Earlier this year I read a book by Diane Keaton called Then Again. I know Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone are "it" these days, but Diane Keaton is one of my favorite actresses. She marches to the beat of her own offbeat drum, but she doesn't bang the thing right in your face. In her book she shares stories about growing up in sunny Southern California (hard life) and becoming an actress, but mostly she discusses her relationship with her mother. She even includes pieces from her mother's own memoirs and intersperses them throughout the book, drawing parallels between their lives and experiences. I thought it was a very sweet tribute to her mother and an interesting way of telling her own stories.
Reading Keaton's first book, I was pleased to discover she really is neurotic... The woman wears a lot of hats and gloves, guys. Neurotic, insecure, but still somehow extremely self-assured. And even though she's that actress who always seems to play some version of herself in her movies (since I know her, of course), she's so likable you don't mind. Most of her roles (the best ones, anyway) are variations of the same high-strung but well-meaning heroine who inevitably has some sort of hysterical meltdown. She's good at meltdowns.
I recently started reading her second book - Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty, her memoir about working in the cliche beauty-and-youth-and-beauty obsessed world of Hollywood. Not something I can relate to on that scale, but it's still stuff I worry about. What I admire is that despite holding onto life-long insecurities about her looks and being encouraged to get some things "fixed" - droopy eyes, bulbous nose, flimsy hair - Keaton hasn't had a single nip, tuck, or injection. If all that's true, it's pretty commendable.
In this second book, there's an entire chapter about hair-envy and how much she's battled against her own uncooperative strands. HATS, remember? In another chapter she talks about the irony of inheriting the shape of her eyes from her father, someone with whom she hardly ever saw things eye to eye. Then there are the chapters describing her general awkwardness, anxieties, and pursuit of authenticity. All of this SPEAKS TO ME.
Other chapters discuss the pursuit of beauty. One chapter describes a wall in her home that consists of almost 50 photographs of different men - all famous actors, artists, musicians, models, political figures, etc. Her "detainees." Some she's met or worked with, others she's admired from a distance. The most prominent photo of the bunch is a famous portrait taken of Abraham Lincoln, one she describes as "beautiful." As an unabashed fanatic who has dedicated an entire Pinterest board to the same creepy pastime of collecting famous (and beautiful) men's faces, this speaks to me also. She asserts, "Other women collect men too; they must." This woman does.
I suppose I'm not really recommending these books. If you like Diane Keaton and you're familiar with her movies then you'd probably enjoy them. What fascinates (and reassures) me is how universal female insecurity is. On one hand, Keaton's book makes her seem somewhat narcissistic, but in each chapter she refocuses every self-conscious observation with this reminder: our existence doesn't have to revolve around what we hate about ourselves. Or around what we envy in others. It's not the beauty of the eyes, but the beauty of what they see. It's not about the inescapable embarrassment of the moment, but the ability to laugh at yourself later. It's not about trying to stop time from mapping its course across your face, but realizing that even after all the "fixes," there's still no stopping it. Cliches, yes, but cliches are usually just things that are true.
So yeah. She seems an unlikely favorite, but she is. I'll wrap it up her best movie meltdown... At 0:52 especially.
