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Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 13

October 11, 2024 / / 0 Comments

So as you can tell, we are up to the last two  compromised relics of Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine. Both of these final two have portions cropped out of their respective photographs. Plus the angle of the paper on this one makes it a challenge to read. I might just go blind trying to transcribe it for us here. But I’ve tried, where I can, to figure out what the missing parts say. In some cases, the text is pretty much undecipherable.

This one is also an unusual sample because it has stylized  drawings of Sonny and Cher instead of the usual photograph of them. The Cher drawing is pretty swell, but Sonny looks more like Ringo Star on the top and David Crosby on the bottom or “the lovechild between Hal Linden and Cheech Marin” (M.CS).

 

[DO YOU HAVE some personal questions that are crying for an answer? Do  you need heartfelt advice from someone who knows and cares? Do you feel that there is no one that you can turn to or trust? If you answer yes to all of these questions, please don’t despair—because Sonny] and I are really here and we really are going to help you. Each month we carefully read your mail and pick out a cross-section of the most important questions that you ask. If your answer is not here in this issue, please keep looking—because sooner or later we will get around to you and your problem.

LITTLE MISS INNOCENCE

Dear Cher, There is one girl in this town who is a natural hazard to the rest of us—especially me! If she finds out that you like a certain guy, she immediately “attaches” herself to him. Whenever that certain guy is around, she manages to get up close to him, blink her eyes at him and come on like “little Miss Innocence.” She’s really buddy-buddy with the guy I like. What can I do to get rid of her? STUCK, [unreadable city and state]

Cher’s Response:

Dear Stuck, If you’ll read your letter over carefully, you will have to admit that “it takes two to tango” [not that again]. I mean, if the guy is being “taken” by this girl’s act, then he must want to be “taken.” She probably makes him feel super-important and most guys just love that! Why not try fighting fire with fire? Nest time you see him, give him the same treatment. Don’t by gushy, but come on just enough to make him feel that you think he’s a pretty special guy. Sometimes, if you have that special spark in your eyes—it can ignite a fire in his! [In his what?]

Cher Scholar’s Response:

“Get rid of her.” Real mob-boss flirting, right there. Don’t do that. Does eye blinking work? Is that a viable strategy? I thought that was something we did just ironically? I guess post-modernism hasn’t happened yet.

I would say move away from this girl into a more control-group situation, but in high school you can’t always do this. You’re all stuck together. If these were adult office peoples, you could always plan a happy hour while she’s on vacation. Or just not tell her where the happy hour is going on. You know, mean girl stuff.

Hey maybe try this instead: pretend to like multiple guys and even some girls too and short circuit this girl. She won’t be able to keep up. Maybe it will short circuit this guy as well. I mean he has free will, doesn’t he?

And this whole stoke-his-ego scheme that “Cher” is referring to here. I am having a hard time picturing her following her own advice on this one. At least in public she does not at all seem like the type willing to pander to men. But you never know what happens behind closed doors, I always say. And Charlie Rich says that too. People are different in intimate situations, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, sometimes just because.

Cher was madly in love with Sonny and still he had to deal with her continual smart assery, so much that it became their live act schtick and then their television show schtick. Cher’s sass can be seen all the way back to the movie Good Times. She may be enamored with this Sonny guy but she’s not always happy about it or willing to behave. And I love her for that. Do not go gentle into the good night of love!

NERVOUS NELLIE

Dear Cher, I have a lot of friends and I like to meet new people, but whenever I go to my classrooms in school I get nervous! Whenever the teacher asks me something, I just blush and whisper in a low voice. How can I stop feeling that way? SHY IN CLASS, Denmark, Wisc.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Shy In Class, Sounds to me like you’ve got a common ailment known as “stage fright.” It’s a feeling very similar to one most entertainers have when they start out. The only way to beat it is to refuse to let it beat you. The next time your teacher calls on you, take a deep breath—look her squarely in the eye—and force yourself to project your voice so that everyone in the room can hear it. It’s tough to do, at first—but after a few times your fear will fade away completely and you might even find it fun to recite or answer a question in front of an “audience” (especially if you know the answer!) Keep at it—practice makes perfect.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Just take a speech class. That will shock the fear right out of you. I did theater in high school and found butterflies always had a short shelf life; but nothing prepared me for the college speech class. One guy in the class did a speech on manatees and ended up fleeing the room, never to return. That first speech was a gauntlet! It’s the trenches of stage freight. After that, nothing ever seemed very scary.

But there’s an umbrella to stage fright which is any kind of performance anxiety. I was actually more afraid to answer the phone than I was to get up on a stage and read someone else’s words. Hell, if the audience didn’t like it, maybe it was the script. But answering the phone you had to think for yourself and on the fly! And until I went though a week of being a receptionists where phone answering was unavoidable, that fear never went away. (I still don’t love hearing the phone ring, to be honest.)

But the point is, nobody on the other line really cares all that much. This was the point of a really good Schitt’s Creek scene where the character David Rose was deathly afraid of failing his driving test and his sister Alexis was telling him the driving instructor really didn’t care if he passed or failed. “Nobody cares….people aren’t thinking about you the way you’re thinking about you.” David doesn’t believe her but when the driving instructor arrives, David suddenly notices that it’s just another day on the job for the driving instructor who is wrapped up in his own life struggles and, in fact, does not care whether David passes or fails. This frees up David to pass the test.

Cher infamously had crippling stage fright and sometimes describes fainting and throwing up before her first live shows. This is the whole reason Sonny & Cher even exist as a duo. Sonny knew he was not a strong singer and was only intending to promote and support Cher as a performer. But Cher literally pulled him out on stage with her and for the next ten or so years she performed mostly to him (even on television) to get through her discomfort with live audiences.

Here is what that sounded like (1964).

NOW—OR LATER?

Dear Cher, I am a 9-year old girl. I’m intelligent and fairly attractive. I’d like to order 16’s Popularity and Beauty Book. Do you think I’m too young for it? Should I wait until I’m older? MIXED-UP, Mt. View, Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Mixed-Up, You’re never too young to look, feel and act your best [good grief]. The sooner you learn how, the better. I think that the 16’s Popularity and Beauty Book can answer a lot of the questions you’ll be asking as you grow up. It might possibly allow you to side-step many of the teenage problems that lie ahead. Go ahead, get one (see ad on facing page)! Give yourself a headstart! It’s much better to be too early—than too late!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

We’ll have to agree to disagree here. Yes, Mixed-Up, you are too young. Come on, you’re already mixed up! Reading this won’t allow you to “side-step” any of the girl drama ahead. You’ll just start obsessing over it sooner, when you should be doing things like dancing to records and building forts where you can get down to the business of plotting a takeover of the neighborhood with your girl and boy friends. Play some Yahtzee. Roller skate to the pool. Anything else. I’m guessing you have an older sister or you wouldn’t even know this silly book exists. That said, I keep looking for it on eBay. But don’t you fall for it!

Trust me. It’s fine to be “too late” with all this shit. You will have plenty of time to pour over this beauty and boys book like it’s a tome of scripture instructing you on how to reset your hair after having to pull it out again every goddamn, lovesick day.

The only exception to this is would be if you’re 9 years old and have your hot, sweaty hands on a Cher Makeup Center. In this case you can learn how to roll up synthetic hair and put makeup on a plastic face to your heart’s content. Look how much fun this girl is having!

SEARCHIN’

Dear Sonny, It’s hard to define my problem, but I’ll try. I’m a [member of] a close-knit, happy family. Lately, I’ve been the most [unreadable] guy in the world. I don’t care to join in games with my [unreadable] brothers and sisters, and I’m not happy doing the  [unreadable] things that used to be fun. I feel lonely—even in a crowd [unreadable] my friends at school seem different and childish [unreadable]  don’t know what’s the matter with me. I feel like I’m [searching] for something, but I don’t know what it is! When will I be [unreadable]? DISTURBED, Tucson, Ariz.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Disturbed, You defined your problem very well! It’s a problem [unreadable]  everyone has to deal with when they make the big step [unreadable]  childhood to young manhood or womanhood. All of a [sudden] you find yourself looking at the world through different [eyes] and things just don’t look the same. The “it” you are [looking] for is you—the real you. The friends who look different [unreadable]  now just haven’t reached the stage of development [that you] have—but they will! Growing up is never an easy thing [unreadable]. (In this hectic world we live in, it’s getting more difficult [unreadable] day!) If you will try to realize that millions of teenagers [all over] the world are experiencing the same inner “growing pains” [unreadable] you are—you won’t feel so lonely. We are all (at one [time or] another) searching for something—and most of us spend [the] time looking in the wrong places. Look within—you’ll [unreadable] what you see. When you find yourself, you’ll know the [unreadable] was worthwhile. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I feel like some of the most pertinent parts of this response are unreadable. What will be worthwhile?? What will you see when you look within??

Cher was oddly both immature and overly mature for her age. She admits that when she moved out at 16 years of age she “couldn’t even match socks.” But as the oldest sister in a house with a working mother, Cher says she was also often called upon to do adulting before she wanted to. Someday I would like to hear sister Georganne’s stories about their growing-up years. Which reminds me that part of the big Sonny & Cher entourage we never saw at the time included family members who all spent a lot of time with Sonny & Cher, including Cher’s sister Georganne and Sonny’s first daughter Christy. They all grew up as part of the extended Sonny & Cher family and growing up too fast is often a problem in celebrity families. You could see the hardships of the child/adult transition watching both Chaz and Elijah as they both struggled with the same addictions and crises of purpose many children in Hollywood seem to go through.

I am no expert in maturity so I’m gonna have to pass on this one. I got nothin.

FOOTBALL PLAYIN’ TOMBOY?

Dear Sonny, What do boys think of girls who are “tom-boys”? I’m [unreadable] years old and I love to play football and hate to wear dresses [unreadable] play football with the boys in my home town and that [unreadable] me almost as one of them. I’d trade a new dress for a [pair of] jeans any day! Is there anything wrong with me? DRESS-HATER, Raeford, N.C.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Dress-Hater, As long as you’re concerned about what boys think about [unreadable]—there is nothing wrong. The popularity of slacks and [unreadable] with the girls of today should show you that there are [unreadable] “dress-haters” around besides you. As to the football play[unreadable] I’m not quite sure these boys “accept you” almost as [one of] them. If I were you, I’d restrain my love for football to the [side] lines and to watching games on TV. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Shouldn’t that be “as long as you’re not concerned” Sonny? You’re fine if you’re not concerned?

Okay, there’s probably something very honest about what Sonny is saying here. I appreciate his honest sexism here. But aside from that, this advice is probably some of the worst advice I’ve every heard in my entire life.

I come from a sports loving family and was actually pressured to play sports but I hate running and jumping so…I literally lettered in theater which is, in it’s own way I guess, a dangerous contact sport. But I was often made to attend sporty things like swim meets and baseball games and had to be bribed each time with food because I’ll pretty much attend anything if food’s on the table somewhere in there.

But I found I was willing to get into a sport for friends and lovers. And luckily my friends are like me and also not into sports so that basically leaves boyfriends. If they are into it, I will try to get into it. This was initially a challenge with my in-laws who follow the Kansas City Chiefs. Even the girls. It’s part of their family culture and family events often revolve around the games.  The first few years were rough as I had no idea what was going on and football seemed extremely boring. I would fixate on funny player names (Dexter McCluster) and making jokes about things the announcers would say. Then Patrick Mahommes became the quarterback.  That was a game changer, as they say. He was adorable and often ran like a girl while crushing the NFL with his athletic impossibilities the whole time. It wasn’t hard to become a fan after that. Also, Tyrek Hill used to do cartwheels after touchdowns.

