Picket Fence Post

Worried that the railing-thin young female stars of the newly revamped 90210 are sending the wrong message to impressionable girls, Entertainment Weekly ran a piece quoting unnamed sources who said folks are growing concerned about the actresses’ bodies which were called ”alarmingly thin, with arms that seem thickest at the wrist, and legs that look like, well arms.” The AMC show Mad Men (shout out to the Emmy winner for best drama!) was singled out for promoting a “healthy body image” mostly because of actress Christina Hendricks, who plays a sultry office manager on the program and who EW called “the very definition of sexy.”

While watching the Emmys last night, I was absolutely taken with how Hendricks made actual, feminine curves fashionable. Take a look at the photo of Hendricks in her green dress at last night’s awards show. Amidst the sea of toothpicks, she stood out and, to echo EW, provided a much healthier attitude toward the female form than the anorexic celebs who usually populate red carpets.

So if you have a daughter who starts to covet the figures of one of the new 90210 gals, show her a photo of Hendricks (maybe not this one of the gown with the plunging neckline, but a tasteful one from the show, like this one) and tell her there are other ways to be beautiful.

Better yet, visit the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty web site, be sure to check out the section for moms who are looking to help their daughters cultivate a healthy body image, and direct your daughter to the section just for the girls.

Image credit: AP/Chris Pizzello/Boston Globe.

Note: If you’re a Mad Men fan — and I know you all want to be – be sure to check out my latest Pop Culture and Politics column about the mixed messages we received from the media over the past 10 days about what we want and expect from American career women.

I thought I was one of a naive minority of folks who thought it unconscionable that Major League Baseball decided to air this year’s All-Star game at 8 p.m., when the first pitch occurred near 9 p.m. My kids – then ages 6, 9 and 9 – wanted desperately to watch the game, but, given its starting time, I told them upfront they’d only get to see about an inning or so live before they’d have to go to bed. I recorded the rest of the game on our Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and told them they could watch it the following day. And I thought that this arrangement stunk.

I felt the same way about the World Series games last fall, which commenced late in the evening and my three young Boston Red Sox fans barely got to watch them (until what I hoped would be the last game and I actually encouraged them to stay up even though it was a school night) because they were prime-time events, airing at times way beyond grade school-aged kids’ bedtimes.  Ditto for the recent NBA championship games in which the Celtics were contending and eventually emerged victorious.

Then along came Stephen King’s column in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, giving voice to the complaints I’ve long had about professional sports which – despite the fact that they cash in on youthful enthusiasm with a variety of over-priced youth paraphernalia and stuffed animals of team mascots — that they’d rather air sports events at night, make lots of money in ad revenue and to hell with the kids and families.

King, a fellow Sox fan, wrote, “. . . [T]hanks to the unholy alliance of Fox and MLB, most ‘event’ TV baseball might as well come with an Adults Only tag.”

Arguing that greed has corrupted America’s favorite past-time, King wrote:

“This year’s All-Star game is a particularly disgusting case of how the game has been pimped out by the very people who pretend to care about its traditions. Fox came on air at 8 p.m. on July 15, and bingo, there go the 6- and 7-year-olds: Sleep tight, kiddies. The game actually started around quarter to nine (there go the 8-year-olds). It rolled past midnight with the score tied (there go the teenagers and working stiffs) and finally ended at 1:38 a.m. on July 16 . . . At 15 innings, it would have ended late no matter what, but if the first pitch had been thrown at 7 p.m., the game still would have been over before midnight. But hey, the kids don’t buy Bud or lawn tractors, so to hell with them.”

He concluded by quoting a sports commentator as saying, “Commerce trumps conscience every time.”

As The Girl continues to come to terms with the fact that baseball is a business, not a national treasure (she’s struggling to overcome her anger and betrayal over the departure of her favorite Sox player, AGAIN, and trying to get through a Sox game without getting upset), I believe it’s my job to give the kids a jaded, realistic perspective on matters involving today’s professional baseball: It’s not about the fans who love the teams, buy the outrageously expensive tickets and shell out hard-earned money for shirts and various merchandise. It’s not about tradition. It’s not about what’s fair. It’s about MLB (the league, the owners and the players). And their money.