accidental feminist

You work it, Ellen Barkin! June 2, 2007

I’d put Ellen Barkin up there with Lauren Bacall on my list of inspiring Jewish Women of Hollywood. They’ve both aged with dignity and beauty (and neither with plastic surgery); both bring to the screen a truly sensual and strong womanly sensibility– but they won’t let that strength force them to play the virgin-whore that, oh, for example, Angelina Jolie was willing to play in “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”. No, they won’t let the frightened little men clip their wings. I am reminded of the stupid, stupid boys in my dorm at UofC who once told me that I’d be more attractive if I were less opinionated. Bacall and Barkin, for me, represent the women who is attractive precisely because of her strength; and they give me hope that there are men out there, the kind of men the kind of girl like me would consider worth his salt, who actually want a women who’s a little hard to handle (and not in a fake, I’ll-tell-you-I-hate-you-but-then-crumble-under-your-intense-and-manly-gaze way).

And I love this quote from a recent Barkin interview: “Would I rather look the way I looked when I was 43? Yes. 33? No. I always thought women peaked between 36 and 43. Something happens to your face and everything just settles in.” Here’s to that as I approach my 30s. (The first reference in what is sure to be a summer-long veritable tour-de-force of references to my upcoming monumental birthday).