Aside from many, many hetero girls loving football these days, it’s also possible this young girl might be gay. There’s a very memorable clip of Chaz throwing a football with Elijah on one of the Barbara Walters interview specials from the 1980s. We all thought Chaz was a tomboy back in the day. The point is there are many tom-boys, gay girls, trans boys and girlie girls who like football. And some of them play it and even coach it. Quite a few women are making inroads into the NFL as coaches.

I recently had an argument with my Dad about trans athletes in sports and he was saying it wasn’t fair for trans girls to complete with other girls and I did agree with that but I was recommending we rethink sports entirely in a non-gendered way based on weight classes (like we do in wrestling and boxing). You know, the way we should have been doing all this time anyway. In the middle of this my Dad admitted there are women who have shown they are better kickers than men. I said, “That’s great. Can women join football teams now then?” And he said immediately, “No.”

So it’s not about skill or a strength advantage. It’s about gender discomforts in gendered spaces (a.k.a. boys clubs).

And then there’s the fact that Cher is a football fan herself going back to the 1970s. She once described a party where the Fearsome Foursome’s Deacon Jones taught her the game. Throughout the years, she has mentioned still enjoying watching football.

There are many reasons why Sonny’s gender-rigged response does not age well. Arms akimbo to this response, Sonny!

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 12

September 27, 2024 / / 2 Comments

So we had a bit of an unplanned break in finishing these Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine. I was hoping this would be a fun summertime project but we may not even finish them this year. We have two left after this one but a lot going on including a shit storm of a year, (I keep thinking things will get better every New Years Eve and somehow…)

But we continue on. Maybe Sonny & Cher will have some advice on the existential crisis. Fingers crossed.

I have to say, in the interim of August I finished Susan Dey’s guide to womanly perfection and it was much better than I was initially making it out to be. Only two things haunt the book in hindsight: the chapter on boys seems all the more tragic when you figure in Susan Dey’s ill-fated crush on David Cassidy and how that all turned out. Secondly, in the dieting chapter Dey admits (in almost a side-comment) that people are telling her she’s not eating enough. Alarm bells went off there, (as a drunk knows a fellow drunk), and so I researched her life and, yes, she did suffer from anorexia during the time of the book’s writing. Which is terrible and my sympathies to Susan Day for going through that.

But that does put all the dieting advice under suspicion. But the good thing about the book was that it wasn’t didactic, after you got past the boys chapter anyway, and there was some good, simple advice in there: haircuts for face shapes, how to make conversation at parties. My book had “Amy H—” handwritten in pencil in the inside cover and I sincerely hope she wasn’t ruined by it. God speed, Amy H—-. We are sisters in the journey.

 

DO YOU HAVE some personal questions that are crying for an answer? Do  you need heartfelt advice from someone who knows and cares? Do you feel that there is no one that you can turn to or trust? If you answer yes to all of these questions, please don’t despair—because Sonny and I are really here and we really are going to help you. Each month we carefully read your mail and pick out a cross-section of the most important question that you ask. If your answer is not here in this issue, keep looking—because sooner or later we will get around to you and your problem.

NOSEY

Dear Cher, Help! I’ve got a serious problem. I have a big nose! I’m dead self-conscious about it. My figure is fine—I get whistles when I walk down the street. It’s just this nose of mine that makes me blue. How can I cure these self-conscious feelings? Mary, Wickliffe, Ohio

Cher’s Response:

Dear Mary, [Eeee! It’s like this letter is to to me!}, It seems to me that your problem isn’t quite as serious as you think! Having a big nose hasn’t stopped quite a few stars from making a go of it! Barbra Streisand is a prime example—and so is Sonny! Sonny found that when he felt self-conscious about his nose, people seemed to be more aware of it. The minute he accepted it as part of himself, no one ever made a bad remark again! Accept your nose as an unchangeable part of you—because it is—and forget about it! I think you’ll find that other people will too.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

That is a good answer but nobody wants to be a butterface. I don’t think even Sonny and Cher followed their own advice here.

To be honest, I have met very few people who like their faces. Even people with beautiful faces! Perception is an absurd thing. And a nose, let’s be honest, is a weird thing, just a bizarre-looking thing on any face no matter how culturally acceptable that particular nose may be. Can we all agree on that?

The nose would become a prominent part of Sonny & Cher schnoz schtick. In the 1960s, it was Sonny who was perceived as the big-nosed one. By the time The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour went on the air, the routine had Sonny making fun of Cher’s nose.

This was all perceived as fun and games until Cher saw her face on a big screen and agreed that there was too much nose there. She then fixed her nose and her teeth, which did change the look of her face. Both faces are fine. Cher’s old nose was fine.

And although Sonny never did come out as having a nose job, many fans believe he did by the end of the 1960s, somewhere around the time he stared wearing a mustache.

At the end of the day, if both Sonny and Cher got nose jobs, we have to take this advice here with a grain of salt. Another case of someone standing their ground before capitulating.

Check out those noses!

SELFISH

Dear Cher, I am 13 years old and I like this boy—natch! The problem is that my nextdoor neighbor likes him too! When he liked her, she dropped him fast—then I began to like him. Now I like him very much, but she likes him again. What should I do—back out or fight? Confused, New York City

Cher’s Response:

Dear Confused, Fight, of course. Your next door neighbor sounds like she is never satisfied with the things she has, but can’t stand to have anyone else have them. These people are very easy to beat. You can’t lose, because if you back out she will drop him again. Have you considered talking it over with the boy?  How does he feel about it? If he is still “carrying a torch” for your neighbor, your fight will be a little tougher. Just keep in mind that she doesn’t want him—she just doesn’t want you to have him!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, I can’t believe they were saying “natch” way back when. Secondly, we’re assuming a lot about this neighbor.

I think the “fight” advice is problematic, to be honest. We’ll get to that later. But talking it over with the boy sounds like a sound solution. When two or more people like one person, it’s really up to that one person at that point. Think of it the other way around, two boys after a girl. They think they’re in competition with each other, (I learned this on a Facebook reel recently), but they’re not. And fighting each other over a girl is…well, kind of sexist because it assumes the girl will chose the winner of a duel instead of having feelings and opinions of her own about the two boys. And if that’s true for some of us, it’s true for all of us. So skip the duel. The boy has to choose. Well, I guess he doesn’t have to but if he goes that way, you have your answer: he doesn’t care for either of you all that much and is making the most of the situation.

Cher did hang on despite the fact that there were others interested in Sonny and it resulted in a lot of pain for her. But also a megastar career. That’s not likely (or even advisable) for the rest of us. Who knows what kind of competition she was facing but it was ultimately Sonny’s decision. And he made one…kind of.

GOODY-GOODY

Dear Cher, My problem is that I don’t have any friends. I know quite a lot of people, but nobody talks to me at school. I even walk home alone. Someone told me it’s because I’m too good. I get all A’s in school and everybody think I’m a “square.” What can I do? Gertrude, Newark, N.J.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Gertrude, Being intelligent is a lonely road at times. It seems that most people want you to conform to their way of thinking. Would they like you better if you failed subjects, cut classes and acted like they did? [Yes, I think that’s what she is saying.] Would you like to be just like they want you to be—and not like you are? [Are we reading the same letter?] I hope not. Getting A’s on your report card is not as easy thing to do, or you would not be called too good. You can find friends among the other “squares” in school—and when you do, you may find out who the real “squares” are.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Well, I guess it’s time to start playing dumb. I’ve seen it work.

Just kidding. This is good advice. Find the squares pronto. They are up to some weird shit that is very interesting. I was just talking about this at dinner last night with a friend of mine. The cool kids, the popular kids: they have it too easy and therefore have no creative problems-solving skills. Not to say the square kids have that yet either but they’re trying out things. They’re forced to. And it’s a lot less boring over there, I tell you what.

Some genius (and in some cases, infamously dangerous) eccentrics (I mean nerds) in Cher’s life:

PEST

Dear Sonny, There is a girl who digs me so much—it’s icky. I just can’t stand her. My friends kid me because she is always hanging around. Please, give me some pointers on how to shake this bird! Bugged, Newport Beach, Calif.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Bugged, Tell the truth! It sounds like she is not easily shaken. If she is not aware by now that you are not interested, it won’t do you any good to ignore her. Take the time to really talk to her, and tell her in the nicest way you know how that you are just not interested. Be honest—but be kind. Remember, if you leave her a thread of hope—she’ll hang on!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

So here is where the “fight” advice hits a wall. And these are he kinds of mixed messages the lovelorn often get: make it happen…but just short of stalking. There’s a wide and confusing berth there. Hard to dock.

Talking it out is the best advice and so Sonny is right in this case. And Sonny was fending off more women than we would assume from his caricatured-self on the variety shows. He was a famous pop and TV star. Truly, he could have probably done more fending off but ultimately this is what pushed Cher to go it alone. People also under-assume how risky that felt at the time for her and Sonny exacerbated that fear and risk by telling her America would hate her for leaving him and it would ruin both of their careers. And Cher believed everything Sonny said about that sort of thing so…

Cher had to figure out the adage you want them, you don’t need them. Which she famously did by the time she called men a luxury and not a necessity. Cher was able to run her career (or at least put together the entourage) for herself.

This is all to say Cher flew on and this bird can too.

This is Cher putting on her big-girl pants…(or something like that):

SHY-GUY?

Dear Sonny, I met a boy a few weeks ago at a dance. He acted very nice toward me and we really had a good time. Now, I see him every day in school and he doesn’t even say “hello.” He stares at me a lot, but he never talks to me. Could it be because I’m a year younger than he is. Miss Fortune, Scranton, Pa.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Miss Fortune, I don’t think age has a thing to do with it. It sounds to me like this boy is a little shy. It’s not too hard for a shy-guy to talk to a girl at dances, [Why is that? Is there booze?] if he’s gotten over the hurdle of asking for the first dance. Once you begin to dance, it is harder not to talk. But back at the old schoolyard, it can be a lot tougher. Why sit around waiting for him to say “hello” to you? Act friendly, smile—and then say “hello” to him. He sounds like he needs a little encouragement. It talkes two to tango!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

This is assuming a lot, Sonny. People can lose interest after a dance. And staring is not evidence of feeling. Like I said weeks ago, it could mean a lot of things, like you look ridiculous and the staring party is incredulous.

Cher has often said she struggles with shyness too. But she also often laments that men are afraid to ask her out on dates due to her Cherness. I’m also sure Cher fends off unwanted offers quite a bit. Fame is a power-structure that’s often difficult to negotiate.

But for a lot of these questions you can answer “it takes two to tango.” Two people have to show up. People are closed or open in a plethora of ways. Some are closed at the onset, some are closed to anything really deep, some are closed around a few secrets.

There is no intimacy without vulnerability. There are also no first dates without vulnerability either. So talking on the “hello” duties might not be nearly enough. You can’t always get the horse to the water sometimes (let alone the drinking of it)…and you could become miserable trying.

Shy-guy has to figure it out.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 11

August 27, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This is a very typical image for Sonny & Cher at the time, head to head, a bored-looking Sonny, a dreamy-looking Cher. For some reason, this issue has headings, which I can only think serves to take up some space for short questions and short answers. Typical subjects are covered this week, including every girl’s ongoing desire to have Cher-hair. In fact, there’s lots of hair in this one. You could say this is a hairy issue of “Dear Cher….and Sonny” from 16 Magazine!” Har.

