The Desirable Body
In Valley of the Dolls, women's bodies are frequently discussed and criticized, especially in reference to weight. Neely, Jennifer North, and Helen Lawson are all advised to lose pounds as a way of increasing their success in the entertainment industry. The emphasis on maintaining a small waist without looking "too thin" was undoubtedly exhausting–both physically and mentally. The focus on women's bodies created a lot of anxiety. For example, Jennifer saw her perfect body as a means of profit and survival–"that's what a great body was for, to get things you wanted" (173). Without her large breasts and small waist, she convinced herself she could not be loved. Without being loved by a man or the public, she could not make money. And in her opinion, without money, "one could never be free" (185). This fear ultimately led Jennifer to commit suicide. Neely and Helen faced similar obstacles in their careers regarding the pressure to maintain an 'acceptable' figure. In an attempt to meet body expectations, Neely turned to drug and alcohol abuse. At the same time, Helen's inability to keep up her figure in her later years caused her success on stage to plummet. An example of how individuals may have responded to bodies that did not fit the social ideal is as follows: “Her figure was beginning to show signs of middle age–the thickness through the waist, the slight spread in the hips. Recalling Helen’s appearance in the past, Anne felt as if she were gazing at the cruel distortion of a monument.”
(Valley of the Dolls 77)
Your Beautiful Body
by Gael Greene, Cosmopolitan
Beauty is visual attractiveness. Beauty is also polite. Perhaps it simply never occurs to you that the twenty-seven minutes you spend in front of your mutlibulb namkeup mirror applying all those perfumed balms and paints is not vanity but a reflection of good manners. Perhaps you consider beauty care as competition or mere survival, and good health as too mundane and broign to think about. Well, when Dame Margot Fonteyn was interviewed on teh eve of her fiftieth birthday about her still-incredible youth and stamina, the seemingly ageless ballerina mused, “I suppose I should get a face-lift. It would be much kinder to my friends.” Yes, her friends!
Your vitality and good looks indeed are a reflection of your kindness to the world. The way you move and stand, your rosy, scrubbed-clean face artfully ablush says you care. You have pride in yourself...you are, therefore, worth caring about. Nothing is a clearer giveaway of severe depression than an abandoned body–the face ignored, the hair asnarl, shapeless, soiled clothes. Loretta Young, with her ramrod posture and perfectionism, would no more think of appearing on the street face-naked than body-naked. “I owe it to the public,” she says.
You may not be a raving beauty. Accept yourself and improve what you are. To abandon the project because you’ll never pass for Raquel Welch no matter how hard you try is a cop-out. (Raquel didn’t look that way when she started either!) Invest in a plain-girl power: inner dazzle, verbal dazzle, cerebral dazzle, libidinal dazzle. Work at it.
[...]
Good grooming is good manners. The priceless dividend of looking smashing–and knowing you do–is that once you’re put together, you can direct your attention outward. When you see the well-turned-out beauty in your three-way mirror, you then relax and concern yourself with everything else around you.
The Cosmo Girl's Guide to the New Etiquette (5)
Advice on how to improve the female figure: Shape-wear and Cosmetic Surgery
