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Monday,
May 15, 2006

Eh

I'm having one of those sepia-toned "eh" periods -- I can't even blame it properly on Monday because I felt this way all weekend. At least I know it's just my neurochemistry playing games -- everything is actually pretty damned good right now. I just wish I could get this over with and get back to my usual insane self.

Speaking of being insane, I think I've developed a whole new rule of acting after watching a marathon session of "Six Feet Under." I'm calling it the "Red of Hair, White of Skin, Snotty of Attitude" rule; if you have a young female character who is pouty, misunderstood, artistic, verbally barbed and way too smart for the room, you have to cast a titian-haired, marble-skinned girl in the role. If the titian-haired, marble-skinned girl also has beestung lips, it's pretty much a lock.

Let's look at three examples of the rule over the past decades. From the 80's, we have Molly Ringwald, the original Beestung Lip Girl and star of PRETTY IN PINK (where she played a poor, artistic, misunderstood girl with an attitude) and SIXTEEN CANDLES (where she played a rich, artistic, misunderstood girl with an attitude). Molly specialized in smart, spunky girls who talked back, cut up old prom gowns to create new ones, gave diamond earrings to the bad boys and generally broke the mold of being a "good" girl.

From the 90's, we have Alicia Witt, who played Cybill Shepherd's daughter in the eponymous CYBILL. Alicia was a sharper version of Molly -- mouthier, less whiny, boggled by her position as the most sensible person in her mother's wacky household and ready to dispense a putdown at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, she sort of faded from public notice after that (which I thought was a shame, because I really liked her), but rebounded nicely in the Aughts with CECIL B. DEMENTED and THE UPSIDE OF ANGER.

And from the Aughts, we have Lauren Ambrose, the smart, bitchy, wannabe photographer from SIX FEET UNDER (interesting data point -- she costarred in 6FU with Peter Krause, who also appeared on CYBILL as Cybill's uptight son-in-law) and CAN'T HARDLY WAIT, where she portrayed a sort of proto-Claire who had a Nick and Nora Charles-worthy relationship in a bathroom with Seth Green's pseudo-hip-hopper character. Which reminds me -- the one exception to the "Red of Hair, White of Skin, Snotty of Attitude" rule is the luminous Alyson Hannigan, who is almost always cast as an absolute sweetheart. Just don't kill her girlfriend.

All three actresses are known for playing smart, verbal, dissatisfied characters struggling with family dynamics and other issues. Which brings up all kinds of interesting questions about stereotypes and attitudes towards hair color -- do people really think that redheads are intrinsically more artistic/pouty/contentious than blondes or brunettes, or is it just the luck of the draw in casting?

I have no idea. But I wouldn't mind seeing Ringwald, Witt and Ambrose playing relatives, though (is Molly old enough to play Lauren's mother? Oh, hell, make them widely separated sisters and play off the generation differences. Can't you just imagine the repartee?).