Althouse: "I like that I got an ugly girl's personality."

December 2, 2010

"I like that I got an ugly girl's personality."

"In other words, a homely girl always has to develop that muscle. And I did. But the good news is that I never considered myself beautiful at all. And I still don't."

64 comments:

Anonymous said...: But Goldie Hawn still has the youthful radiance of a woman many years her junior.

Was the author blind or drunk?

This is one of the more annoying aspects of our modern culture, the assertion (mainly by boomers) that "so and so looks so young"

Um, no. That is actually never the case.; 12/2/10, 7:33 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: Ugly people often have ugly personalities; in China this is proverbial. People who are hurt and rejected through no fault of their own often become defensive and suspicious and grudging, which of course invites more rejection.

And then there are ugly people who have beautiful personalities. Goldie Hawn hasn't thought very hard about this; but the obtusity of her comments speaks for itself.; 12/2/10, 7:33 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: Are the accompanying pictures supposed to be cruel commentary?

I don't think she looks "fantastic" for her age--Sophia Loren, for example, does. I think she looks about average for her age.; 12/2/10, 7:36 PM
Trooper York said...: Google sucks man!; 12/2/10, 7:41 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: And I never considered myself snarky.; 12/2/10, 7:46 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Trooper York wins. Fatality.; 12/2/10, 7:47 PM
former law student said...: You have to be pretty confident in your looks to gyrate in a bikini as Goldie Hawn did forty-some years ago. So I kinda doubt this "ugly girl personality" shtik.; 12/2/10, 7:51 PM
former law student said...: http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=CcHffTlD8wY; 12/2/10, 8:01 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: "Youthful radiance"? Where? That bitch isn't just ugly, she's butt-ugly. She used to be cute as a button, in the Laugh-In days, but now? Give me a break:

Time has not been kind.; 12/2/10, 8:03 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: 'But the good news is that I never considered myself beautiful at all. And I still don't.'

And with good reason.

Nailed by Trooper York.

Wait.....that didn't sound quite right.; 12/2/10, 8:04 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Sock it to me?; 12/2/10, 8:04 PM
ricpic said...: "Inside I'm Homely, Too"

Homely girls are full of bile,
As Goldie knows full well --
Just one more defanging lie
That cute girls learn to tell.; 12/2/10, 8:04 PM
Trooper York said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/2/10, 8:15 PM
Trooper York said...: Hey I don't admit to anything.

But that Ruth Buzzi was a stone freak.; 12/2/10, 8:17 PM
Ann Althouse said...: You people are mean!; 12/2/10, 8:19 PM
jungatheart said...: Tough room. I hope I look that good at 65. These are candid street shots, and no one looks good in such a situation. I'm sure when she's all dolled-up she looks great.; 12/2/10, 8:19 PM
Trooper York said...: I guess somebody wants to post photos of women in their sixties to show that it's not so bad.

I remember one of my first posts when I started my blog. El Pollo Real (chicklit/chickenlittle) asked me to post a photo of of Donna Douglas from the sixties!; 12/2/10, 8:24 PM
traditionalguy said...: I loved Goldie in Overboard. She has talent on loan from God.; 12/2/10, 8:40 PM
victoria said...: Really, Ann, tough crowd.
At 59 and post-menopausal, I am not looking like the foxy chick I was in 1973. But every wrinkle and dent is earned.

Though, Gabriel is right, Sophia Loren looks fabulous.

Bitchy, mostly men.

Hmmmmm

Vicki from Pasadena; 12/2/10, 8:45 PM
Trooper York said...: It's not bitchy if it's true Vicki.

I mean if you want to talk about hot babes in their sixties well lets talk Helen Mirren.; 12/2/10, 8:51 PM
Trooper York said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/2/10, 8:58 PM
Trooper York said...: Or Julie Christie.

Goldie set herself up by talking about ugly girls. Not nice.; 12/2/10, 9:00 PM
Trooper York said...: If you want to dream about Jeanie, well how about Barbara Eden.; 12/2/10, 9:08 PM
David said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/2/10, 9:08 PM
former law student said...: Like a lot of women from that era, Goldie ignored the SPF. But she could look a lot worse.

Her daughter, Kate Hudson, is somehow attractive even though the pieces don't all fit together.; 12/2/10, 9:09 PM
Trooper York said...: How about the real agent 69 ....errrrr I mean agent 99 Barbara Feldon?; 12/2/10, 9:11 PM
former law student said...: how about Barbara Eden.

