HOW TO BE A HEPBURN IN A HILTON WORLD:
The Art of Living with Style, Class, and Grace
By Jordan Christy
This book had me at the title. The Hepburn it refers to is Audrey Hepburn, that great lady who epitomized the three titular qualities so sorely lacking in the Hilton in question — Paris Hilton.
As a mother with an impressionable little girl, I realize the importance of good role models she can look up to. I was fortunate in that, aside from the strong, independent women in my own family when I was growing up, the media glorified females who had a positive impact on the world, like Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Onassis and Mother Teresa.
These days my daughter can’t crack open a magazine or switch on the TV without being exposed to the media hos we have today: Paris Hilton and her ilk — Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, the Olsen twins and the Kardashians — basically any Stupid Girl (Christy’s term, not mine) more famous for having a sex tape or DUI under her blinged-out belt than any real accomplishment.
“Let’s be honest: our current female landscape is embarrassing, flippant and shallow,” Christy writes. “We need to start representing a new type of It Girl — a successful, stylish, smart girl who still maintains classic ideals and values.”
Author Christy knows whereof she speaks. As a publicist for Warner Bros. Records, she’s plugged into the music, celebrity and media scenes. But Christy keeps a healthy distance from Hollywood as a southern belle who grew up and still lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where they do things a little differently. Gents still open doors, say, “Yes, sir,” “No, Ma’am,” and the dynamic between the sexes is a touch more civilized.
In How to be a Hepburn… Christy defines the problem first before offering her down-home solutions. By her sights, a Hilton has little to no self-respect, talks like a character out of the movie Clueless, and lounges around all day in Juicy Couture (unless she’s out partying, in which case the more goods are on display, the better), trying hard not to lift a finger to work. The company she keeps is questionable, she chases after any guy who catches her fancy (texting, cyber-stalking and posting racy pictures on Facebook or MySpace are the usual methodologies), wears too much makeup, and looks like she has an eating disorder.
Recent headlines bear her out. A few days ago we searched for Demi Moore’s missing hip, which was airbrushed out of the cover of a men’s magazine, and just yesterday we heard from the ever-reliable Kate Moss, the subject of controversy once again when she said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”
Christy counters by quoting author Jessica Weiner: “We do have more opportunity open to us as girls and women, and yet we starve out this freedom, nip and tuck it, focus on the surface and don’t show up to vote, protest, or make noise.”
Indeed, the Hollywood obsession with surfaces — and the workouts and dieting needed to acquire those surfaces — has reached absurd heights. Christy reminds us that stars have personal trainers, chefs, and gobs of free time at their disposal: “We could all look that great if the only thing we had to do all day was work on looking great!” exclaims the author, who includes an ode to brownies in her book. “I don’t know about you, but I think eating is enjoyable, and I’m not going to let a few highly publicized twigs keep me from having my cake and occasionally eating it, too!”
So, how do you solve a problem like Paris? Instead of joining the legions of Stupids, become a Smart Girl instead, like Reese Witherspoon (another southern gal), America Ferrara, Mandy Moore or Audrey Hepburn herself — all stylish, classy, graceful girls next door who earned their success by dint of hard work.
A Hepburn helps people, reads books, dresses modestly, has curves (well, maybe not Audrey, who was always rail-thin), lets the man come calling, and does her bit to make the world a better place.
“We live in a free country with rights, freedoms and opportunities that women would have killed for a hundred years ago,” Christy writes, “and instead of voting, getting the CEO spot, going for a doctorate, or volunteering at a women’s shelter, many young women today are too busy shaking their badonkadonks in short-lived music videos and diligently bedazzling their cell phones with more pink rhinestones.”
Well, by reading and acting on How to be a Hepburn in a Hilton World, we don’t have to squander the legacy left to us by the great women who fought for our place in society today. We can leave a legacy of our own for our little daughters to be inspired by.
* * *
Available at National Book Store.