Reflections on Playboy: “Doatsy Mae” dignifies the love of glamour

June 12, 2006

“Doatsy Mae” dignifies the love of glamour

Do you find this fake news item from The Onion funny?

Area Stylist Would Love To Do Julia Roberts’ Hair

BURWELL, NE—Local hair stylist Pam Nowicki would love to do Julia Roberts’ hair, Nowicki announced Monday at the Mane Attraction Beauty Salon in downtown Burwell.

“Julia Roberts is so gorgeous,” the 41–year-old certified cosmetologist said. “I would just die to get my hands on that luscious hair of hers.”

I don’t. Either I’ve missed the joke, or we’re supposed to think this woman is making a fool of herself by openly admiring a world of glamour that she knows she will never inhabit. If I agreed with Vance Packard, Noam Chomsky, and Adbusters that commercial mass culture has the mysterious, voodoo-like power to put false desires in people’s heads, I guess I might have seen satire in the story. But to my libertarian way of crediting people with free will, the humor is cheap, condescending, and sanctimonious.

For much better artistic treatment of a working-class woman whose reach poignantly exceeds her grasp, listen to the song “Doatsy Mae” from the stage version (not included in the inferior movie version) of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas—which, by the way, was inspired by an article in the April 1974 issue of Playboy. As the owner of a small town café, the song’s title character confesses that she would gladly trade places with the local madam, despite the latter’s serious troubles. The townspeople laugh off the suggestion that a plain, simple, respectable gal like her would ever do such a thing. But after they leave, she sings these words to a slow, tender country-and-western melody:

Frederick of Hollywood’s got these clothes in a movie magazine
You send your money, you take your pick
You end up like a Playboy queen
I wanted to, I wanted to
But I never could

Went to the county fair, saw me a show
They had a girl up there
She wore a diamond stuck in her belly
She danced and threw around her hair
I wanted to, I wanted to
But I never could

Chorus:
Doatsy Mae, plain as gray, respectable
Doatsy Mae, day by day, respectable
Doatsy Mae, the one nobody thinks of having dreams
Ain’t as simple as she seems

Some girls have crazy secret thoughts that can really make ’em fly
Some girls can even do the things they maybe think they’d like to try
I wanted to, I wanted to
But I never could

Got me a garter belt, got me a bedroom
Sometimes I close me in
Dance to the mirror, then I can imagine
I’m someone that I’ve never been
I wanted to, I wanted to
But I never could

Repeat chorus
Doatsy’s not as simple as she seems

Carol Hall’s music and lyrics for this song are wistful but never bitter. I think of Doatsy Mae’s path to heaven as exactly 180 degrees from Salieri’s path to hell. Not to be glib or insensitive, but maybe women can keep Playboy from hurting their self-esteem by thinking less like Salieri and more like Doatsy Mae.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 11:01 PM

Salihah סליחה صالحه left this comment at January 11, 2007 2:53 PM
True sensuality and feminine beauty comes from seeing and loving the real woman in the mirror, not pretending to or longing to be anyone else.

Sounds cliche, but it's the truth.

And the rest of the world wonders why Americans are so inhibited over sex. This song summarizes why!

Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 11, 2007 8:57 PM
Salihah,
I think you’re passing judgment needlessly. It’s only human to wonder about the road not taken. And I don’t believe that Americans are uniquely conflicted about sexuality. People everywhere tend to have that problem.

Salihah סליחה صالحه left this comment at January 12, 2007 9:23 AM
From what I understood, the song wasn't so much about wondering, it was about wishing. I guess that's just how I read it. Wishing to be someone else, to me, isn't a happy way to live. That's all I was saying. I wonder a lot about the road not taken, I think everyone does, like you said. But I don't wish I took another route. I am who I am because of my journey, not because of my destination.

The comments about Americans and sex was aimed at the prudes. In Europe you see ads, billboards, commercials showing the female form that you would never see in the US. I can talk about sex with with my non-American friends without all the strange uptight, embarrassed, and nervous feelings I get from my American women friends. Not always that way, all the way, there are exceptions, but in general. It's strange for me. Honestly, you are a surprising exception. I wish more people could be so open and intellectual about sex in the US. Again, just replying from my perspective, it's the only one I got. I am open to others and eager to hear other opinions. But I can only reply from my own life experience. Sorry. I didn't mean it to be a slam on the US, just an observation. I love the US, I'm American, and wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

Anonymous left this comment at November 3, 2007 11:10 PM
As far as the song goes, at least, I don't think it's so much about wishing you were someone you aren't, as wishing you'd taken those chances you never did. Doatsy's just that straight-lace girl that everyone in Gilbert knows'll be there when she's needed, but she's average, normal and forgettable essentially. Plain-Jane, boring as the day, predictable as a sunset. She just wishes that once she'd followed through on one of those big dreams she had, instead of letting everyone else decide who she was, that she was just boring, dreamless Doatsy Mae.

June 12, 2006

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