I associate that look with "having work done," sorry.; 12/2/10, 9:11 PM
Trooper York said...: I mean just staying in the "B's" how about Barbi Benton?; 12/2/10, 9:13 PM
Trooper York said...: Hey....she's a jeanie. She just had to fold her arms and blink dude.; 12/2/10, 9:15 PM
tim maguire said...: She was a beautiful young woman, she is a beautiful older woman, but she really needs to stop dressing like the beautiful young woman she no longer is.; 12/2/10, 9:15 PM
rcocean said...: Yep, Barbara Eden is 76, but even today her inner beauty shines through.

And Goldie doesn't look a day over 60.; 12/2/10, 9:16 PM
jungatheart said...: A lot of judgement and trash talk from the patron saint of the full-figured gal.; 12/2/10, 9:20 PM
Meade said...: A woman's true beauty is never fully revealed until she reaches sixty. Even Trooper knows that.

I read that Goldie and her DP, Kurt Russell were shunned out of Hollywood because they're not lefty-liberal loons. They're limited government libertarians. So they moved to Colorado where there's more individual liberty. Good move, guys!; 12/2/10, 9:24 PM
KCFleming said...: If I had ever enjoyed good looks or a radiant personality, I would comment with aplomb. Lacking these credentials, and having seen many many people more close up than recommended, I'll not add a discouraging word to the above but to add that entropy awaits us all.

Plus, some little old ladies are cute as buttons, just like little girls. Why is that?; 12/2/10, 9:36 PM
former law student said...: Pogo: Here are the Brown twins of San Francisco.They are 83.

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/Images35/brown_twins_2.jpg

Here they are at Uncle Vito's Pizza:

http://go2net.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/sanfran-127.jpg; 12/2/10, 9:41 PM
KCFleming said...: Exactly, fls.

They gots the jaw day veev.; 12/2/10, 9:48 PM
Anonymous said...: She doesn't look bad at all in those pictures. If I didn't know who it was, I'd guess that the woman in the pictures was maybe 55.

Of course, there's only one way I can really evaluate feminine beauty.

Peter; 12/2/10, 9:49 PM
Synova said...: I think she looks younger than 65. But the picture is horrible. She looks good but not good enough to look good in those clothes.

The "ugly girl" personality thing is that old saw so many of us heard growing up, that it was more important to have a beautiful personality than to be beautiful. It's the inside that counts. I doubt very many insecure young girls actually believed that, but it's a well-worn and fairly familiar trope.

The only other thing I wanted to say is that the young Goldie Hawn was adorable but neither that nor go-go dancing in a bikini on television means that she ever felt beautiful or was ever confident about her body or her looks. Women don't tend to be rational about self-image. (That might be culturally determined, I couldn't say.); 12/2/10, 9:56 PM
KCFleming said...: My mother seems more beautiful at almost-80 than when she was a high school cheerleader. She's almost translucent, weightless, birdlike.; 12/2/10, 10:07 PM
Roux said...: She's 65 years old and I think she looks great. Give it a rest. She's no longer the young goofy gal from Laugh In.; 12/2/10, 10:24 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I like Goldie Hawn.; 12/2/10, 10:35 PM
Unknown said...: Goldie's big thing on Laugh-In was her ditziness. She was cute, but no beauty.

And she looks OK now, but she's no Ann Althouse.

(Do I know where my bread is buttered?); 12/2/10, 10:45 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Give her points for bralessness.; 12/2/10, 10:49 PM
Ralph L said...: Duck Lips!; 12/2/10, 10:59 PM
Chef Mojo said...: Give her points for bralessness.

If she jumps high enough, those "points" will probably put your eye out.

Really, I don't get this whole women-in-their-60s fascination. That recent thing with Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Sigourny Weaver was just plain weird. WTF? They don't think we know the hours of P-shop that went into those pics. And Jane Fonda leaning over that table with a supposedly sexy come-hither look? That was just so not right. It was like looking at a picture of the broadside of an old battleship and remarking that it looked skinny without seeing the overhead shot.

Seriously, this culture has a totally fucked up view of women and beauty.; 12/2/10, 11:23 PM
jungatheart said...: Pogo:
"My mother seems more beautiful at almost-80 than when she was a high school cheerleader. She's almost translucent, weightless, birdlike."