 

Do you have some personal questions that are crying for an answer? Do you need heartfelt advice from someone who knows and cares? Do you feel that there is no one that you can turn to or trust? If you answer yes to all of these questions, please don’t despair—because Sonny and I are really here and we really are going to help you. Each month we carefully read your mail and pick out a cross-section of the most important questions that you ask. If your answer is not here in this issue, keep looking—because sooner or later we will get around to you and your problem.

TRUE-BLUE

Dear Cher, I’m in the tenth grade and I have been going steady with the same boy for over ten months. My problem is that my girl friends are jealous of me. They say that ten months is too long to go with the same boy and that I am too popular in school. Do you think I should break up with my steady and “play the field” like they do? Karen, Wickliffe, Ohio

Cher’s Response:

Dear Karen, “Playing the field” is not all it’s cracked up to be. For some people, there is just one person who has the quality of all persons. These people are very rare. When I first met Sonny I knew that my “playing the field” days were over. He was the “one” I’d been looking for. I have never regretted that decision. Maybe you too are one of the “lucky” people who have found a rare relationship. If you are, forget about those nagging girl friends. They are jealous—because you just may have found the thing they are looking for!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Ten months! Too popular? Too popular to stay with one boy? Or just too popular unrelated? Like multiple grievances?

Turns out these ideas of “playing the field” or “going steady” come down to cultural pressure. There are decades when “playing the field” is the thing to do (1920s and 1930s) and decades when society puts pressure on women and men to “go steady” (post World War II with a scarcity of men, 1940s and 1950s). Like capitalism, it seems to have to do with supply and demand.  After the social revolution in the 1960s and 70s, this became more of a personal choice in theory, but somehow stratified across gender in movies, videos and other cultural materials. This means that in the 1930s if you had many boyfriends you were doing it right. But in the 1980s you could still be coded as slutty.

In a book I’m reading, there’s an explication of the Jackson Browne video for the song “Tender is the Night” (a video I have zero memory of) and male attention is described there as “commanding but fleeting.” And I’m pretty sure after a thousand hours watching MTV videos in the 1980s, that’s what I expected male attention to be. It seemed a strange era of conflicting encouragements, which seems messier than if everyone were just on the same page.

I remember when I was new to online dating. Men on FastCupid were not exactly trying to find quick hook-ups, (like they were on Match), but they were still primarily interested in “playing the field.” And so after getting the idea, I remember telling my friend and roommate Julie one morning that this is just what people were doing now and so I was going to do it, too. Now this plan didn’t last very long because that very same morning the person I dating with at the time changed his mind and suddenly wanted “going steady,” although we didn’t call it that in mid-2000s-Los Angeles. The term then was “being exclusive.”

The point is, these should really be personal decisions but they seem to be cultural ones. My joke has always been that around 2005 I had a Liz Taylor week. And that was been my experience playing the field.

I’ve always wondered about the etymology of the term “playing the field.” According to Dictionary.com, it comes from British horseracing: “it meant to bet on every horse in a race except the favorite.”

Cher wasn’t kidding when she said she only had eyes for Sonny when she met him. She has often described seeing him for the first time like seeing star-filter around Tony in the movie West Side Story. People who knew her then describe her as being infatuated. Like girls and boys in the 1980s, they did not seem to be on the same page.

 

HAIR-RAISING QUESTION

Dear Cher, How long did it take you to grow your hair? I’m growing mine long and can’t wait until it gets as long as yours. It’s really beautiful. I hope you never cut it! Madeline, Costa Mesa, Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dar Madeline, Thanks for the compliment. I had my hair cut very short when I was 16, and it’s been growing every since. I keep it about 24 inches long, and cut off an inch or so every three months. If you watch the ends, when yours start to split, cut a little off and your hair will grow in faster and healthier. Good luck!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Madeline, don’t lose your mind, but Cher did cut her hair. A few times.

My summer neighborhood friends Diana and Lillian both had beautiful long black hair and one day Diana taught us how to cut off our split ends. The Susan Dey book also reminds me we used to shampoo twice every day (a thing called repeat) and we used a thing called creme rinse (before they invented conditioner). Beauty trends are their own circle of madness. Within the last ten years, coconut was the thing for conditioners. Then it was avocado. Then it was minerals from the Dead Sea. Years from now it will be coconut again.

It’s interesting Cher had a target of 24 inches. So specific. Hair was a big deal in the Sonny & Cher mythology from the beginning. Cher’s long hair, as this column has shown, was much envied. And part of the S&C story involved Sonny’s hair as well and the altercations he had with other people (mostly men, I’m assuming) over the length of it. This was mentioned as the reason “Laugh at Me” was composed, a restaurant dust-up over how Sonny & Cher looked. And Sonny’s hair wasn’t ever really all that long.

But hair is also mentioned in “I Got You Babe,” (“let them say you’re hair’s too long”), and in “Somebody,” (“It aint long hair. It ain’t short hair”), and, as Cher scholar Robrt reminded me, the IGUB-copycat song, “But You’re Mine,” (‘that your hair isn’t combed all the time”).

I have never liked the song “But You’re Mine.” It’s a sweet sentiment until it gets nonsensical. The part about “they’ll have to blow their mind”—what does that even mean?

And this line really bugs me, “you’re not real pretty, but you belong to me” as if they would be somehow unlovable if they didn’t belong to each other. I guess possession is nine-tenths of love as well as the law.

Speaking of hair, Sonny shirtless alert….

I actually love pictures of Sonny and Cher in swimming pools. This colorful image was posted this week on the Sonny Bono Facebook page with this back story:

“This photograph was made for McCall’s magazine’s “Teen Idols” story in 1966. Photographer Art Kane strapped himself into full scuba gear and weighted himself down at the bottom of Sonny and Cher’s Beverly Hills pool. He took hundreds of pictures until he got ‘The One’.;

 

NASTY-NEPHEW

Dear Cher, I am 14 years old and I have a five-year old nephew. He is pretty nice most of the time, but when my boy friend comes over he turns into a real monster! He embarrasses me, bites me and won’t leave me alone for a minute. What can I do? Aunt-in-Distress, Lafayette, La.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Aunt-in-Distress, Sounds to me as though your pint-size nephew has a king-size crush—on you! He is being a pest because he is jealous of the attention you give to your boy friend. This is natural for a boy his age. (You should hear Sonny talk about the crush he had on his third-grade teacher!) Try to ignore those painful punches if you can, and I bet your nephew gets tired of his “games.” He’s only playing them to bother you. Don’t let him!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I’m trying to remember myself hanging around my brothers when they brought their girlfriends to our house. I attached myself to my older brother’s cheerleader girlfriend like a barnacle sister and here we are today with that. (I really wanted a sister.) Randy had more sense than to bring his girlfriends around, but I do remember a pretty girl named Julie. They came to the house to take homecoming pictures. She was shy but friendly with me. I’m sure I was a pest, just as I was when my brother’s friends were around. I had a crush on one of Randy’s friends. Plus, they were very funny and I wanted to be around the comedy routines.

But I had the opposite problem too, older brothers who teased my boyfriend. That doesn’t always end well either.

Then there’s the issue we discussed a few columns back: where is the line between being a pest and being a jerk? Some teasing seems mean or rude to some people and like foreplay to others.

A quote is going around Twitter that says, “Never tell a little girl that when a boy is mean or rude to her it’s because he has a crush on her. Don’t teach her that abuse is a sign of love.”

I can understand the problem. I was told that by my mother all the time. The point was they wouldn’t give you trouble if they didn’t like you. And I think that’s often true…to a point. Some boys are just teasing. But others are real bullies. And you have to learn to tell the difference. Boys have to do this too, in their own way. You could say all humans have to figure this out. Because girls can be mean and rude just as often as boys can. It’s just that boys don’t find themselves caught in domestic violence situations as often as girls do.

If “just ignoring them” (my mother’s suggestion) worked, we wouldn’t have so many bullies today.

If you’re ever hit, screamed at repeatedly or torn down (even quietly) verbally, the situation has gone beyond “teasing” and this is never love.

Once on Oprah’s Life Class, I heard someone suggest relying on your instincts; but not everyone has a great instincts.

And then some people have difficulty expressing love. I was one of those people. My family was not verbally affectionate. We weren’t huggers. And I can tell you it’s amazing the wonders in-laws can do in a family dynamic, marriages that bring in people for whom saying “I love you” is a matter of course. Sometimes people just need exposure and practice in how to behave more effectively.

I think you just need to be wary of people who have had a bad childhood experience and are looking to take it out on others. Maybe you are the type of person who reminds them of someone who once hurt them. That’s not good.

But back to our little pest here. What is the best way to handle a young boy or girl when they are working off a bad strategy to get attention? We’ve all been there, down the road of a bad strategy. Like anyone using the Scientific Method, this kid had a theory and he tested it out and  did not get the anticipated result. Maybe his favorite Aunt should sit him down and tell him it’s time for him to come up with a new tactic.

 

CLEAN-CUT

Dear Sonny, I’m a guy who gets called “square” by all my long-haired buddies because I wear my hair short! I had long hair before and I really didn’t like the way I looked. I know long hair is “in” now, but I just don’t like the way it looked on me! Should I give in? Bugged, Scranton, Pa.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Bugged, If you feel better with your hair cut short, wear it that way. Exercise your right as an individual to dress the way you feel best. Fashion is a very temporary thing. What is “in” today is “out” tomorrow. There are lots of people who follow the “latest fads” because they have no real direction of their own. Listen to yourself—you just might be a trend-setter!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Well, Bugged was not a trend-setter as it turns out. Long hair was here to stay. But as Sonny stated later in 1971, “it aint long hair; it aint short hair.” Everybody do your thing.

This is a good opportunity to play my favorite Sonny & Cher song, “Somebody.”

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SHUT-IN

Dear Sonny, I’m 15 and I got in trouble at school. I “cut” a few classes and my parents found out. My problem is that they won’t let me do anything anymore. I have to report home after school and stay in on weekends. How can I make my folks see that I have learned my lesson? Locked-Up, Yuma, Ariz.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Locked-Up, Have you tried telling them? It’s a funny thing, but almost everyone can recognize the truth. I f you really have “learned your lesson,” your parents should see that there is no reason for your punishment to continue. If they don’t try to see that your present situation is only temporary [then] use it to your advantage. Read, start a new project, find something you are interested in—but don’t waste your time feeling sorry for yourself! 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

When I was a senior I talked two of my friends, Nellie and Craig, into going to McDonalds for lunch. This was not allowed. We were not supposed to leave campus during the day but Donna and I had been cutting study hall for a while as it was our last class and nobody had ever stopped us. Well, this time we were intercepted by security coming back.

Why did we come back? Because we were nerdy kids who didn’t cut actual classes.

As the security guy came over to us, my friends started to panic and I implored them to essentially lawyer-up. That did not happen. One of them was willing to turn bad, like I was, but the other one broke immediately into tears and confessions. But we got off without even a warning. That’s how bad we were at being bad.

Later that year I threw myself a birthday and graduation party at the Clarion hotel in downtown St. Louis. It took some subterfuge and adult role-playing to arrange it and I’m still amazed we pulled it off, quite frankly. I got into a lot of trouble at home myself, but not as much grief as my friend Rand got for coming. His mother grounded him for a year. A year. He said he didn’t regret it but I still feel guilty about that.

I, however, was ungroundable. My mother often mentioned that when you put televisions into your kid’s bedrooms, they become ungroundable. I never understood why she didn’t just take the TVs back out. They were portable after all. But that wouldn’t have made much difference, she said, because I was a reader and was happy enough to read all day and night. And she didn’t want to ground me from books.

