Now, many of us love Jamie Lee Curtis. Why? She’s spunky, funny, and brutally honest—and in that instance, she’s considerably different from most of the celebrity set. How so? you ask. Well, Jamie Lee never shied away from being real; she never feared letting us know that she isn’t perfect in that airbrushed, Hollywood sort of way, all the more remarkable because, as the child of screen legends, Janet Leigh (the first woman who brazenly walked about in her bra in the movie Psycho) and recently deceased Tony Curtis, she breathed rarified air.
Now, Jamie Lee’s been in a boatload of movies but she’s unique in her evolution into a straight-talking representative of today’s modern woman. Remember Christmas with the Kranks, the movie where Jamie Lee is Nora Krank, one half of a couple (Tim Allen is the husband) confronted with the reality of the first Christmas without a daughter who’s gone into the Peace Corps? To lessen the pain of the empty nest syndrome, husband Luther Krank got them tickets on a cruise.
To prepare, Nora Krank tries on bathing suits, lamenting her body’s imperfections reflected in the dressing room mirror. The harsh fluorescent light captures all and I marvel: In an era when actresses refuse to age (Joan Rivers, Demi Moore, etc.), Jamie Lee Curtis epitomizes honesty.
But then she’s always been forthright. I recall her acknowledgment of her battle against addictions, admitting her reliance (earlier in life) on drugs and alcohol. She has spoken candidly about her and her mother’s stressed relationship … but always with love.
Her ability to show her imperfection is all the more remarkable in that Jamie Lee Curtis (unlike character actress Kathy Bates) was renowned for her killer body. Remember the British Film, A Fish Called Wanda ( K … K … K … K … Ken?), where she was the point person of the four-member team of crooks, using her body to mesmerize barrister John Cleese? Her plan worked: he forgot his allegiance to wife and the law of the land.
But lately, Jamie Lee has become too honest. In her latest ad as Activia spokesperson (you know, she hawks that creamy yogurt that allegedly generates movement in the digestive system), she pushes an ice cream cart through a park inviting couples to try her refrigerated treats.
A couple approach gingerly and ask if this product isn’t the one designed to help “move things along.” They overcome their initial misgivings and try it, then rave about their findings: “It’s delicious!”
Now, this viewer will say, “The current ad beats its short-lived predecessor.”
In that ad, Jamie Lee enlists us women to videotape ourselves giving testament to the effectiveness of Activia, and we’re invited to send those tapes in, to ostensibly appear on national TV. This prompted me to think, What woman is going to do that? First off, we’d be admitting to the world we had a blockage in our gastro-intestinal track (and that’s just not sexy); furthermore, if we admit success after using Activia, we own up to another truth: we’ve had a productive “event” and that’s even less sexy.
That ad lived briefly in television land and then quickly disappeared, most probably because company higher-ups had an epiphany.
But I personally can’t wait to see the next Activia vehicle for the very honest Jamie Lee. Will we be ringside at a post-mortem of some hapless soul who didn’t flush his system regularly, as was suggested following the death of John Wayne? (Some truths stay with the public—despite reality. John Wayne never had an autopsy!)
Biddy predicts, if Activia is going to go more graphic, they better enlist men for their commercials, for getting women to do these will become the greatest Activia Challenge yet … even if Jamie Lee is their spokesperson.
*See the excerpt below debunking the John Wayne myth about blockage in his digestive track, at supposed autopsy.
