|
What I've Learned About Popularity
from Motion Picture, March 1945
by Judy Garland
Popularity isn't a gift, says Judy. Anybody can have it who's
willing to work and earn it ... Judy should know, too, for everyone
loves her
As far as I am concerned, popularity, whether you are in the movies
or not, is purely a matter of balance. Of mind, emotion and
character. And you don't acquire it in ten easy lessons. You have
to plug at it.
I think perhaps the whole secret of popularity lies in the fact
that the wrong moves don't work and the right ones do, and each of
us has to find out by trial and error which are which.
Striving too hard doesn't work, for instance. It just makes a girl
a pest instead of a pet. Bad taste in dress, manner or
conversation is offensive to people. So are haughtiness and humor
at someone else's expense. Men just don't like a girl who gossips,
and anybody who is determined to be the life of the party somehow
makes everyone else wish she'd put on her hat and go home!
If I were asked the three paramount rules for being popular, I
think I would answer: intelligence (not the intellectual brand),
unaffectedness and a sense of humor. Add a little charm and lots
of good taste and no man could ask for more in the woman he takes
out.
Yet a girl can have all that and still spoil her effect by
indulging in careless little feminine idiosyncrasies. Things like
cluttering a dining table with an oversized handbag that gets in
the way of the food, the menu and the ashtrays. Reaching into the
handbag and searching around for hours at a time. How men hate
that!
Just as inexcusable as the girl who combs her hair in public is the
one who devotes one-fourth of her time to her dinner partner and
the other three-fourths to all the other guests. I have seen that
happen so many times.
One night when I was dining out with a friend at a Hollywood
restaurant, we were forced to ask for another table because of the
atmosphere that hung like a pall over the next party. There, a
girl was entertaining her uniformed escort with vivid pictures of
her favorite and latest operation. And in a loud voice that all
men loathe.
I thought then how important it is for a girl to know how to handle
effectively a conversation with a serviceman. She can best do that
with understanding, gaiety, ability to listen. And certainly by
choosing her topics of conversation, especially at a dinner table,
with care and discrimination.
Girls who talk only of celebrities, I have found, usually don't
know any. Too few girls know how to put a man at his ease with
words alone. In the all-important matter of conversation, they are
not always sure of themselves. Consequently, they concentrate on
books they've heard about, places they've read about and plans
they've dreamed about. If they can't come down to earth and stay
within the bounds of their own knowledge, no matter how restricted,
they'd get far more effective results by merely staying
quiet.
Small talk can bog down the progress of the most exciting new
friendship. Usually it springs from shyness rather than lack of
knowledge. When she finds the talk getting awfully general and
dull, it is a good idea for a girl to remember that a man enjoys
being drawn out.
She can talk to him about his career, present or postwar, letting
him ramble on about his own interests, as wide, as varied or even
as complex as they might be. She can show genuine interest in his
pattern of existence.
All women should recognize a man's pride of possession. Any man
likes to feel that he is dining, dancing, going out with a girl who
is close to him. Otherwise why would he be out with her?
Oh, I don't mean that a girl should go in for cheek-to-cheek
dancing, holding hands under the table or staring goo goo-eyed at
her beau. She can show her response to his pride of possession by
giving him her attention throughout the evening, by refraining from
talking about other dates or from comparing him with other beaux,
even to herself.
Whether she is a star or not, these are five of the things that any
girl should bear in mind if she wants to be popular.
1. Never talk loudly.
2. Never monopolize the conversation.
3. Never be rude.
4. Never show snobbishness.
5. Never display lack of dignity.
If she is to protect her charm, her naturalness and her ability to
command respect, she must:
1. Act natural.
2. Show graciousness.
3. Be polite to her elders.
4. Be a good listener.
5. Abide by her own standards.
She should also, if she is wise, remember that men sense cattiness
in a woman a mile away. If it gives her any satisfaction to be
catty, she can let loose among her women friends - if they'll stand
for it. But as for the men, let them have relief from her
tattletale mind.
Most of the girls in Hollywood overdo their eagerness to please by
resorting to a prop smile. How men hate that! There is nothing
more annoying or discouraging to a man in the process of unloading
his thoughts than the sight of an on-again-off-again artificial
smile. A girl who can't smile naturally, pleasantly and sometimes
fondly should find other means to convey her reactions.
I think girls today should take a little more care to see that boys
don't have to put up a front - but without allowing them to know
it. After all, if the boy means a great deal to her, a girl
shouldn't care where she goes with him. If, on the other hand, she
has to think always of where she is seen, then there is much more
wrong with her than carrying out a few rules can remedy.
|
