The Pursuit of the
Feminine Beauty Ideal
by American Women
(1940s-1960s)
The Controversial Role of Advertising and Entertainment:
Ideal Beauty in the Mid-Twentieth Century
The mid-twentieth century (1940s-1960s) was a transitional time for society. The entertainment industry played a major role in American culture and in dictating certain expectations for both male and females. Celebrities were often considered the ideal standards for beauty and behavior. Images of the "ideal woman" were engraved into the minds of Americans through advertising. Magazines were an outlet used to provide 'ordinary' women with the 'tools' for meeting such standards and achieving that 'celebrity look.'
Throughout the mid-twentieth century, women were expected to look a certain way. This caused a lot of anxiety in women regarding their physical appearance, such as maintaining a socially acceptable weight, having clear and un-wrinkled skin, dressing in expensive and flattering clothing, and much more. The entertainment and advertisement industries both played key roles in promoting unrealistic beauty standards. As a result, women attempted to achieve their beauty goals with methods that often proved to be mentally and physically destructive, such as intense medication.
In this blog, I have used two women’s magazines–Cosmopolitan and Mademoiselle–from the time period and put them in conversation with Jacqueline Susann’s 1966 novel Valley of the Dolls. Susann’s novel documents the lives of three very different women–Anne Welles, Neely O’Hara, and Jennifer North–over the course of twenty years beginning in 1945 and ending in 1965. Each woman’s story provides a glimpse into the world responsible for creating the unrealistic beauty standards adopted by society. Each character in Valley of the Dolls embodies a different category of beauty that was accepted by American society. Beauty was defined by one's physical appearance and whether that appearance was desired by men and envied by women. Beauty was used to make money–in both private and public life. In this era, beauty was the number one most sought after thing by women, but it was also the most detrimental.
Valley of the Dolls
by Jacqueline Susann
from "MY BOOK IS NOT DIRTY," a preface to the novel in 1966:
"So many people seem unable to differentiate between the words shocking and dirty. Truth is often shocking. It is not dirty. Life is shocking at times…it is not dirty. People often confuse the words savage and dirty. Violent and dirty. To me, something in print is dirty only if it is used for prurient reasons…if it is inserted without necessity to develop a character or plot.
There is nothing in Valley of the Dolls that is dirty. There are plenty of savage chapters. There is violence and sometimes shock. But the world of show business is one of the toughest arenas of combat. Every star is a gladiator of the moment. Do you realize that every picture you see, every Broadway show, every actor or actress who scores represents ten thousand performers who tried for the same part and lost out? And then let us examine the chosen few. No Oscar is permanent. It’s always, “What have you done lately?” There is no normal boy-girl relationship between two performers; both are fighting to come off best. There is no time for second best in show business. A man works his way up to becoming president of a bank. He has it made. A lawyer works his way to the top and has big law offices. He has it made. A star make it big in a picture. He or she has it made…for that picture. That season. Two bad pictures and good-by Charlie. A new gladiator is brought into the arena. The King is Dead. Long live the New King.
It’s a business where each candle on a birthday cake becomes a nail in the coffin to a female star. We live in an age of youth. We live in a world where a woman is “over the hill” at thirty, the world of movies.
Sounds pretty savage…pretty shocking. It’s true. And I write about it in Valley of the Dolls. It’s all of those things: savage, shocking, unfair, but not dirty!
[…]
The movie star is made ‘instant royalty’ and then open to instant insult by the fans who claim her.
If one writes about war, about battles, one cannot merely write about the bright uniforms, the roll of the drums, the victories. There is mud and slime and amputation and gangrene. Ugly…shocking…but truth.
And I wrote Valley of the Dolls–what it’s like for a woman to reach the top of Mount Everest in show business. All women do not find the Valley of the Dolls up there. All presidents are not assassinated. But we have lost a few.
Sure, Valley of the Dolls is a novel. That makes it fiction. But good fiction has the ring of truth. And truth is not always tied up in pretty packages. My gladiators in Valley of the Dolls are human, not supermen or women. They have their failings, their weaknesses, and some of them get crushed in combat, or bruised, and I show the gore of the inside battles. That’s how it is. That’s how I see it. Rough, yes. Savage, you bet. But not dirty…”
– Jacqueline Susann, 1966
Three very different women embodying three different American ideals of beauty.
Anne Welles:
The All-American Beauty
“Henry Bellamy couldn’t believe his eyes. She couldn’t be for real. In her way, maybe she was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen, and he was accustomed to beautiful girls. And instead of wearing the outrageous pompadour and platform shoes that come into style, this one just let her hair hang loose, natural, and it was that light blonde color that looked real. But it was her eyes that really rattled him. They were really blue, sky blue–but glacial.” (6)
“She’s beautiful, but not too sexy. The All-American Girl.” “She has the type of beauty women can identify with. A college girl or young matron will think she can look like Anne if she uses our product, but she would never think she could look like Jennifer.” (257)
Jennifer North: The Bombshell Beauty
“The girl was undeniably beautiful. She was tall, with a spectacular figure. Her white dress, shimmering with crystal beads, was cut low enough to prove the authenticity of her remarkable cleavage. Her long hair was almost white in its blondeness. But it was her face that held Anne’s attention, a face so naturally beautiful that it came as a startling contrast to the theatrical beauty of her hair and figure. It was a perfect face with a fine square jaw, high cheekbones and intelligent brow. The eyes seemed warm and friendly, and the short, straight nose belonged to a beautiful child, as did the even white teeth and little-girl dimples.” (60)
Neely O'Hara: The Starlet
Beauty
"Neely looked like a gurgling, exuberant teen-ager. She had a snub nose, large brown eyes, freckles and curly brown hair." (17-18)
"Neely was fantastic. The lighting made the childlike face almost beautiful and the dress–a plain white satin shirt-waist and a short navy satin skirt–showed off her marvelous legs. Anne was surprised she had never noticed them before, or her perfect little figure with its small waistline and childish breasts.” (194)
“Guys will leave you, your looks will go, your kids will grow up and everything you thought was great will go sour. All you can really count on is yourself and your talent.” (353)