Who's the Farrahist?
As a child you could spend the better part of an hour in front of the mirror with a cylindrical hairbrush and blow-dryer, feathering your hair just so.
You memorized license plates of passing cars in case of foul play, and knew how to tumble without misplacing a strand of that stiffly sprayed hair.
You saved your allowance for a month and bought the Jill Munroe doll. She was the only frosted blond Angel in a white jumpsuit and black boots. Sabrina was the tomboy with a quick wit and raspy voice. Kelly was a bit too feminine in her gossamer gowns. Jill suited your starling personality.
With the death of Farrah Fawcett at age 62, you feel old. Your blond hair has darkened and thinned out a little (not too much), and the world has become a more gruesome playground.
With the likes of Columbo, Kojak, and Starsky and Hutch in the 1970s, Charlie’s Angels glistened. They sleuthed crimes, looking into the conspiratorial motives of wrong-doers. The murder happens within the first 15 or 20 minutes and the rest of the hour is spent filling in the holes.
Today, detective shows such as Bones and CSI: Miami are centered around the construction of horrendous crimes via an already blood-spattered and decomposing body, and oftentimes there are storylines involving a culprit that is never brought to justice.
We expected the men to be masculine and elementary, but to have three beautiful women, who used sex appeal and prowess to dominate a man’s arena, was iconic.
The Angels were powerful and intelligent women in the age of Women’s Rights, and with Farrah, we also had a red bathing-suited sex symbol who told us that not all feminists had to wear round glasses, plaid button-down shirts and short haircuts.
Though Farrah was only present during the first season of Charlie’s Angels, she has done more for Women’s Liberation, on pop culture’s stage, than anyone preceding her. She carried a gun, knew martial arts and showed cleavage. The villain was always caught in the end and led away in handcuffs with a semblance of remorse.
With so much tragedy by week’s end: the highest death tolls in Iraq so far this year and the ongoing senseless bludgeoning of protesters in Iran, just to name a couple, there was also the death of Michael Jackson, on the same day as Farrah, which astoundingly eclipsed it all.
After Charlie’s Angels, Farrah Fawcett fell off the map for a little while. When she did emerge into our national awareness once again, she took on the roles of even stronger females characters in The Burning Bed and Extremities. She had traded in the lipstick and rouge for bloody lips and black eyes. She showed us that the victimized woman has had enough and is fighting back for family and for life.
Farrah was the first crush in a string of others, and I like to say that she helped mold my gay sensibilities. She was glamorous, strong and fashionably relevant in the mainstream.
The world mourns Michael, as it should, for losing one of the main contributors to pop music and showmanship. But this one’s for Farrah Fawcett, whom I don’t want to lose sight of, whose poster was the first to hang on my wall, and whose doll was the first with which I played.
Please sign in to respond | | Register