There is a special beauty to the aging face. I've noticed it with my aunts. The softening of the skin and fine lines add a character that is lovely in its own way. By contrast, the very young, 20's, or so, seem plastic and all alike...lacking character, like babies.; 12/2/10, 11:31 PM
John Burgess said...: I met Goldie Hawn when she was around 18 and had the hots for my older brother. I don't think I ever hated my brother more than right then and there. She was simply amazing.; 12/2/10, 11:32 PM
Chef Mojo said...: And to clarify, I'm talking about the fascination with celebrity women in their 60s & 70s.

I know some wonderful, beautiful women in that age bracket. Wanna know what their secret is?

They don't try. They just lead healthy lives and do some exercise and reconcile themselves to the fact that they aren't teenagers. They act like grownups.; 12/2/10, 11:34 PM
Gabriel Hanna said...: I had a friend once who was a very beautiful man. In a drunken conversation once he outlined to me all the terrible disadvantages of being too beautiful, and how he wished he looked more like me--it was really hard NOT to hit him, repeatedly, until he had no choice but to live in ugliness and see what it was like.

I'm not a mean drunk, so I used my words instead. I outlined a few of the examples of the many times in our lives when people had made his life easy for him and he didn't even realize it, never imagined that anyone had a different experience.

When you are beautiful, people are happy to do favors for you and reluctant to deny you anything. You don't even have to pretend to be nice. You get the benefit of every doubt. Other people pick up the slack for you; or (what is more likely) they put part of your share onto the ugly people.

When you're ugly, every day is like being at the DMV.

Goldie Hawn doesn't know anything about what it's like to be ugly, or what skills ugly people have had to develop. It wouldn't matter if she did look like Sophia Loren does now.

But I have the impression that Sophia Loren has a lot more sense than to be so insensitive.; 12/2/10, 11:56 PM
William said...: I have met a great many women in their sixties who are attractive and fun to be around. They are not attractive in the way that twenty year old women are attractive, but there's no great harm in that. Frogs find other frogs attractive, and sixty year olds have their own plumage and mating calls. And anyway a smile and a hug from a grandchild is probably what rocks Goldie's boat the most now.......The captioning under Goldie's pictures was sly and cruel. It was meant to draw attention to how sloppy and worn out she looked. Well, my goodness, that was not her red carpet look. She was shlepping and, at the age of sixty five, she is entitled to look like a sloppy, shlepping shopper. I think she can probably buff up in a sexually attractive way..... The quote is probably from the distant past when she was young and beautiful and thought, like many young, beautiful women, that she was clever and charming. Who knows? Maybe she was. In any event, she will be rich and famous until the day she dies. If she wishes to think herself clever and charming, no one will deny her that conceit.....I bet Judy Carne knows a great deal more about the aging process, and the wisdom it brings.; 12/3/10, 12:32 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Ann,

She was a beautiful young woman, she is a beautiful older woman, but she really needs to stop dressing like the beautiful young woman she no longer is.

This is all it's about. Y'all - I guess we're back to dissing Boomers - need to grow the fuck up. Trying to look young is immature. Listen to yourself:

Give her points for bralessness.

Hell no! Like any man but Kurt wants to see Grandmas tits. Put those suckers away! Shit, Ann, have you forgotten what it's like to see such things? What's your next suggestion - geriatric porno for the kids? Ewwww. Talk about not thinking of anyone but yourself!

Look, I know I ain't long for this Earth, and will probably fall apart pretty fast on the way out, but I'm already cultivating my cranky old guy personality to go with my cool older gentleman wardrobe. There will be no pretending I'm 30, wearing wife beaters and trying to show my bulge.

That recent thing with Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Sigourny Weaver was just plain weird.

Exactly. The rest of us wonder what's wrong with them - except for the obvious: Boomers are people who shit on maturity and will never grow up.

I know some wonderful, beautiful women in that age bracket. Wanna know what their secret is?

They don't try. They just lead healthy lives and do some exercise and reconcile themselves to the fact that they aren't teenagers. They act like grownups.

And that's attractive. We aren't mean - these women like Fonda (and those who admire them and what they're stupidly trying to do) are setting themselves up for ridicule. THAT AIN'T SEXY. And the attempt ain't cute. They're women who have gotten in the way of the aging process, never realizing it's got it's own built-in safeguards. Duh - you sabotaged yourself! We're laughing because you're flaunting your lack of wisdom and showing your tits is just icing in the cake.