Both Sonny and Cher got into trouble in high school. Sonny got suspended, according to Cher’s Sonny & Me documentary, for bringing an African American band to play at his school prom. Cher was in trouble for things like wearing sunglasses to class, according to her mother’s TV special Superstars and Their Moms. Both of them dropped out of high school before graduation and were definitely, in their own ways, ungroundable too.

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

 

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 10

August 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

What a great Cher smile in this issue of “Dear Cher….and Sonny” from 16 Magazine!

Let’s return to the conversation about whether or not Sonny & Cher had anything to do with this advice column enterprise. I had a conversation with another Cher scholar last week who knows some behind-the-scenes workings of another teen magazine of the day and in that magazine (and most likely this one I suppose), stars were just brand-stamps on articles written by staff.

This is easy to believe with the Cher responses, especially considering how shy she was/is. However, I have a harder time disconnecting Sonny from his answers (or from Cher’s answers either, truth be told). How likely would it be to capture his sort of hippie-masquerading, dated sexism with some staff writer on the 16 Magazine? Okay, well maybe not so unlikely. I wasn’t even born yet so I have no idea what the conditions of the teen-rag patriarchy were back then orhow many old hacks were advising teen girls how to flirt.

But whether it was Sonny and/or Cher answering these questions doesn’t really matter all that much at the end of the day. The kids believed it was Sonny and Cher responding to these questions. And this was all-of-a-piece image-making for Sonny and Cher as “friends of their fans” which seemed to be Sonny’s strategy at the time. Their casualness with fans was part of their brand. So we can continue here, like swell tween fans, to believe this is really Sonny & Cher.

 

If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher—and Sonny—want to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Hi! Here were are again—Cher and Sonny—and we’re as eager as ever to help you solve your problems. So please, please write to us and tell us what’s wrong in your life, and we’ll do our absolute best to make it right. If you feel that your problem is something Cher can best help you with, address your letter to Cher. And if you feel that Sonny can best advise you on your particular worry, address your letter to Sonny. You know that you can depend on both of us to help you all we can—and we’re always here, in every issue of 16 Magazine.

Dear Cher, There are two new boys in my class who seem to be very nice and who are quite cute. Both of them are shy and haven’t talked to or taken notice of any girl. I would like to get to know them better, but I didn’t want to be too forward. Any suggestions? Bashful, Los Angeles, Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Bashful, One good trick in a situation like this is to keep yourself in their “sights.” Maybe one day these two young hunters will decide it’s time to aim at some bird, and if you are standing there you might be the chosen one!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, I think these two boys have probably noticed the girls. Unless they’ve been noticing the boys instead. You never know. This terminology though is a relic of the 1960s: aiming, hunting, girls in sights, targets. What a bloody metaphor.

There is an allegedly inaccurate but famous quote often attributed to Cher. It apparently was said around the time she first laid eyes on her boyfriend Robert Camilletti: “Have him washed and brought to my tent.” This quote even made its way into the movie Mama Mia: Here We Go Again, spoken from the character of Christine Baranski. The movie’s makers were fans themselves of Cher and Cher’s mythology and this seemed an interesting tribute to her later cameo in the movie. But this was also one of the things in the movie that prevented us from seeing Cher as the character in the story. It took us out of that fiction and we were stuck seeing Cher as a loosely-veiled cameo character (as she has been in all too many recent Cher movies).

But aside from that, the sentiment is a bit creepy. No more appealing than being caught in the sights of a hunter. Objectifying isn’t any better coming from a woman than it is coming from a man. It’s just men don’t seem to mind it as much. This is because the consequences for being objectified aren’t so severe for them. It can be just plain fun and sexy.

All that said, in a previous blog post we were discussing flirting as a dance; and there’s surely something to be said for the imaginative side of that dance….and the playful side of the power-struggles. Here’s the issue: men can do some f**ked-up shit objectifying women and women can do some f**ked-up shit trying to overturn power-struggles with men. And with LGBTQ-relationships, the dysfunction can go any which way but loose. Humans are strange creatures. Let’s not take all the fun out of it but also realize how some of these games can get dangerous or bleed over into other aspects of our lives.

Does that sound like a difficult tightrope walk? Yeah, it does.

I actually think that sort of game-playing works once you know each other a little better first. And you have a safe word. Hornwaffle. There. You can use that one. I’m not using it.

Dear Cher, I am 13 years old and I have had the same problem for over two years. I can’t seem to make friends with girls. I had one girl friend , but I lost her. The worst thing is that boys seem to like me a lot. When a car passes me, or I go somewhere, I get waived at or yelled at. I want to be friends with girls and boys. Please tell me what to do. Worried, Carrollton, Ohio

Cher’s Response:

Dear Worried, A girl who is popular with boys usually get scratched off by girls—simply because they are jealous. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, if I were you. I remember when I was your age I didn’t have many girl friends either, but by the time I was 14 I had one really good friend and later got a couple more. I think it’s more important to have one or two good girl friends than to be popular with the “gang.”

Cher Scholar’s Response:

“Scratched off?” I had to read that a few times. Was that a hip mid-60s saying?

I don’t remember girls being jealous anymore by age 13. Maybe girls starting earlier than they did in the 1960s. (That darn Rick Springfield.) By the time we were freshman (14), even the stragglers like me where caught up in the dating drama. It was the girls who started early (11-12) who might have experienced jealousy from other girls regarding boys. But I think we’re getting in the weeds.

It was beneficial for me, as a person, to have girl friends and platonic boy friends. There’s an episode of the TV show The Goldbergs which was almost a replica of my own experience as a teen. Adam’s older brother Barry is telling him that he can’t have a platonic friendship with his platonic friend Emmy because boy/girl relationships always turn romantic. My brother told me the exact same thing once.

I now think the disagreement was due to our respective age gap. Both of my older brothers had that interim generational experience between Boomers and Gen Xers. But Gen X kids like me did have platonic relationships in the 1980s all the time. One of the reasons for this was because more Gen X gay kids were out of the closet than they were a decade earlier.  We were also much more casual with each other, regardless of sexual orientation or preference. And then again in some situations, those platonic friendships were put under pressure by changed feelings. That happened too.

But all those relationships helped us later in the workplace and in adulthood. In fact, I found it often easier to be friends with boys than girls as I got older. Girls, as I’ve noted, can be unconsciously furtive. Sometimes there’s unconscious drama at play operating at a level even girls seem unaware of.

My big problem was often making a bad or incorrect first impression. And sometimes first impressions were hard to overcome. I had to work hard at not letting that “bad foot” put me on the defensive or determine how I would behave with those women going forward. I had to learn to dismiss it and keep trying. Once someone got to know me…everything would change and a friendship could develop.

But you need time and space to turn that around. For people you don’t have the space and time to develop a more honest relationship, you have to let those relationships go and not worry about it.

I’ve made some mistakes, too, when I was young, working through how to navigate new relationships with girls. In the beginning I bartered with agreeability.  That didn’t work for anyone. Later after college, I trafficked in gossip and cattiness. That did work and although it was fun in a bitchy way, it was shallow and unsustainable both morally and professionally (cattiness can come back to bite you in the ass).

I finally settled on humor. And I could turn my natural cattiness into self-deprecation and get the same result so…

Self-deprecation is great on many levels. Self-aggrandizement is distancing, People like an underdog. And struggle is something they can sympathize with (flaws are like Velcro as we discussed previously). And ironically, it takes confidence to let yourself be seen as a flawed person.

I can’t say first impression mistakes aren’t still sometimes stressful hurdles, but if I give myself all the time in the world to turn things around, I feel okay about it.

Cher has been friends with all sorts of people. And her relationships with men and women have gone through ups and downs, both friends and lovers. It’s a journey, not a sprint.

Dear Cher, I have terrible pimples and, at times, acne. Please tell me what I can do. I am desperate. Bumpy, New York City

Cher’s Response:

Dear Bumpy, There are several things you can do, and here they are—but you really must do them: In the future, avoid all fried foods, chocolate, nuts, greasy foods, soda pop with sugar in it (the no-calorie type is better for you), butter and coconut. The next thing you must do is keep your skin clean at all times. Wash your face with a mild soap morning and evening (using a very gentle complexion brush and patting dry with a spotlessly clean towel). Carry some Fresh Ups or Wash ‘n’ Dry face cleaners with you to use from time to time during the day if necessary. There are many medicated, tinted make-ups in cream and liquid. pHisoHex puts out a very good line—you can get them at your drugstore. If your acne is bad, see your family doctor. They have some great new antibiotic injections that really work—I mean, they usually get rid of acne from one to two weeks.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I had to look up what a complexion brush was. Turns out I have one. Huh. It also turns out pHisoHex was banned in 1972 for the use of hexachlorophene. The product has relaunched later using the ingredient salicylic acid.

There are new brands now for acne: Dermalogica, Proactiv, La Roche-Posay and new patches that work well to suffocate those little buggers overnight. You can also get LED and cortisone treatments from dermatologists.

For probably the same reason I was late in wanting boys to chase me (or to chase them all while pretending to let them chase me or whatever it was we were supposed to be doing), I didn’t have very many pimples in high school, which was lucky because I was into using acne-causing makeup and my family’s main food was Mexican so avoiding fried tortillas and greasy food was inconceivable.

That all happened in my 20s. And I remember having an argument with a dermatologist around that time about antibiotics, which were all the rage then for treating acne. I was really into animal rights issues and had read all about the overuse of antibiotics in humans and farm animals and how this was going to wreck havoc on us years down the line when antibiotics would lose their effectiveness. Doctors (like this very dermatologist) were very dismissive of animal rights intellectuals at the time and their ideas. I lost the argument and used the antibiotics but those arguments did win-out 30 to 40 years later and now doctors take it for granted that we’ve overused antibiotics. I don’t even see that as a  recommendation for treatment for acne these days.

In the mid-1980s, one or both (I can’t remember) of Cher’s former managers, Charlie Greene and Brian Stone, gave a tell-all interview about Cher to one of the tabloids (The Enquirer or Star). It was pretty mean. One of the things mentioned was how much junk food Cher ate in the 1960s and how bad her acne was.

The only letter I’ve ever sent to Cher was over this article. I was 12 or 13 and was incensed by it. God knows what rant about the article I sent off. I got back a thank-you on a postcard.

But Cher has been very open about her love of Jack-in-the-Box tacos and her now-occasional indulgence of them.

She’s also been open about the acne she had in the early 1970s when The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour started and the heavy makeup caused her skin to break out. You can sometimes catch a glimpse of that situation during close-ups in early solo numbers. It was around that time that Cher became interested in skin care, an interest that led her to launch her own skin care product line, Aquasentials, in the 1990s.

Dear Sonny, I would like your honest opinion. I have a good complexion, a nice figure and am fairly cute, but I have one thing boys hate—I wear glasses! I can’t stand them, but I can’t see without them. I just lost two boyfriends because of them. I am 14 and really dig guys, but my four-eyes make me lose my cool. Help!, Chicago, Ill.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Help!, Hold on there a minute. Wearing glasses may bother but you, but it’s not all that big a problem. First off, eyeglasses are very in and very groovy looking these days, as we all know. Maybe you ought to look a little deeper. Maybe you are losing those guys you dig because of some other reason—one you won’t even admit to yourself as yet. Give it some thought. Now, if the fact is you have to wear really thick lenses, I can only suggest that you get your parents to take you to a good optometrist who will advise you as to whether or not you can wear contact lenses. Many, many people wear them and love them. (John Lennon and Mark Lindsay do.) Why don’t you give it a go?

Cher Scholar’s Response:

One time I was working as a receptionist for a interior designer in St. Louis. One of their clients, a gay male designer, once called and referred to me as “the girl with the glasses.” I found this horrifying and had contacts within a week.

