I can’t picture Annette ever being a woman attaining a level of recognized greatness that Margaret Thatcher did; and I can’t picture "The Iron Lady" of Downing Street with the patently powerful girl-into-woman influence over the once-upon-a-time boomer mid-generation, both girls and boys, that a young Annette had. However, when it came to having "IT" when that counted most for themselves and the world around them both of these women did.
Certainly for Americans, Annette was famous far ahead of Margaret Thatcher. For that mini-generation who came of age when Sputniks and dogs in space gave way to men in space capsules, atop real moon-rockets, Annette was all about what “coming of age” was really about. In so many ways, Annette always had more babe in toyland in her than Mouseketeer, because even early-on her very being suggested that she was one of those babes in the woods, who was fully capable of turning anybody from boyland, who was remotely masculine, into a toy in her beach blanket version of babeland. If the name, “Annette Funicello,” could scan and rhyme as well, I’m sure the song in “Grease” would have been more about her and not “Sandra Dee”; and it would have been sweeter, purer, more dreamy, and less cynically sexual than the one about the little poodle blonde. After all, even as written, that song is clear "...Would you pull that crap with Annette?"
Margaret Thatcher was a different sort of Dame entirely. When you needed an All-Star team to win a Cold War, Maggie was exactly the kind of gal you wanted in your lineup. Getting striking miners back into the pits — Maggie’d shoo them back to work faster’n the coal dust would blacken their collars and their lungs. A slogan like, "I'm for workers not for shirkers !" clearly showed that to her progress meant prosperity and “Devil take the hindmost.” And even now, it might not do to mention her name in Argentina; her version of “Don’t Cry to Me About Malvinas” still has them clamoring in the stalls and the Halls of Buenos Aires. But even the "Argies" benefited from that drubbing, the loss of that war brought down the ruling junta of generals and democracy was restored.
Both Annette and Margaret came from modest backgrounds. And even though both achieved a level of fame and recognition on a large scale, both were also rather conventional wives and mothers, and grandmothers. Neither had perfect lives. Both women suffered from long, debilitating diseases, one of them made it her cause. They are and will continue to be remembered fondly by many, probably most. It's not likely that we will see anybody like either one of them again.
5 comments:
When my father died the sun was shinning on his face and he had the biggest smile on his face and at that moment I was sad but I was also happy for him for the chase we all search for was over for he had crossed into a better journey.
Gale I think of Thatcher and I think of Annette two great women who left their marks on our souls but remember where my father went they too and Gale as long as we remember them inside of our souls they never die and everytime you mention their name they live forever and ever
I'm glad Thatcher is dead. Long live Bobby Sands
"Don't cry for me Argentina..." was written by a Brit, Andrew Lloyd something... Since you brought up the Special Category Prisoners, Long Kech and the hunger strikers, one of ALW's lesser known works is "A Beautiful Game." It's about North Irish Prods and Caths playing English football [soccer] together against the backdrop of an Ulster deeply divided and troubled -- actually, it's more about the troubles in the 1970s and 80s than the football.
No doubt about it, Maggie and the Brits could be tough and tough to take.
Bobby Sands, Member of the British Parliament, died in HM Prison Maze (aka Long Kech) on May 5,1981. Following the death of ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the 8th April 2013, a Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle tweeted, "The Ghost Of Bobby Sands appeared to me and tried to start a conga line."
REFLECTIONS FROM THE WEST COAST: I happened across an article in the LA Times that was very much an amplification of what I had said about Annette Funicello and Margaret Thatcher above (See “Margaret Thatcher, Annette Funicello and the spectrum of sisterhood” by Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times – Television Critic
4/9/13 [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-funicello-thatcher-femininity-20130409,0,7323465.story]
Ms. McNamara’s main point was that, “Though disparate, the British leader and the Mouseketeer-pop star each contributed to shifting ideals of femininity and the women's movement.” More specifically she said, “It's difficult to imagine former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former Mouseketeer and pop music star Annette Funicello sharing much beyond today's obituary page — Thatcher died Monday, at 87, of a stroke; Funicello, at 70, of complications arising from multiple sclerosis. But as disparate as their careers and legacies were, they each contributed to shifting ideals of femininity and a modern women's movement often as dismayed by its successes as its failures.”
This part about Annette caught my eye — “It was easy to love Annette, but only in the past tense. As the world changed, she and her Mouska-friends quickly became nostalgia personified.... For many women who came of age in the 1960s, Funicello was the last of the wide-eyed good girls. She was perky rather than sassy, pretty in a non-threatening and enthusiastically demure way that the crosshatched forces of the women's and sexual liberation movements took great pleasure in parodying. *** ‘Would you pull that crap with Annette?’ asks ‘Grease's’ Rizzo in the show's most socially aware song, eternally linking Funicello with that era's other symbol of repressed womanhood, Sandra Dee....”
Margaret Thatcher was dynamic, exiting and polarizing during her public life. That continued during the time of her retirement and withdrawal from public life. It all follows her in death. From this point forward we will see if she moves from the plateau of historic to the level of mythic.
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