Women can be dumb in such elementary ways, as we all can, but the desire to walk the catwalk is one of the worst. Grow up, and quit dissing us for expecting it of you - you ain't re-writing shit:

There have already been too many fine examples of how it's done.; 12/3/10, 6:20 AM
Darcy said...: I get what Goldie was trying to say, and I think it makes sense. I always thought of her as cute, but very often beautiful - because she did seem to have a bubbly, sweet personality.

And it is so true that you can find an "ugly" picture of anyone, really.

This sort of reminds me (and I don't know why, really) of what Ryan O'Neal said about Farrah recently. I don't have his exact words, but essentially what he said is that she wasn't really wrapped up in her looks. Or as wrapped up as you'd think she would be. That one of the ways he thought that showed was that she was genuinely nice to other women. That struck me as an interesting observation. Looks-obsessed women very often are not very nice to other women.; 12/3/10, 6:31 AM
traditionalguy said...: Words of hope for you 40 somethings: When you are blessed to live to 65 in good physical and spiritual health, then the men and women age 60 to 70 will become extremely attractive to other men and women age 60 to 65. We are made in the image of God and remain great looking to those people who love us even as they do to us.; 12/3/10, 7:25 AM
Mary Beth said...: Ozzy Osbourne is 62 today. He makes Goldie's 65 look a lot younger.; 12/3/10, 7:44 AM
ndspinelli said...: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty."; 12/3/10, 8:02 AM
KCFleming said...: I have never understood complaining about or fawning over people's looks.

Beauty is "unearned advantage", a winning hand from day one. But it says nothing at all about you. Some beauties are lovely people, while others are mean as hell.

I enjoy seeing good looking women, to be sure. But all roses fade, and the relentless pursuit of that brief interval of transcendent and effortless loveliness is just a damned bore.

Still, people try to slow the circle down, and I can't blame them, even as I take little interest in it. It's just the way of all flesh. That transient gonadal trick warrants only the consideration one gives to leaves and feathers.

"Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight."
- Marcus Aurelius; 12/3/10, 8:21 AM
Fred4Pres said...: I am calling bullshit on that.

Goldie always knew she was attractive. My neighbor years ago actually went out with her on a few dates before she got famous. He said she was nice and was attrative.

I still like Ms. Hawn.; 12/3/10, 9:10 AM
kjbe said...: I doubt very many insecure young girls actually believed that, but it's a well-worn and fairly familiar trope.

It's been my experience, that believing that it was a trope was a large part to why they are insecure.

Hat's off to Goldie - I'm a firm believer that taking care of yourself on the inside, shows on the outside.; 12/3/10, 9:10 AM
michaele said...: Cute...Meade makes a preemptive strike and goes on record:
"A woman's true beauty is never fully revealed until she reaches sixty. Even Trooper knows that."

I'm sure Ann's upcoming 60th birthday will be well celebrated.; 12/3/10, 9:24 AM
Anonymous said...: ``The captioning under Goldie's pictures was sly and cruel. It was meant to draw attention to how sloppy and worn out she looked.''

Well, it's the UK Daily Mail. They're the same ones who run *those photos* of Michelle Obama - you know the ones I mean - and caption them with these breathless statements about what a fashion icon she is.; 12/3/10, 10:44 AM
Trooper York said...: Relax deborah, I just busting the blogger ladys nuts.; 12/3/10, 11:41 AM
Amartel said...: In fact, she does have a "youthful radiance of a woman many years her junior" and is "in great shape." Sorry, gentlemean, (sic! was a typo and it stays), but it's true. Obviously, as always and ever, everyone reads their own personal narrative into a story (I hates the boomers, I hates youth obsession, a woman should look her age, a woman should look like what I think a woman should look like, I hates beautiful people, especially when they say they're not, etc. blah yah whatever). So go ahead and dig up a reason to despise this fine-looking old broad. Kinda sad, though, that.; 12/3/10, 12:09 PM
Trooper York said...: Nobody despises her. Just pretentious nonsense about "ugly girls personality."

That is just nonsense.

That's the reason for the hits. I my humble opinion.; 12/3/10, 1:28 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Fuck that - I'm only a *little* crazy:

If there's a "youthful radiance" in any one of those pictures, you can have it.; 12/3/10, 5:50 PM