But as I learned from Mr. Cher Scholar years later, some people have a fetish for girls who wear glasses. After all, this was a major plot-point of Adam Ant’s video for “Goody Two Shoes.” And then there’s the character of Bailey in the TV show WCRP in Cincinnati. Mr. Cher Scholar explained to me one day that some men found her much more attractive than the Jennifer Marlow character. I found this impossible to believe because Loni Anderson was such a phenomenon at the time.

So I went online and found out there’s a whole group of guys who feel this way. Apparently, they’re more into the girl next door than the sexy mama. Huh. Each to his own.

Cher can really work some glasses. And they were a good prop for her character in the movie Suspect.

Dear Sonny, I am 13 years old and have an unusual problem. I am really very ugly. People tell I’m cute just to make me feel good. I only wish I could live up to what they say, but no matter what I do—like try different haircombs or makeup—I just seem to get uglier. Please help me. Ugly, Miami, Fla.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Ugly, I have said this before and I repeat: there is beauty in each and every one of us. If you would just stop dwelling on your bad points, perhaps your good points would start shining through. The best advice I can give you is to be yourself, to accept yourself and to be honest (but optimistic) in everything you do. Each individual is unique; each of us is endowed with God’s great gift of life, and each of us has a mission to fulfill while we are here. In other words, there is a purpose and meaning to all things and all individuals. Don’t deny yours and yourself. You don’t have to be a hippy or be in with the in crowd. An exterior beauty is something that fades, whereas inner beauty grows and grows as the years go by. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

You don’t have to be a hippie? Who said you had to be a hippie? What’s that got to do with anything?

I’m still working my way through the Susan Day book. I had to skip the end of the section about boys. It was too much, except for the “so you want to date a star” chapter which was a real page turner, not least because it brought comments and suggestions in again from David Cassidy who was the teen idol of the day. Oddly though Susan Dey did not consider herself a star worthy of consideration in that chapter.

And she was every bit a star. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen episodes of The Partridge Family. Well, maybe one episode on VH-1 decades later when that channel went retro in the mid-1990s. My local stations in St. Louis didn’t carry The Partridge Family during the years I was watching after-school TV. And I watched a lot of it. Even My Three Sons which I hated and Gilligan’s Island which I was ambivalent about. I was definitely on team Marsha as a result because I watched The Brady Bunch hundreds of times.

But I also didn’t care for the Reuben Kincaid character at all or Danny Bonaduce or the two little kids or Shirley Jones. I basically only liked David Cassidy, Susan Dey and the bus. In fact, if the show could have been just about the bus, I would have been thrilled. I was a real fan of the bus.

In any case, the next section of the Susan Dey book gets much better. Things improve after she moves on to beauty tricks. She talks about a simple-style of beauty, avoiding a lot of makeup. She talks about radiance. Which is akin to my idea of energy. Some people don’t have all the right facial features in all the “right” places, but they radiate a beautiful energy.

Also, we can’t ever see ourselves how others see us. Cher, throughout her life, has labeled herself ugly, as a child to her mother, on the 1978 TV special recreating the episode of her child self talking to her mother and during disagreements with Mike Nichols on the set of Silkwood. It’s pretty incredible but what can she do? You have two eyes and a brain and a point of view. It’s not so easy to trust the opinions of others when they contract with what’s in front of your very own eyes.

Add to that the fact that a mirror shows you everything backwards and then there’s the complication of body dysmorphia for some people. You just have to let it go. You can’t be self-defined by the container of yourself. It’s impossible to figure out. Like the existence of God.

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 9

August 13, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Oh boy. I was feeling pretty good this weekend thinking we had only two more advice columns to review after this one. The questions about boys have been trying on my soul, especially this week’s responses from Sonny. Add to that the reading of the Susan Dey advice book, which is a nightmare of conflicting and problematic guidance for girls. Alarming warnings are made to not under any circumstances  “chase” and then soon after there’s a chapter called “Chasing.”

It’s  rough and I don’t know if I can make it through it. In fact, I’d put Susan Dey’s book right up there as one of the more difficult books I’ve ever read.

I’ve been complaining about these depressing time-capsules of dating advice to a few people and I hear in response the same thing: “That was a different time, Mary.” And I get that. Times have changed. And yet we are now hearing ever-louder calls for a return to this “quaintness” (from the Chief’s kicker, J.D. Vance, a whole slew of creepy people on Twitter/X). So…I don’t know. I still don’t feel like I’m on steady ground here as a girl. And I get a bit anxious just reading this shit.

This week I kept thinking thank God (thank God!!) I learned everything about boys and dating from John Hughes movies instead of columns and books like these. At least Jennifer Grey was allowed to be surly in Uncle Buck; and Molly Ringwald was allowed to be confused and critical in all of the John Hughes movies she was in. I can’t tell you how helpful that was to a confused person such as myself. That you could be just a normal person, not super feminine (see below) and the boys didn’t have to be “alphas.” In fact, those kinds of boys were played very villainously by actors like James Spader. Thank God also for the somewhat gender-fluid 1980s where boys could wear eye-liner and girls could have bi-lateral, funky hair. You had the freedom to explore ways of being. And maybe people were freaking out about it then, too, but those freak-outs were just off our radar screens.

Anyway, I was so happy to see the finish line with these old pressures of bad flirting and then I went into the Chersonian Institute (a.k.a. the Cher She-shed) this weekend and found two more lost columns! Eek! And one was compromised, so I went online afterwards to find a better copy and found another two more!!! Ack! So now we have six more to do instead of two. Oy vey.

So let’s keep going. I like the landscape photograph in this week’s column because I like to imagine Sonny and Cher are pondering over these letters and the weight of their responsibility in answering them.

 

If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher—and Sonny—want to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Sonny and I are back again, reading your letters, answering as many as possible, and (hopefully) helping you to solve the problems you encounter in your day-to-day life. If your letter is not here, please don’t feel neglected—there just is not enough room in 16 to answer all of the many letters we get every month. Sonny and I carefully select a cross-section of the mail [see them  cross-sectioning above]  that represents your most important problems. If your questions aren’t answered this month, please come back next month—for sooner or later you will find your problem and our advice right here in 16 Magazine.

Dear Cher, I don’t like the way I look and I want to do something about it. What should I do to change my looks and become a new me? Waiting, Charleston, S.C.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Waiting, I think it’s very exciting to do yourself over from head to toe once in a while. The first thing you should do is get a bunch of hair styling and beauty magazines (or, better yet, order 16’s Popularity and Beauty Book—see the ad on the following page). When you have gathered together all of these magazines, scan through them and try to find your type. Study all the types for people with a face shaped like yours. Are you round, oval or square? Magazines dealing with make-up and beauty tips cover all types. The hair magazines have setting and comb-out instructions for all lengths and colors of hair. The hair books also tell you how to correct faults—like if your hair is too curly, what to do, etc. [Just wait until the 1980s]. Try to get a girlfriend to join you in your campaign to re-do yourself. It is always more fun when you have someone to share your thoughts with and to exchange ideas with. The two of you could spend a “beauty weekend” together and probably come out with some great new results. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I got really into my local library’s coffee-table beauty books for a while as a tween. This is not to say I ever became good at it, but I do like all the do-dads and beauty artifacts. And I have always fantasized about the styling weekend with a girlfriend. Or even the spa weekend of the skin care side of things. But most of my girlfriends aren’t as interested in this stuff.

I also love the make-over in movies. There’s actually a scholarly book about this, The Makeover In Movies. I haven’t read it yet but it’s on my list. Cher’s makeover in Moonstruck would most definitely be addressed in this book, (she’s in the index), as this is an iconic makeover sequence in a movie. Cher visits a hair salon, buys a new dress and does her makeup slowly in her living room all in anticipation of a date to the opera with Nicholas Cage.

You can also see grooming images in Good Times and the ladies go through a somewhat big, albeit offscreen, transformation in The Witches of Eastwick. (It’s the sex doing the makeover in their case.) And we can’t forget the bad makeover Cher receives in Silkwood from her mortician girlfriend, where she’s made to look like a corpse by mistake and Drew is snarky about it and then Angela gets into a snit and moves out. And it’s a subtle one but the Madame at the whorehouse in Chastity does a creepy baby-doll dress makeover on Cher’s Chastity character. And then Cher tries to make herself presentable to her parents (and not look like a drug addict) in the movie Mask. (I tried to recreate that star necklace, by the way.)

So lot’s of Cher makeover moments in the movies, which is an understandable cinematic impulse because there have been so many Cher transformations in her personal timeline. Cher has always changed her look to suit the times and she seems to enjoy updating her personal and professional looks: from the grunge bangs and hippie duds of the 1960s to the sleek, long-haired goddess in jeans look of the 1970s to the big wigs and tight clothes of the 1980s, and it goes on.

Cher is much more outrageous than me in her explorations. I just like to try different brands of mascara.

Dear Cher, I am going with a boy I am not sure I really like. I go with him because I am lonely, but I really love my old boyfriend (who doesn’t love me). This new boy is nice and sweet. Do you think I am doing the wrong thing? In Need of Help, Bow, Washington

Cher’s Response:

Dear In Need of Help, You definitely are doing the wrong thing. If this boy is so nice, you should not lead him on—for eventually you will hurt him very deeply. If your old boyfriend snapped his fingers, you would go back to him in a flash and leave your present boyfriend suffering—just as you are suffering now. Since you know what it feels like to be hurt, learn something from it and don’t hurt this nice boy. Take my advice and you’ll be a better person for it. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I don’t even think this would be Cher’s response anymore. I mean she didn’t have the same feelings for Gene Simmons she had for Gregg Allman. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Each relationship is its own weather system. Simmons, like this boy, had all the markings of a rebound relationship. Getting back on the horse, romantically speaking. Not every relationship is your forever home. Some are truly “We’ve Got Tonight” situations and this is fine if the two people are on the same page. All sorts of people are out there in the wilderness trying to find their way. And we can’t even assume that much about this relationship based on the question. The boy hasn’t weighed in about where he’s coming from.

Sometimes rebounds rebound again into something permanent. Seems to me what makes any relationship healthy is communication. So just make sure intentions are clear at all times and if or when feelings change, talk it out.

What is not okay is withholding your feelings about a relationship and leading another person into believing you are more serious or dedicated than you are. I have a very good friend who’s parents divorced when he was an adult because the husband had been having a marriage-long affair with a woman he had always considered his true love. The wife wasn’t as upset by the affair as she was by the fact that she had wasted her youth on a relationship that wasn’t true love.

There’s a difference between using someone and being lonely together.

That said, relationships are very complicated and even in my friend’s parents’ case, who’s to say what was going on and what torment people go through when they are navigating current relationships and when to end them. For example, why did Sonny stay with Cher when he was often distracted by other women? I’m sure his motivations were complicated: loyalty to Cher, desire to keep the money coming in, true affection. Why did Cher stay with Sonny so long during that same time? As Cher has said over and over, theirs was a very complicated relationship. She saw Sonny as a parental figure to her, a lover, a sibling, a co-parent to Chastity. Relationships are rarely smoothly operating machines or rarely cleanly broken off. It’s almost a topic that is beyond advice.

Sonny gave Cher a big wet kiss immediately after their divorce hearing! A very public kiss. Cher says it was hard to stay mad at Sonny, even minutes after a custody battle. Sounds very complicated to me.

