SimplyMom: ....Same Bat Channel

Posted by Mary

Continuing on my TV musings, I wanted to say or word or twenty about my other guilty pleasure, TV Land's original competitive reality show She's Got the Look. In case you missed it (and how could you? They played it twenty times a week.), this show pitted ten gorgeous over-35 women in a head-to-head battle....well, modeling competition. It was like America's Next Top Model meets "Calendar Girls." And it was hosted by Kim Alexis, who - along with Carol Alt - graced almost every cover of Mademoiselle and Glamour in my growing up years. (It was Jayne Modean and Lindsey Erwin on Teen and Seventeen, and the supermodels Alexis and Alt on the "grown up women" mags.)

Well, apparently we've all grown up - even Kim, who is, of course, beautiful, but certainly not as fresh-faced as I remember. And the women in this competition aren't fresh or fierce - but they're gorgeous, some in that cookie cutter suburban mom way and others in a quirky, "I've finally grown into my nose" way. Anyway, the women are competing for a whole new life, courtesy Wilhelmina Modeling Agency, which offered a modeling contract as a prize. (Not to be outdone, Self Magazine also offered up a spread in its pages.) Nice work if you can get it, eh?

Well, after a half dozen episodes (with contestants told "You're not on the board" at the end of each), we came down to this week's finals, which ended with a former Mrs. California International named Tanya, a quirky, angular blond named Karin, and the drop-dead gorgeous Bahia, exotic and sultry and the perfect Mrs. Robinson type, if you know what I'm saying. (And I think you do.)

In the end, it was the former beauty queen who walked off with the prize, which in a way is how it should be. Some girls will always be the prom queen, and Tanya looks like she was born with that role - even now, five kids later.

Watching this show was quite the experience for me. After all, I fall in this age group. Heck, I even have five kids. And, even though I was never the prom queen type (and I certainly don't "have the look"), I can understand what this competition meant to these women. It wasn't about strutting and make-up and launching a career (like it is on ANTM). No, this was about proving that, even with wrinkles and age spots and extra pounds, women can be strong and appealing. It was about having someone look at you and see more than Mom or Career Woman or whatever it is you became when you grew up. It was about being appreciated for beauty, inside and out, and I don't know a woman who doesn't blush at that type of compliment.

It was about realizing we might not be as fresh-faced as we used to be, but that doesn't mean we're stale. And that moms of five - like Tanya, like Kim Alexis, heck, like me! - can still be fierce.

Next time you find yourself overwhelmed by the laundry, the ringing cell phone and the demands for peanut butter sandwiches, hold on to that thought.

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SimplyMom: ....Same Bat Channel

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