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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Because cancer doesn't give a rat's ass how pretty you are
Posted by Jill | 4:32 PM

I had just graduated from college in 1977 and started work as an assistant buyer at the Newark, NJ headquarters of a department store chain when I saw it behind the security desk at the employees entrance: The Poster. Even I, a straight woman, couldn't take my eyes off the image of the tawny blonde, all hair and teeth, with the kind of looks I knew I could never, ever have, no matter how much work I did with the curling iron to create the "wings" we all wore in front in the late 1970's in an attempt to be Farrah Fawcett. I never looked like that. NOBODY looked like that. Farrah Fawcett was like a sun-kissed alien goddess from the Planet Spectacularion. Even her name was strange and alien and gorgeous: Farrah. It even SOUNDED like some kind of ethereal water nymph.

But here's the thing: you couldn't even hate her. In her Charlie's Angels days, when her fame was at its peak, there was always something, well, nice about her. I remember a radio shampoo spot she did where she would talk to "callers." Who knows what she was like in real life, but on screen she never seemed aware of her own beauty, and in a strange way that made her less intimidating.

When you don't grow up pretty in our society, you tend to believe that pretty people live charmed lives. With the wreckage of pretty people littering American pop culture history, it's kind of surprising how tenacious this myth is. And so it seemed particularly cruel that this most gorgeous of women, who remained gorgeous well into her fifties, should be stricken not just with cancer, but with a particularly ugly cancer.

I didn't watch the recent NBC documentary about her battle with cancer. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to. I love a good bout of schädenfreude as much as the next person, but there was no joy in knowing that the great beauty from when I was young was wasting away while I was enjoying a long-duration marriage, interesting work, and good friends. I only felt incredible sadness. It's been said that she felt her story would be an "inspiration" to other cancer sufferers, but I hardly see how any cancer patient watching a former beauty icon waste away and puke into a bowl would respond with anything other than wake-up-screaming terror and dread.

And today, the great beauty icon of the 1970's is gone. The disease finally won, because cancer doesn't care how pretty you were, or how well you've held up, or how glamorous you can still look, or how famous or talented or special you may have been. All cancer knows is to eat everything in sight until it kills its host.
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4 Comments:
Blogger Rhode Island Rules said...
She was indeed lovely and beautiful and I agree with you, she never seemed full of herself or aware of her own beauty. If you look at the iconic poster she is slim, but not anorexic or even toned. There are no breast implants, she was just a natural beauty. There was always a vunerability and sadness that I picked up with her. She smiled, but her eyes told a different story. I think she just wanted love, not to be loved or be lusted after, but love. Gone too young. I'm sorry she suffered.
6/25/09, 9:39 PM  
Anonymous Diva said...
Gone too soon. So gorgeous.
6/26/09, 7:46 AM  
Blogger DBK said...
The thing about that poster...it was everywhere. I was a freshman in college in 1976-77 and just about every guy had that poster on his wall. But see, when you look at it, she's looking at YOU. It's got a very personal quality to it. She isn't just looking at the camera. She seems to be looking and smiling right at you, and seems to be having so much fun in that smile. There's not a trace of the pageant smile in it. That smile is real and the joy in it is real and those eyes are happy eyes and you just feel good to look at her. Hell yeah she's gorgeous, but I think anyone who could look that genuinely happy and connect with you via photograph would look good. Maybe not Farrah good, because hell yeah she's gorgeous, but you'd want to look at anyone who looked that happy. I never paid much attention to her except for that poster. She was a beautiful actress and she did some good work, but it was in movies and TV shows I didn't watch, so I kind of knew what she was up to the way anyone who turns on a TV knows what famous people are up to, but not by actually watching her performances. I don't recall her making any movies with Pacino or Streep, so I missed her performances altogether. But that poster always came to mind when I heard her name. When I heard she had cancer, I wished her well and assumed she'd pull through because a lot of people survive cancer now and she has to have the best health care. And when I heard she was losing the fight, I felt bad for her in a vague way. Now that she's gone it's very sad and I feel for her family and friends.

Ah, but that poster. That's near immortality, that poster. She won't ever die, or even age, for anyone of my generation who used to look at that poster and see that smile and those laughing eyes and just feel...good.
6/26/09, 2:38 PM  
Blogger Jill said...
Getting in touch with our inner Rich Lowry, are we, DBK? :-)
6/26/09, 4:44 PM  
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