Kim Novak's Bid to Be Twice as Good

Hollywood's respectability politics are much the same as any other kind of respectability politics.

Here's a fairly great piece from Amanda Hess on how we judge actresses in their youth, and how we expect them to disappear when they age:

...81-year-old Vertigo star Kim Novak—who was roundly mocked for turning up onstage, two decades after her last movie, exhibiting extensive plastic surgery—might as well be dead. As comedian Rob Delaney cruelly joked: “Will they have time to edit Kim Novak into the In Memoriam section?” Even Matthew McConaughey’s mother, who last night aspired only to the role of proud parent, was eviscerated for rocking a keyhole-neck gown that gave the world a peek at her cleavage, which apparently only young women are allowed to possess. Twitter commentators deemed the view “leathery,” “ancient,” “inappropriate,” and “terrifying.”

So how ought an actress age? Throughout the evening, 67-year-old Sally Field (who appeared as a presenter) and 64-year-old Meryl Streep (nominated for August: Osage County) were compared favorably to Minnelli and Novak for daring to age “gracefully” and “naturally.” But we don’t know what Streep and Field do to maintain their looks—all we know is that they have successfully navigated Hollywood’s dual requirement to look amazing post-60 while never signaling that they’ve worked at it. That means avoiding obvious plastic surgery, but it can also mean spending your life investing in the habits, trainers, diets, creams, and treatments that add up to a “natural” look in old age. (Dodging illness and disability—Novak survived breast cancer in 2010—surely doesn’t hurt.)

I've spent the past couple of years thinking about the "twice as good" notion in the black community, and the bindings that we put on young black boys so that their country will not kill them. Of course "twice as good" ultimately means half as many arrive, and those who do receive half as much. Let us dispense with self-congratulation and great men. The question is not, "What did Jackie Robinson achieve in spite of racism?" It is, "How much more would he have achieved without it?" An ethic of "twice as good" divorced from any complaint, divorced from history is "Go for self" and can have no effect whatsoever upon a justice system, upon voter ID laws, upon asset forfeiture, upon Wells Fargo. The masses of the plundered will never be respectable to those who plunder them. The essence of plunder is disrespect. They can never respect you. They hate you, sir.

And I think these ideas only incidentally relate to who we call "black" and who we do not. Black people are older than white supremacy. And plunder is broad.  The female body, always marked as a field for plunder, illustrates the point.  The double standard that demands that black boys play classical music and comport themselves like Barack Obama, is comparable to the double standard that asks one thing of Jack Nicholson and another of Meryl Streep. Kim Novak also got The Talk...

When Novak entered the industry in the 1950s, studio executives made her cap her teeth, bleach her hair, shrink her body with a strict diet and exercise regime, and perpetually paint her face with the help of a personal makeup artist. I wonder where she got the idea that she mattered for her looks?

Novak's failure to absorb and fully implement this awesome wisdom makes her a target for humiliation and ultimately, maybe not death, but banishment from the public stage. 

We should probably stop bragging about Jackie Robinson, and remember that he died young. We should probably cite Ginger Rogers mostly as damning evidence. We comfort ourselves with individuals who get over, ignoring the broad masses who—necessarily—cannot. I think we should pause before noting that Sally Field is "aging well." Most of her fellow human females will not. That is because the very notion of "aging well" is riven with all our notions of who owns their body and who does not.

Of course Baldwin knew:

The people, however, who believe that this democratic anguish has some consoling value are always pointing out that So-and-So, white, and So-and-So, black, rose from the slums into the big time. The existence -- the public existence -- of, say, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. proves to them that America is still the land of opportunity and that inequalities vanish before the determined will. It proves nothing of the sort. The determined will is rare -- at the moment, in this country, it is unspeakably rare -- and the inequalities suffered by the many are in no way justified by the rise of a few. [Emph. added]

A few have always risen -- in every country, every era, and in the teeth of regimes which can by no stretch of the imagination be thought of as free. Not all these people, it is worth remembering, left the world better than they found it. The determined will is rare, but it is not invariably benevolent. Furthermore, the American equation of success with the big time reveals an awful disrespect for human life and human achievement.

Forgive me if I have distracted, in any way, from Amanda Hess's piece. You start thinking and you're not sure what will come out.