The secret shame of wanting to ‘Stick It’

Indulging in guilty pleasures
Bendinger isn’t the first to run down the tracks as the “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes” train chugs past.  We have “The Cutting Edge”; we have “Ice Princess.”  Before that were Esther Williams and Sonja Henie.

There is a reason why my finger hovers over, but rarely depresses, the “arrow up” button on my remote control when I surf past “Flashdance.” Something about the dramatization of women achieving our male-ordered, ultimate sense of femaleness in prissy costumes wrenches from my professor’s body the soul of the seven-year-old who just wanted pretty hair. 

There’s a reason why Disney makes approximately one bazillion dollars a year on plastic tiaras rather than federal judge Halloween costumes. Movies of the “Stick It” genre are flung like Mardi Gras beads to girls and grown-up girls like me who once lay on the carpet imagining themselves graceful and sparkly, but in actual practice had all the elegance of a drunken Grand Canyon mule. You wake up one morning and you’re suddenly standing behind a lunch counter or on a bare office floor or in a classroom instead of atop an Olympic podium. 

I have reached the end of the article now, which grants me a sterling opportunity to show off my podium wave, perfected after many thousands of medal ceremonies conducted at the top of my desk chair. Elbow, wrist, elbow, wrist; smile mistily to the far reaches of the crowd; unsuccessfully blink back tears of joy and exhaustion. My greatest triumph since my most recent Olympic gold in Ladies' Figure Skating, obtained last Thursday by waving my arms in time to “Carmen” while inline skating through an empty parking lot.

Mary Beth Ellis still pirouettes on occasion, but mostly she teaches college in Central Florida and writes for www.BlondeChampagne.com.

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