Dear Cher, My parents won’t let me buy records or any of the other things teenagers like, even though it’s my own money. How can I convince them that it’s my money and that they should let me do what I like with it? Kar, Northbrook, Ill.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Kar, If you earn this money, either by babysitting or by doing other work, then you should be allowed to buy anything you wish with it within reason. If you get an allowance, you might tell your mother you are willing to set aside a certain amount of it for savings, but that you feel you should spend the rest on harmless “fun” things you enjoy.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

This is a tough one. Teenage years are mostly about testing your independence. Some very controlling parents out there inflict an “anything under my roof goes by my rules” policy. My parents were not like this (that practically had to push me out of the nest) although they were what you would consider strict in many ways. I was the last in line and my parents were pretty laissez-faire by the time I came along. They didn’t much notice what I was doing with my little amount of money. I was saving up my lunch money and buying record albums and Taco Bell dinners with friends. Nothing to test a “within reason” qualification. I wouldn’t even have known where to find the unreasonable stuff. But I was below everyone’s radar, I’m pretty sure. Recently, a family member labeled me as a goth kid, which surprised me because I had pink wallpaper, pink carpet and listened to Barry Manilow all day. But I guess within those confines, I was kind of a Barry-Manilow-listening, pink-loving kind of sad kid. Maybe a Pink Goth. Was that a thing? No it was not.

Some parents believe in providing trust until trust is broken. Some parents have to control every aspect of their habitats. And I don’t know any way around those kinds of parents aside from hanging in there until you can secure your own independence and move out as soon as you can. I don’t see this type of parent being suddenly convinced by arguments from Cher in 16 Magazine. In fact, I think those parents turned out to be some of the Cher-haters we see out there today. “That hippie Cher tried to corrupt our daughter Kar!”

This is a real problem, though, especially now that there is a whole segment of the population trying to re-define what it means to be a girl, limiting her choices in marriage, family planning and education, let alone all the fun teenage stuff.

But in this case, it could also be a parent who has come from nothing who is attempting to teach their kid about saving money or goal planning and not fettering all their monies on movie tickets and rock-and-roll records.

I’m sort of thankful for the latitude I did receive. It allowed me to follow my intellectual pursuits and learn self-sufficiency, which is what my parents wanted for me (including and maybe especially my father), not to depend on relationships for those things. But that’s not every parental motive out there so…

I don’t know what kind of parents Sonny and Cher were. Chaz Bono has written about this mostly in Becoming Chaz. Cher was gone a lot and some of the nannies seemed better than others. Elijah spent time in boarding schools which he seems to resent.

I haven’t talked to any parent who doesn’t bemoan the fact of how difficult parenting is. Just existentially hard. How you never really know what you’re doing. Short of abuse, it’s good to give parents some latitude for screw-ups. ‘

Does not letting your kid have popular music constitute abuse? I don’t know. I do know a lot of kids who grew up in restrictive households that forbade pop-culture and junk foods and as adults these friends of mine now have trouble navigating moderation with those very things. I’ve also seen problems resulting from over-indulgence. Teaching moderation itself seems to be a good idea.

Dear Sonny, I have a crush on a boy in my class. I think he likes me. How should I act? Just Asking, Bellflower, Calif.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Just Asking, When you are around this boy, act sweet and not snooty. Don’t go overboard and come on too strong, but at the same time don’t be shy. Let him know “diplomatically” that you’re interested, and then see if he responds. If he does, show him that you are really interested in him, but at the same time try to make him feel that he is flirting with you—not you with him. Try to start one of those “accidental” conversations. Find out what his interests are, and if they are different from yours “bone-up” so that when and if you talk to him, you will be able to say something he wants to hear. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Good luck, indeed. Does dating in this world require a poli sci degree so you can flirt “diplomatically?” Just asking, myself.

“At the same time,” maybe I’m also just asking for a friend. Like all of them. Because this is crazy-making. There are two “but at the same times” in Sonny’s headache-inducing response. And that’s not okay. But at the same time….no, still not okay.

There was a very sweet Muppets (ABC) episode, “A Tail of Two Piggies”  where Gonzo, Pepe and Rizzo became bachelor roommates and were having trouble getting “the womens” (as Pepe says) to come to their house parties. They discovered that one of the best ways to initiate friendship with women was to become interested in what they were interested in. I think this is fine advice. But it could also send you off in a direction that is both a flirting-fail and something that changes the trajectory of your life. This has happened multiple times in my life, once when I tried to become a better high school student because I thought boys liked smart girls and another time I became interested in Buddhism and then 42 books later—this.

What’s not okay is all the intricacies around how to flirt properly. This is simply the tortured evolution of culture and it becomes stupid at some point  You can’t manage that tightrope of flirting rules all while trying to “be yourself.” Just not compatible tasks. And you might be a genuinely annoying self. What then? Then maybe what you do is to go work on yourself—just in general. The whole population will probably appreciate that, not just someone you fancy. Work on being less annoying (which is full-time job for some of us, I get it). Keep tweaking into a self you feel you can comfortably be. You may not match up comfortably with people you like. They might even get annoyed with your best self.  As unfortunately as that is, the alternative is pretty grim.

One of the saddest of the Hans Christian Andersen stories is “The Little Mermaid” which is a cautionary tale about this very thing, trying to be what someone else wants all while losing yourself in the process.

I guess in all things, moderation. It’s hard.

Dating is full of strife in Cher movies. Sonny and Cher battle about their futures in Good Times. There are all those poor fellows who try to decipher Cher’s character in Chastity, Dolly’s short burn-out with Angela in Silkwood, Rusty’s comparatively stable romance with Gar in Mask, the various jealousies that develop with the foursome in The Witches of Eastwick, the illicit affair with a juror in Suspect, the tumultuous beginning for Lorretta and Ronny in Moonstruck, the silly and sad relationship between the flighty Mrs. Flax and Lou in Mermaids.

The women don’t ever behave as Sonny advises girls to behave in any of these stories, nor did Cher herself ultimately behave that way. In fact, you can make a case they all flirted pretty badly in a plethora of wonderful ways.

Dear Sonny, Doesn’t femininity count with a guy nowadays? To be popular, does a girl have to be immodest? Where I live, it seems that ladylike girls are “duds.” What’ is your opinion? Curious, Medina, Ohio 

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Curious, No matter how a guy acts, in his heart he much prefers a feminine girl. He will go out with girls who come on strong, but not more than once or twice. Stick to your principles. Be your real self at all times. You may have to wait a little longer to get asked out on dates, but when you do it will be guys who really respect you. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

(By the way, I was just in Medina, Ohio.)

First of all, this unfortunate answer says more about Sonny than anything. This is dating advice dreck, this “boys only really like nice girls” answer.

Secondly, I can’t tell if this “immodesty” refers to mini-skirts or free love. I also can’t tell if this is a parent writing in masquerading  as a teen.

Some guys (and girls) are attracted to sporty girls, to bad girls, to nutty girls, to “feminine” girls. Some people are attracted to others who are sometimes sporty, sometimes tom-boys, sometimes feminine and sometimes every other type of way to be a person. What a weird idea that flirting has to be so performative toward femininity.

Sonny is definitely not the best person to be answering this question. In fact, it’s relevant to consider Sonny’s age here. He is ten-to-fifteen years older than these hippie tweens and his answer is going to be much more antiquated than, say, if Paul McCartney were answering these letters. This was a time of sexual revolution and it made many older adults, like Sonny, very uncomfortable.

“Guys who really respect you.” Please. You know where you can put that respect, right? As a girl who didn’t fool around enough, I will defend any girl who did.

Do you need his respect? No, you don’t. Do you need your self-respect? Yes, you do. Let that be the guiding principles you stick to. If you don’t want to be “immodest,” whatever that is, don’t. If you don’t feel particularly modest, go out there and live your best life. For me, this modesty shit is part of the fetishization of virginity. Which is all to say men have historically wanted to determine how and women should mate and procreate.

It was a different time. Well, different times are always around the corner again. I am just very thankful to have grown up in the time I did, as a carefree pop-culture addicted Gen-Xer in the 1980s.

I don’t even think this answer has anything to do with how Sonny or Cher behaved as young adults either, or at least Cher who was an aspiring street kid.

One of the amazing things about The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was how they refashioned the vamps of history as sexually independent, provocative and ultimately persevering women. Better examples of being a  human could be found there.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 8

August 7, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This week’s installment of Dear Sonny & Cher has a new preamble. And Sonny redeems himself from last week’s creepy, player response. We get an almost sultry picture of Cher this time with lots of eyeliner and mascara. We also get a photo of Sonny attempting sultriness but hitting more goofiness with that officer’s cap.

 

Being young is no fun if you’re worried about your appearance, nervous about how to act, upset about your boyfriend or unhappy about the way your parents treat you. It’s even worse if you have no one to confide in, no one who can help you solve your problems with sound advice.

Sonny and I want to help you in every way we possibly can. If you have a problem an older girl could best help you solve, write to me (Cher). If it’s the kind of problem a guy can best help you solve, write to Sonny. We can’t promise to answer every letter we receive—we receive so many letters, that would be impossible. But [e]very month Sonny and I carefully select a cross-section of the letters representing your most acute problems—so even though your problem many not be answered directly, it will be answered!

As you see, our space is limited and we can only advise on a few problems at a time. So if your problem isn’t discussed in this issue of 16, please look again next month—for sooner or later you will find your problem and our advice right here in 16 Magazine.

Dear Cher, I have these dreadful dark circles under my eyes. They make me look like I have two black eyes. I get plenty of rest and have a proper diet—I’ve tried to cover the circles with makeup, but nothing helps. What can I do? Black Eyes, St. Clair Shores, Mich.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Black Eyes, I have three answers. One: dark circles are sometimes inherited and there is nothing you can do about them. Two: are you in good health? Dark circles sometimes indicate anything from kidney disorder to a mild virus. You should ask your doctor about these dark circles. Three: if you find they are not inherited and not caused by poor health, then go back to the makeup treatment. I suggest that you try Yeardley Eyeliter (you know, like they advertise on The Monkees).  I, too, have a tendency toward dark circles, and this product has done miracles for me.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I wonder what Monkees advertisement she means. I couldn’t find an eyeliter commercial but I did find this hilarious Monkees Yardly Black Label commercial (“Be the guy’s who’s got it!”) I found an image of the eyeliter product (listed as an “antique”) on Pinterest:

There are now similar natural remedies for dark eye circles. There are also undereye concealers still to buy. Cher has always been interested in beauty products and giving advice on them. Here are a few I found today:

1. “I tried Cher’s Favorite Shampoo and Conditioner for a Week!” (Video) in which an influencer goes through recent Cher product plugs. What a fabulously fun idea to try these all!

2 “Cher, 75, Reveals the $7 Drugstore Face Wash She Loves for Sensitive Skin” (Article) – it’s nice that a lot of these plugs are drugstore brands.

3. “Cher’s Favorite Beauty Products that you can still buy today” (Video)

4. What Cher Has To Say About Beauty (Article)

Okay, they’re not all drugstore brands but you can play with them or not as you can afford to.

Speaking of makeup tricks, Cher has also appeared in books by makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin including “Making Faces” and “Face Forward.”

You can get as exuberant or cynical about beauty products as you want. Even after spending billions of dollars on skin care and makeup, no product really moves the needle all that much.

And we are fed a bill-of-goods half the time. I recently had an alarming experience with lady razors. I was visiting my parents last month and didn’t have a good razor to use before a birthday massage. I went combing through my mother’s guest bathroom drawers and could find only an unopened Gillette Fusion men’s razor most likely left by my brother as he was their most recent overnight guest.

