in a mirror and teasing up her nipples in her top, she gives it to us straight-up: "Things get very complicated here, very quick. And my guess is you're not gonna be up to it without me talking." Ah, the self-confidence of the tart! Truth be told, a tart with-out gray matter is like a firefly without the fire. It's the brain that makes the ass light up, baby, and don't you forget it!
T.A.R.T. True tartdom is a calling, like Joan of Arc saving France, Jane Fonda marrying Ted Turner, Jennifer Lopez turning into "Menuda" or anyone's decision to become a gynecologist. It follows then, that certain tarts are born, not made, and sometimes playing a tart on-screen just isn't enough. Perhaps that explains why Alyssa Milano has to sue to get her sexy pictures off the Internet, while Shannon Elizabeth offers a Web site for hers. "I know a lot of guys go on the computer at night and do their thing," Elizabeth said recently, "but I don't know...it's flattering and sweet.' Maybe it makes up for all the time that nobody cared about me but my parents." It may even explain why Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, who plays Don Johnson's daughter on the TV series "Nash Bridges," was his real-Life love interest a while back. I once covered a film that costarred a well-known tart who, in the course of the 28-day shoot, enticed the director to break up with his longtime girlfriend, moved in with him, dropped him and moved out, and all the while sat in various laps around the set, asking if a portion of her anatomy that had some landscaping done looked OK. And then there's My Favorite Tartian, Rose McGowan, who chose the wickedly complex male-tart Marilyn Manson for a lover and showed up with him at the '98 MTV Video Music Awards with her ass trussed in a dress that looked like a shredded hammock. Back in '97 an interviewer gave Rose a hard time for not opening up. and she replied, "I enjoy my walls. I make use of them daily." Now that's truth, tart-style.
In a culture of nowness that never met a fad it wouldn't eat for breakfast, alas, the tart could be chased into the wings any moment. So celebrate Miss Lady Done It All Twice while she lasts, and thank heaven for little girls.
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Michael Angeli wrote about "21 Sex Symbols for the 21st Century" for the Dec./Jan. issue of Movieline.