Gertrude
Stein was once quoted as saying, "Remarks are not literature;" good
advice for the reader taken in by Elizabeth Wurtzel’s newest book
"Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women." Where Wurtzel’s latest collection
of rants doesn’t quite add up to something with historic staying-power,
the author acquits herself well in an entertaining if over-excercised
postmodern genre that can loosely be called "pulp non-fiction."
Wurtzel’s central point, driven home in a flurry of anecdotes gleaned
from what must have been an unhealthy amount of pop culture consumption,
is that whenever women act aggressively, whenever we say what we
really feel, whenever we step outside the boundaries of what is
deemed "acceptable" behavior for the female of the species...Voila!
We instantly become bitches.
Wurtzel’s list of bitches reads like a "Who’s Who" of media darlings,
real-life heroines and Hollywood celebrities. There are movie star
bitches (Marilyn Monroe, Joan Collins, Sharon Stone). Musical bitches
(Debbie Harry, Alanis Morissette, Courtney Love). Historical bitches
(Marie Antoinette, Eva Peron, Princess Diana of Wales). Criminal
bitches (Tonya Harding, Amy Fisher). Political bitches (Donna Rice,
Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton). Even fictional bitches like
"Thelma and Louise." But they all have one thing in common. Their
lives and loves are all dissected, largely through the lens of our
mass media, and analyzed by Wurtzel’s watchful feminist eye.
Drawing from sources as diverse as the Bible, Gloria Steinem, Liz
Phair and "Glamour" magazine, Wurtzel uses an intriguing and often
disturbing mix of quotes and excerpts from film, literature, "anti-Cinderella
ads" and more to debate and devour that age-old label women love
to hate. The number of references is overwhelming (I had to keep
a list), and in many cases you may find yourself tempted to put
Wurtzel down in favor of some other book or movie she mentions.
She quotes the Old Testament and "The New York Times" with equal
emphasis and abandon. She recites key lines from cult movies like
other people quote Shakespeare.
It does get unnerving. I found myself thinking: I don’t need someone
telling me that "Rolling Stone" was "riding a wave of feministic
power" by splashing Tina Turner on its cover...or that Amy Fisher
is a blameless victim. What I really want to know is, what the hell
can I do about the double-standard that seems to exist between men
and women? Why is a woman called a "bitch" when a man is called
"bold" or "visionary?" Wurtzel is strong on examples, but weak on
advice.
"Bitch" could easily have been called "All About Eves" because it’s
all about women of all ages, backgrounds and eras who were bold,
beautiful, independent and unafraid to take risks—no matter what
the cost. Women like the biblical Delilah ("She was sexy and wild
and got her way"), Anne Sexton ("confessional poet and woman of
letters with a smutty mouth and vulnerable soul") and Ivana Trump
("Don’t get mad—get everything!").
What is Wurtzel’s definition of a "bitch?" "Anyone who decides that
what she wants and needs and believes and must do is more important
than being nice." To quote the other (read: male) side of the coin,
a woman who is "difficult, crazy, a nightmare."
Wurtzel doesn’t tell us too many things we don’t already know, but
she does expose both the gory and glamorous sides to being a bitch.
Whether she’s damning society’s double standards, or examining the
cultural problems of date rape, suicide, or unwed mothers, she ties
a famous face to each one: Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, who "so
thoroughly and singularly stood for going crazy"... Frances Farmer,
the lobotomized actress played by fellow bitch Jessica Lange in
the 1982 film, "Frances" was a "symbol of destruction of the difficult
woman"... Hillary Clinton, whose promising pre-White House career
could have taken her anywhere, "ended up being no different from
Barbara Bush...the little woman behind a big man."
Elevated to the status of "bitch," these and dozens more of history’s
most famous and infamous women are venerated by Wurtzel, who some
might consider a bitch herself after her many personal revelations.
(Among them, her confession of sleeping with a forty-eight year
old man when she was twenty-four, just so she could know she’s done
it with someone twice her age).
"Bitch," recently released in paperback by Anchor Books ($14.95),
is Wurtzel’s second novel. Her first, the best-selling "Prozac Nation,"
chronicles her battle with depression.
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