The most beautiful woman to ever appear in a movie was Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast At Tiffany's." Period. How's that for a grand statement?It's true, though. Look at her. The blond streak in her hair. The outlandish outfits. The way she holds herself with a never-ending sense of grace. A posture featuring swagger that even Jay-Z could be jealous of. Hell. She even makes smoking look adorable.
That statement, while extraordinary and epic, is accompanied by an even-more persistent question, a question that sometimes goes incredibly overlooked when focusing on today's women in Hollywood. That question? Are the most jaw-dropping leading ladies of yesteryear more jaw-dropping than the jaw-dropping leading ladies of today?
Consider the following:
No. 1 on the list of AskMen's women for 2010 is Emmanuelle Chriqui, or Dahila from the "oh-my-God-they-really-made-this-movie-it's-that-bad "You Don't Mess With The Zohan." You know. E's girl from "Entourage." Sure, you're great as Sloan, sweetheart, but your biggest success came from a show on HBO. The same HBO that brings such high-brow material as the "Real Sex" programs. Premiere.com listed Mila Kunis as its No. 1 most beautiful woman in Hollywood. Wait. The same Mila Kunis who holds the voice as the famously unpretty Meg from "Family Guy." Or was it the same Mila Kunis who runs away with...Jason Segel at the end of such an intelligent, high class flick as "Forgetting Sarah Marshall?"
Pause. Now think.
Would you have ever seen Ingrid Bergman appear on a cable television show based strictly around what it's like to be a bunch of dudes who are rich, successful and famous in L.A.?
How about Mary Astor? Would she go on a late night talk show to champion how much she loves to play video games online while pushing her latest film recreating...a comic book?
(Around the 4:00 mark)
Sure it would be ignorant, if not irresponsible, to refuse to look at the change in culture when considering such things. But that's what makes those beautiful women of yesteryear more beautiful than any possible leading lady of today. It isn't Ingrid's sparkling eyes, or Audrey's perfect smile. It's their mystique. It's their innocence. It's their confidence. It's their natural, somewhat sincere, un-medically enhanced facial features. It's their collective sense of beauty that has constantly been the subject of chase for each and every female film star of the last three-plus decades.
Besides, how beneficial would it have honestly been if we had video of Elizabeth Taylor stumbling out of a club on a Tuesday night to find TMZ cameras catching her every stumbling step, anyways?
- TU
exactly. it will never be the same...i know because i, myself am one of those twenty-somethings with a warped sense of whats beautiful from over-exposure to US weekly and OK! magazine covers....and im aware of it, but it doesnt change anything...its really sad. heidi montag is the best example of how effed up and obsessed women are with how they look. but its probably only going to get worse. 90% of the women in hollywood are fake on some level if not most levels, sure i made up that statistic, but whatever.
ReplyDeletep.s. mila kunis is hot though.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Definitely hard to write that post using two of my favorite modern day actresses as examples for how un-beautiful Hollywood is these days.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to consider though is the 2010 relevance of cable TV and late night talk shows. Had entertainment vehicles such as those been around in the era of Hepburn, Astor and Ingram, would the beauties have utilized them to further their endeavors (the way starlets do today)? Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Though I think now, the relevance of talk shows has diminished a little with the boom of the Internet, and the constant videos of interviews we are capable of seeing these days. But that being a part of history is also an essential part of why those starlets will always remain the best, and why those kinds of female movie stars will never exist again. Pop culture won't let it.
ReplyDelete