Now I don’t go scrummaging through Mr. Cher Scholar’s man-stuff so I have never had the opportunity to use a men’s razor but out of desperation I decided to use this one. It was heavy. It wasn’t pink. What if it peeled off my delicate lady skin? I was seriously petrified right before using it. Like I might bleed to death by using that extra blade. Wait a minute. Why do the mens get that extra blade? After doing one leg and experiencing the closest shave I’ve ever felt in my life, I got pissed for all woman kind. WTF. They’ve been selling us sub-par f**king razors!

And the truth of it is women shave their legs in America is because companies like Gillette wanted to expand the sales of razors and used women’s magazines to convince women we should have hairless all-the-things.

And then they go and sell us shitty pink razors!

Dear Cher, I’m 13 years old and this is my problem: I’ve liked this boy who lives near me for a long time. I told this to a few of my friends, and soon I realized that someone had told him about it too. One of my friends told me that he had said he liked me. When we had school pictures taken, all of us kids were trading our extra pictures with one another. I wanted to trade one with him, so that I could have a picture of him, and I mentioned this to a couple of my girl friends. I feel pretty sure that at least one of them told him. After that, he got very nasty to me, and one day in the library he told me that he hated me. Please help me. Brokenhearted, Gilbert, Minn.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Brokenhearted, Why, er, why {“why, er, why?”] did you have to tell the world about your feeling for this boy? If you are really honest about it, you knew that telling three friends was like broadcasting it. To have them tell him that you like him was O.K. But the thing about the pictures was—well, coming on too strong and it looked like you were chasing him. Naturally, he recoiled from this feeling of being captured. The fact is, a girl can flirt a little, but she has to draw the line somewhere, because the boy likes to capture her and not be captured. The only think you can do now is keep your mouth shut, maintain your cool and wait. Maybe if you are quiet and demure long enough, he will come back to you.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Ugh. This is the most depressing response I’ve ever read. Whatever happened to entireties to honesty? No, not honesty right now. First, pretend you are Cinderella and flee the scene without a shoe. These crazy courtship rituals.

My bad advice would be to roll your eyes, Snow White, and go find dwarves without hang ups. Friendlier pastures. Friendship knows nothing about forwardness and faux pas. I have no patience for these subtleties of chasing vs. demurring. As a naturally quiet person (believe it or not), demurring is my natural state but so what? In defense of all the forward girls, everyone needs to grow up. The games of playing hard to get will seem stupid when you’re on your death bed. Asking for a picture should not seem like some kind of dreadful “chasing.”

But happily we have alternate advice. The Susan Dey book, Secrets On Boys, Beauty & Popularity, has arrived and I’ve started reading it. And wouldn’t you know, this very issue is addressed in the first chapter called very succinctly “Boys,”

Fasten your seat belts because we are going to hear from the teen-idol-of-teen-idols himself.

“Boys—especially teen-age boys—are runners up to the Sphinx when it comes to letting a girl know whether the romance is one-sided or whether he cares, too. I used to think this was just because boys were unexplainably nasty and mean about this but then I had a heart-to-heart talk with David Cassidy, and he let me in on a few things.

Mostly, a guy worries about letting a girl know he likes her too much. One slip of the tongue, a boy thinks, and pretty soon Doris and Ella and Sue and Ruth and Jean and Barbara and Claudian and Marie and Carol and Connie and Ann and Dorothy will know. What’s worse, a boy thinks, is that they’ll tell Sam, Dave, Fred, George, Roger, Russ, Ralph, Steve, Kenny, and Chuck next. Soon, continues this nightmare that a boy dreams up for himself, Mom, Dad, little brother, and Aunt Agnes will all be bugging him about his First True Love. All this is enough, in a boy’s mind, to convince him that he really doesn’t love this special girl at all!.

David says it’s a big step for a boy to admit, to himself or publicly, that he likes a girl because girls have been doll-carrying sissies [oh dear] for so long that as far as a boy is concerned, finding yourself in love with one is a major shock. The first thing a rough, tough….boy does, David says, is seriously question his sanity!”

Well, that does explain how a this boy can go from liking Brokenhearted girl to freaking out over a school picture and telling her he hates her. That is if we can believe David Cassidy is speaking for many of the other boys and not just the troubled David Cassidy.

But there’s yet another way to look at this. My high school friend went off to college and met a boy she liked a lot but she was in competition with another girl. Eventually this boy chose her and she asked him why he did so. He said it was because he was going to go out with the one who was the most aggressive in trying to date him. My friend was proud of her winnings but I thought her prize was a big dud who had no real dog in the fight and might possibly not even be able to feel love for either of them or maybe anybody.

Love asserts itself pretty pretty strongly. It shouldn’t be so hard an Olympic trial is required. If there wasn’t one thing more substantial to love about my friend besides her “trying hard” than that relationship would always be vulnerable to a future competitor willing to try even harder.

The point is neither of these extremes is good: pirate-afraid-of-capture guy or immovable-statue guy. What we all need is flexibility in a person.

Equally problematic are those who look for hard-and-fast roles from another person. I had another eternally single friend who once said she wanted to be the garden and not the gardener. She meant she wants to be taken care of without having to take care of. This is just not the description of a healthy relationship. Nobody has explained it better recently than Michelle Obama in her new book, The Light We Carry. This is an absolutely beautiful description of a healthy couple:

“….you’ll almost certainly come to see that there’s no such thing as a fifty-fifty balance. Instead, it’ll be like beads on an abacus, sliding back and forth—the math rarely tidy, the equation never quite solved. A relationship is dynamic this way, full of change, always evolving. At no point will both of you feel like things are perfectly fair and equal. Someone will always be adjusting. Someone will always be sacrificing. One person may be up while the other is down…in a strong partnership, both people will take their turns at compromise, building that shared sense of home together, there in the in-between. 

Regardless of how wildly and deeply in love you are, you will be required to ignore all sorts of your partner’s foibles. You will be be required to ignore all sorts of minor irritations and at least a few major ones, too, trying to assert love and constancy over all of it—over all the rough spots and inevitable disruptions. You will need to do this as often and as compassionately as you can. And you will need to be doing it with someone who is equally able and willing to create the same latitude and show the same forbearance toward you—to love you despite all the baggage you show up with, despite what you look like and how you behave when you are at your absolute worst.”

And I know we’re talking about kids here. But let’s just give them some insight into how things should be right from the start.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Cher and Robert Camilletti. It’s from her first commercial for Uninhibited perfume in the late 1980s. That is the goal of any relationship, to be uninhibited. You shouldn’t have to worry about being demure or aggressive or whatever it is you “supposed” to be. You should feel free to be who you are. And that is hard enough between two very different people. Why throw in additional crap about how the thing should or shouldn’t get going?

Dear Sonny, I have been told that I’m cute. [Again with the I’ve been told I’m cute thing.] I feel that I’m popular in school and well-loved at home. I don’t have a particular problem but I do have a request. Please tell me your idea of a perfect girl—her personality, clothes and her popularity standing. Needing Ideas, Arlington Heights, Ill.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Needing Ideas, Surprise! There is no such thing as a perfect girl, so don’t try to become one. If you do, you’ll probably ruin everything that you now have. Your personality should be unique and your very won. Clothes don’t make the girl, as you know. [She doesn’t seem to know, Sonny.] It’s good to have friends, because they are true friends; it’s good to be liked, because you’re likable; but popularity just for the sake of being popular is of absolutely no value. Just be yourself and don’t worry about these extraneous things.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Great response Sonny. What makes me think it will be lost on this Needing Ideas girl?

I have a member of the family in pursuit of a very hard line perfection and I have said the same thing to them. Perfection is like a pretty and smooth surface without anything for another person to hook on to. It’s ultimately alienating. Which is why we develop our deep affections for flaws. Think about someone you love. Think of their rough parts. Those are the hooks, the heart hooks. We’re not talking about homicidal flaws or battery-level flaws. We’re talking about the exhaustion of perfection and the endearments toward things that are less than perfect (and sometimes downright broken) in others and in ourselves. We each have those things that pull on our heart-strings and those things are never perfections.

Cher is a great example of this. I have never been attracted to the kind of men she is attracted to. We all have our things we like or don’t like. Cher is not drawn to classically beautiful men. She is truly a woman who has followed her heart in these matters.

Dear Sonny, My question can only be answered by a guy. Please tell me honestly how guys feel about freckles. I’m loaded with them and I hate them. A suntan doesn’t cover them up because they pop through—and makeup does no good. Freckles, Chicago, Ill.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Freckles, Forget them. Period. By noticing them so much, you are literally turning mole hills into mountains [well, not literally…literally they’re freckles]. Because you are so uptight about your freckles, you think that everybody else does nothing but stare at them. Not so. They may notice them for the first ten or twenty seconds they see you, but human beings are so constructed that (unless they are just plain evil) their eyes and minds are more interested in the human being  and not in surface distractions. Freckles aren’t a fault. They’re a fact. Since you can’t do anything about them, leave them alone. Concentrate on your good points. I used to be excruciatingly self-conscious about my nose, and I learned to practice what I’m preaching to you now. Believe me, it helped. When I started concentrating on my good points, I started doing groovy things. By the way, there are some examples of freckle-laden ladies who decided to ignore their freckles—Doris Day, Julie Andrews, model Jean Shrimpton and Jane Asher. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Perfect answer, Sonny. I have nothing to add. Freckles are sexy.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 6

July 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I was thinking this week would be another Dear Sonny & Cher, but it’s actually another solo Cher with a picture of Sonny & Cher. So technically Cher made it through four columns by herself. The final four of the ten will all be “Dear Cher…and Sonny.” So six total were with Sonny, four solo.

This is an interesting picture. It shows the mature Sonny and the doe-eyed Cher. They look like brother and younger sister here. Sonny showed some real courage to wear those polka-dots.

This was a frustrating week for me, the obvious answers for teeth and nails and always the boys. I think I’ve reached my limits on the variation of “does he like me” questions. These boys are gonna be the death of me.

 

If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact—there’s no need for you to suffer at all, Cher wants to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, I like this boy who lives near my house, but I’m not sure whether he likes me—or is just teasing me. It seems like all the boys tease me. I feel like they must hate me. How can I be sure just what they mean? Unsure, Mystic, Conn.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Unsure, I think you are nurturing a queen-size inferiority complex—and all over nothing. First, if a boy notices you enough to tease you, you can be almost positive that he is interested in you. Second, it is a habit of fellows, when they are hanging around together, to single out a girl or two and pick on them. All this means is that they are watching. Don’t take [it] the wrong way. Just be a little lady and don’t be afraid to smile at them occasionally—with a dash of humor in your eyes. Soon you will find that they will stop teasing and start talking to you, which is probably what they are building up to, anyway,

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Oh boy. There’s a lot to unpack in here. I even ran this one by my mother this week. We were talking about sensitivity gone amuck. Common wisdom on “picking on” as flirting is pretty strict. It’s “not okay” and practically considered abuse. Sometimes the more innocent “teasing” gets caught up in that, however, which makes flirting in this century very complicated.

As the “little lady” in a house with two older brothers I was obviously teased and this was in the 1970s so it was obviously tolerated. The issue wasn’t the teasing per se (which all four of them did). It was the not-stopping after teasing fatigue set in. I gained a reputation for being explosive when my buttons were pushed for too long. Plus, I tend to be sensitive, after all, practically emotionally fragile.

When I moved from Albuquerque to St. Louis I was also teased by the Missouri boys, (I think that was a genetic predisposition), because of my last name being Ladd, (which is why I’ve always found name puns to be low hanging fruit, comedically speaking). My mother consistently would tell me that the boys were only teasing me because they liked me. That did help take the punch out of their puns.

