The Queen Mother’s death made me start pondering women of the so-called Pepperpot persuasion because she fitted the description of one. Her hair was stationary. It was short, curly and permed. Her clothes were conservative and she carried a little handbag. She was not individualistic - in the last century a huge percentage of women over 50 have chosen a similar appearance. This is my question: why does this image diverge so much from what men are supposed to find attractive? Women whose livelihoods depend on attracting men never, ever look like that. Or do men secretly get off on that kind of thing?
But what about Principal’s Secret, Cellex C. Rogaine, Viagra, free radicals, chin lifts, ab shapers? What about Bo Derek, Patrick Duffy, Joan Collins? How do you reconcile the pepperpot phenomenon with them?
This is just a type, or perhaps a stereotype, of women of a certain age. No different than the nerdy, pimply-faced high school kid working at McDonald’s. Every McD’s employee doesn’t look like that, or have that shrill, cracking voice, but it’s an instantly recognizable type.
I always figured the Monty Python guys played them, in part, because the guys were built more like pepperpots than sexpots. Then again, the resemblence between my mother in law and her sister and Terry Jones in drag is uncanny.
The pepperpots on Monty Python weren’t SUPPOSED to be attractive or sexy! They were supposed to be funny (and, occasionally, they were).
Bear in mind that, while drag is a time-honored tradition in English comedy, Monty Python (like the Kids in the Hall) had a practical, ulterior motive for dressing like women: they had a VERY low budget, and it was a lot cheaper to have a member of the troupe dress as a woman than to pay a real female to play a role in a sketch.
And again, as a practical matter, it was very easy for Terry Jones to slap on a wig and a housedress and pass himself off as a dumpy old biddy. It would have been IMPOSSIBLE for him to look like an attractive woman!
So, when a sketch called for a granny, a matronly housewife, a grotesquely ugly woman, or a frumpy schoolmistress, the part would be played by one of the men in Monty Python. On the rare occasions that a sketch called for a genuinely attractive and traditionally feminine character, well, that’s what Carol Cleveland and Connie Booth were for.
If you watch the Life of Python documentary, they explain a little about this. Including the types of women that each Python played. They described Terry Jones as “Mum”. Eric Idle usually played upper class women who were respectable but who had been “naughty” at an earlier time in their lives. But they describe John Cleese playing a woman as “hopeless”.
I really only chose that Python picture because I was too lazy to search for real life examples of the type of woman I’m talking about. Women who seem to sacrifice their individuality to a certain extent. I was thinking that maybe permed, short hair is a sort of status symbol. Maybe it’s supposed to say: “I’m not a street person or a bag lady. I am not alone. I have (or had) a husband who could afford a woman with gravity defying hair.” And perming solution sure costs an arm and a leg. I don’t know how lower income retirees afford it.
I’m glad I’m from the baby boomer generation and I won’t be forced to adopt the pepperpot style to maintain social respectability. Wouldn’t it be great if people could age like cats? You know, just stay basically the same, just become a bit shabbier around the ears?