Last night I had the remote all to myself and stumbled upon Footloose, the original and the best. "If you ask me, Ren is a total fox."
Ridiculous train yard dance moves aside, it's still a fun movie. But I wondered, what if, instead of Lori Singer playing the lead, with all her lanky skinniness, perfect hair and glowy skin, Sarah Jessica Parker had been the lead, with her sweet, bubbly personality, wildly wavy hair and average, not waifishly thin frame?
What if, so many years ago, just this one movie chose to make the "average" girl the ideal and relegated the walking coat hanger to the supporting role? No offense Lori, but seriously - coat hanger.
I remembered thinking if only I were as thin as Singer... [fill in the blanks - everything good is possible if you're as thin as...] I didn't even have serious body issues and I remember thinking it would be better if I were thinner like Ariel.
What if she was the sidekick and Rusty was the badass everyone admired, balancing on the doors of two fast-driving automobiles on a narrow country road just barely escaping death by head-on collision... Maybe I'd have only seen how cool Rusty was, and looks may have never entered my mind. And if they had, maybe I'd have felt A-OK with myself.
This is only one movie. What if all the magazines, catalogs, TV shows, books, fashion shows, and everything else in the world didn't arbitrarily decide what the ideal should be?