I write this as an aging ethnic female with passions and desires for a creative outlet that of course have not been and will never be realised. Domesticity, responsibility, societal norms, and yes limited self esteem have shaped my life to a predictable existence and an existence contained within the parameters of my gender, race and socioeconomic standing. I should not ever think my life could have ever been different when white women themselves struggle to be artistically realised as equals and those who have, usually have a short shelf life. I speak of actresses, directors, musicians, writers, in short all story telling artists here.

What has spurned this rant ? I’ve had an intense past two weeks of admiring Mr Depp and I’ve always had an admiration for those who Story-tell by film, especially those who’ve managed to play the game and still hold their creative truth (love Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, Cohen Brothers). I’ve admired them for being able to realise their talent and find their expression, knowing full well being a white male helps. In short I’m a sucker for Hollywood Marketing and the Film Industry be it in the US, UK or Australia. But I also know who gets noticed, who gets ‘picked up’ and who the Media Machine will deem which actor beautiful and talented.

Case in point here is Australia of course. Look at who gets exported to Hollywood? Chris Hemsworth, Liam Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Melissa George, Cate Blanchette, Bella Heathcote, Toni Collete, Rachel Griffiths. All pale of the palest white, good Australians, will only be known as Australians because Australia was always a white country and we’re not about to change our identity now are we? All those Heath Ledger Scholarships and Nicole Kidman Grants go only to their own kith and kin, unless someone cares to prove me otherwise? Haven’t seen a lot of indigenous actors in Hollywood of late, have you? For those of you looking at the facts behind this, think about representation. Anglo Australians make up 58% of the population (statistics from 2011 Census) but their representation in media and entertainment is a staggering 86%. It’s a way of manufacturing a white national identity to the exclusion of Indigenous and non-white migrants, oh wait the politically correct term for the latter is now ‘New Australians’.

Cast your minds to Janeane Garofalo vs Reese Witherspoon, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Hudson, and you get the picture of where  Hollywood’s beauty disparity runs. I am being selective here but I wonder why do average plain Blond women always trump the average plain ethnic ones? Thank you Hollywood , thank you mass media.  Drugs and alcohol anyone? Anyone?  And yes, I get it. We all want eye candy to look at, not our mothers and the local supermarket check out chick.  One actress who debunks my rant is Frances McDormand, Ms Plain Jane Blond Chick with Loads of Talent & Integrity, not afraid of aging, I love her. Frances McDormand, I have so much respect for you as a person and actress.

My recent ‘get-sucked-in-crush’ is Johnny Depp, crush version 2.0 seeing as I loved him in the 1980s, 21 Jump Street. He would have liked me back then (given Mr Depp’s penchant for younger women), as I was pre-pubescent and he well in his twenties . Flash to now,  I watched all his movies, saw all his interviews, bought books and interviews about him because in my mid life crisis, boring Sydney suburbia he provided an alternative and an escape. He was different from the rest of them. He didn’t want the teen idol-sex symbol stereotyping roles. He seemed drawn to the weird, the occult, the strange, the outsiders. He loves music, loves art, loves reading. As one blogger wrote, Johnny Depp is the ‘thinking girls’ actor (given his recent marriage and divorce, I don’t quite know if that is what Mr Depp looks for in a woman). He looked like one of ‘them’ and sided with them emitting truth, integrity and honesty. With his dark features, mixed race look, he was siding with me.  Something more to him than meets the eye and yes don’t the eyes get an amazing specimen of a man when they feast on Johnny Depp?

But coming down from my airy loft of fan-in-awe, he is after all the makings of the Hollywood film industry. Would he really be where he is a fat unattractive male? Would he be making as much money if he were an African American? Then I got thinking, he’s not that different to what we expect in Hollywood. He’s still more white than he is ethnic, he takes photos well and he is ‘marketable’. He has eyes only for whippet looking white women (naughty Mr Depp for perpetuating the anorexic ideal as attractive) and as much as he is a ‘gentlemen’ to fans, he is apt to temper , drugs, alcohol and an extremely indulgent white male life of excess, choice, riches and folly. And that’s just how we like it. After much deep thought and many fantasized moments of romantic chance encounters with Mr Depp (read Barnabas Collins) and a deep convincing that he and I would connect on no other level he’d ever experience with another human being, I reluctantly concluded, he’s really like the rest of them and he would never ever give an ethnic woman in her forties, slowly growing fat with stress and age even a moments glance. Bang! A hard hit down to reality, with only my fat butt as protection.

Johnny in his mid-fifties looking like a 1930s hobo magician/drunkard muso may now be experiencing the aging reality like the rest of us. Lucky for Depp he’s a white male, no double standard to contend with. Word of advice Johnny, you don’t need to have the latest and greatest hanging off your arm. I’m not going to comment about his recent marriage and divorce but I will dare him to be with someone who gets him and will look after him regardless of what she looks like. The paradox of the entertainment industry and ‘truth’ is that all that is superficial, light and glitzy often distracts and often doesn’t present with what it appears, much like ‘fake news’ . When you’re too cool, that might be a harder lesson to learn.

That abruptly brings me to the issue of body image and the gender ‘Double Standard’ of beauty.  The double standard of how men can age and women still need to look pre-pubescent in movies, media and the general public in order to be deemed attractive.  The awful, awful mental illness of anorexia and bulimia, if you ask me, a symptom of patriarchal desire. The desperate need to diet, exercise, botox, undertake plastic surgery and every other regime one can find to reverse the aging process. It has made some look like buffoons. Serves them right if their vain excesses have made them appear more feral than real. Why do we let these people dictate what is beautiful in the world anyway? Is it because it’s now an industry? Money is involved? How dare an industry tell us who is beautiful and who isn’t? People of the world, we should rebel!

So next time you want ‘luck’ to get you somewhere in the creative industry in a first world country, be sure to look the part first and start when you’re twelve years old and be blond. Preferably be someone who did modelling first because school was too hard. Try then to act the part. Then actually get paid well for it. The rest of us are hanging around with our hands outstretched for the charity of knowing who can have and who can’t have, who is attractive and who isn’t, working hard for the spare change to fall our way because our genes and happenstance in the world would never allow us near that privileged grail of paid creativity leading to fame and fortune. Unless of course you have no integrity, reality nor dignity….