But where does teasing end and bullying begin? I do not know. But I do know, if the teasing crosses the line into bullying than you can f*%k that shit about being “a little lady” who smiles “with a dash of humor.” That would not be the recommended strategy today. Bullying is not funny. It’s basically the pre-stage of a fist fight.

However, teasing is not always bullying. Even though gaslighters will tell you “they’re just teasing” as they’re bullying you (ask me how I know). It’s all very complicated.

And here’s the rub. I am teaser myself. And I’ve been told I tease like a Ladd (which is not necessarily a good thing). I definitely, like those boys, wouldn’t bother to tease someone I didn’t care for. But I also wouldn’t tease someone I didn’t know very well or trust. It is definitely one of the ways I express both affection (dare I say the primary way) and a sense of feeling safe.  Which brings us to the love languages. I’m not a huge fan of the love languages because they seem to train us to accept our default (and everyone else’s) comfortable languages and I contend we should all be good(ish) at all of them. (To review the love languages are service, touch, gifts, words and time. I get it, we’re all bad at some of them, (err, or all of them). But we all needs goals, right? We certainly should have goals to love better. We all need a repertoire of thoughtfulness, conversation, experiences…and teasing.

The dialogue at the beginning of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was designed to be marital teasing. Sometimes it got pretty barbed but the idea was that it was all in fun and games and that Sonny and Cher would go home as a happy family. That didn’t exactly turn out to be truth, but it wasn’t because of height jokes or Indian jokes or Italian jokes. It was due to much more serious fault lines around infidelity and control. Cher actually liked short Italian guys…like a lot. Her barbs were just part of the game playing and the banter was popular because everyone was getting used to seeing more “ethnic” looking people on TV making fun of each other. Then maybe racist America wouldn’t take it all so seriously either. I think the banter was doing real cultural work via the guise of teasing. Looking back it seems more mean-spirited than it did at the time.

And in the real space of a relationship between two people, teasing has a function. It is part of the suite of affections. But the world is full of misinterpretations and sensitivity; so where flirting is concerned, we probably aught to be a safe word for teasing deployments.

I’m going to pick one right now: “fluffernutter.”

Dear Cher, I am 14 years old and I have always been thin—skinny, to be honest. I feel afraid of people. I can never talk to them easily and I feel as though I want to run away and hide sometimes. Frustrated, Glen Allen, Va.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Frustrated, If I were you, I would look at the bright side of things. It is easier to gain weight than to lose it [not true], for instance. I suggest that you eat a well-balanced diet of three big meals and day, and then help yourself to between-meal snacks. You can eat pizza, popcorn and ice cream—all those groovey goodies that most teenage girls have to say “no” to. [Uh, is this a good idea?]  I would advise you to avoid chocolate, coconut, soda pop and sundaes, as these can cause acne. To overcome your intense shyness, you will just have to force yourself  out of your shell. Try talking to yourself in the mirror. Don’t laugh, I really mean it. Then try talking to two or more friends. I know it’s hard to do, but if you don’t make some kind of effort, you’ll never get anywhere. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

What a mess. Half of us have fat thighs and half of us have toothpicks (my Dad’s word for his legs today). The very idea of the ideal is exhausting.

Metabolisms can get really screwed up with extreme diets in one direction or another. So this advice seems very dated now: pig out, basically. This could have bad unintended consequences down the line at the other extreme. Science is just now figuring out how metabolisms function and it’s kind of wacky. There’s still a lot we don’t know about food and how our body processes it. Neil DeGrasse Tyson in his Master Class talked about “frontier science” (science at the very outer edges of our knowledge and understanding) and food seems to fit into that category for me, which is why the media jumps on all the contradictory studies about common foods: eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you, coffee is good for, coffee is you bad for you, wine is good for you… We don’t know yet fully is the thing. The weight-loss show The Biggest Loser demonstrated how much we really don’t know scientifically about weight loss and weight gain.

The Cooking with Cher cookbook is a good example of this. When this Cher’s fat-free-everything cookbook came out, fat free was the fad, accepted on faith. But as it turns out, we need some of those fats. Eating is complicated.

My friend Julie and I once hosted a A Battle of the Stars dinner party in Los Angeles with our friends: Jack Nicholson’s fat-free cookbook recipes pitted against Cher’s fat-free recipes. Cher did win in the final voting but everyone was pretty unilaterally unenthused about the goods. And that’s not surprising for diet food. Fun jobs don’t pay. Good food tries to kill you. C’est La Vie.

Michelle Obama’s new book The Light We Carry (one of the books saving my life right now) had some great advice about talking to yourself in the mirror. She tells a story about a man she knows who starts every day with a look in the mirror and a friendly, “Hey, buddy.” It’s about starting the day with something nice to say to yourself. I am trying to figure out what the girl equivalent should be. I don’t like the Barbra Streisandly “Hey gorgeous!” Too much. I want to talk to my little self, actually. With some bit of teasing, truth be told, like, “Hey there, wiseacre” or “Good morning, smarty pants!”

Sonny teased Cher about being too thin and this was probably one of the things she was actually a bit sensitive about. She said before Bob Mackie, she wasn’t even sure people realized she was a girl. Which just goes to show what the power of an outfit will do.

The great ones have like super powers I guess.

Dear Cher, I have boy trouble. I am 13 and every time I get a boy to notice me, he seems friendly at first but [then] he loses interest. How can I get a boy to keep liking me? Troubled, Pablos Verdes, Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Troubled, To get a boy to keep on liking you is an age-old problem with us girls. I think you have to make something “special” of yourself [oy vey]. To be special, you should have your own flair with clothes, have an original hair style, or do something that is different (but no way-out) [god forbid]. Most girls have a tendency to “run with the herd,” and guys get bored with that type. [Is this Sonny, talking? It sounds more like Sonny in some of these.] It is the girl who tries new things, [*snicker*] who is stimulating and full of life, and who has imagination and uses it that keeps a fellow alert and interested. 

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Sigh. So what is the recipe again? Be stimulating, full-of-life, not boring, imaginative but not “way-out.” Good grief. No, bad grief. This is an age-old story. It’s called Scheherazade.

You know what? This is the right answer (and I’m not disagreeing with Cher here; she came to this answer eventually): girls don’t need boys. That’s the answer. Stop all the “does he like me if he teases me” or “does he like me if names his car after me” or does he like me if I do A,B,C,D,E,F….

I’m getting bored with the bored boys, to be honest with you.

Let me tell you a story. I once worked at a Mortgage Company in St. Louis. My job all day was to make legal-sized photocopies and send faxes to the corporate office in Minnesota. I did so much faxing I started to dream about it. In the dream I had trouble flipping over the double-sided legal paper correctly. (I hate work dreams.) Anyway, there were two women there I completely misjudged. One was a very cool, beautiful curly-haired brunette woman who I thought would never want to be friends with a boring person like me. But she invited me to dog sit for her and we went to concerts together (the best one being Steely Dan) and she became the only friend I maintained out of that job.

The other woman was a very tiny, trad-wife looking woman. Or trad-fiancé anyway. Just the way she dressed, talked and did her hair. She was at that time planning her upcoming wedding and it was all she was talking about. I thought, she’s just waiting for her “real” life to begin. I wasn’t dismissive so much as I considered her an alien property. I was only 22 or 23 at the time. Little did I know she was over 30, (all the girls in that office were over 30, the cool, beautiful girl, the getting-married girl, the girl training so hard to get into the FBI she passed out one day by the fax machine).

We had an amazing boss there. He was a Baptist minister. And I told my first joke in that office. I remember it like it was yesterday. I sat next to the boss and we had an open office plan. There was a light flickering above us and we could see a bug up there dying in the light fixture. I said, “Well, I guess you can say he’s finally seen the light.” The whole office starting laughing and not because the joke was any good but because quiet-Mary actually told a joke. I turned beet-red and became committed to doing more of that.

Anyway, after a few months I got to know the not-so-trad-wife girl as I delivered copies to her desk by the window. She asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. I was just moving into my first apartment. She said, “Good. Live on your own for as long as you can. You will discover who you are, learn how to stand on your own two feet and then you will never feel trapped by a bad relationship.”

I thought, “That’s f*%king brilliant!” She wasn’t a trad-wife at all. She turned out to be a god-damn love guru.

Cher has said as much. Boys are fabulous but you don’t need one to live.

I don’t want to live in a world without boys. I want to be friends with boys. Relationships with boys are important and exciting and fulfilling. But if all the boys in the world find me boring or unimaginative or unstimulating, I will survive it.

Dear Cher, I have trouble with my hair, my face, and—worse—I have buck teeth. Please don’t laugh. I really want to know what to do. I am 11 years old. Carol, Atwater, Col.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Carol, you must never think for one minute that I would laugh at you or anyone with a problem. I was young once [like two days ago], too, and I know how very serious all these problems are. I only hope that I can help you and any other 16-ers who write to me in some small way. I think it would serve you well to order 16’s Beauty and Popularity Book, as you did not spell out your problems in any detail and the Beauty Book covers all problems, from shyness to skin and hair care. Buck teeth can only be treated by a dentist (who will probably send you to a good orthodontist). I advise you to get your parents to take you to the dentist at once, as you are still young enough to get the braces that will cure your buck teeth problem forever.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

I had braces too. I was thinking the transformation was going to be bigger than it was after that year of mouth metal. Like I would have magic new teeth basically.  But I pretty much looked the same. I had the same teeth. I didn’t suddenly have Farrah Fawcett face.

I wish I could get a copy of this 16  guide book to beauty. I still can’t find it. But I did find an ad for it. Yikes!

And I found the next best thing: Susan Dey’s Secrets on Boys, Beauty and Popularity.  I can’t wait to read this. The answer is out there about beauty and boys, folks. This is just more “frontier science.”

Cher’s mother did not have the money to fix Cher’s teeth. And Cher didn’t get braces until she was in her late-30s, somewhere between the movies Silkwood and The Witches of Eastwick. In some ways, her straightened teeth completely changed the look of her mouth. The fist time I saw Cher’s new mouth was in the movie The Witches of Eastwick. I had cognitive dissonance watching the first outdoor lunch scene where Alexandra Medford meets Daryl Van Horne in the beginning of the movie.

Maybe if you’ve got a magic smile you shouldn’t fuss with it. More “frontier science” right there.

(Click to enlarge)

Dear Cher, How can I stop biting my nails? They are a mess. I want to hide my hands when I go out on a date. Please help me. Nails, Ft. Lee, N.J.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Nails, First try to get a “substitute” habit. In other words, every time you want to bite your nails grab a piece of gum or a Life Saver—or twist a piece of your hair. Next, run lanolin (it’s cheap at the drug store) in your hands and massage your finger-tips each night (this is to keep your cuticles soft). Every time you feel like “biting in,” stop and  say, “That’s silly. I’ll find something better to do with my hands”—and do it.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

The old “substitute habit” theory. I don’t think that works. I think that’s just regular ole science. Besides, twisting your hair could be just as annoying for everyone else to have to watch. How about this, the next time you want to bite your nails, smoke a cigarette instead. See? And soon we’ll have to start ranking and color-coding all the bad habits and it will be a mess. Mo habits, mo problems.

I either have the best nails or the worst nails. It’s called life balance, people. Sheesh. My grandmother always has glamourous nails and sometimes having my grandmother’s long fingers with her glamourous nails can feel like Dumbo’s feather, but sometimes I feel like nails should get a breath of fresh air or I’ll be taking a ceramics class and fingernails wreak havoc when you’re doing pottery.

Cher, too, has gone through nail phases. Her most famous nail phase was in the 1970s when she popularized the crazy-long talons. She was so infamous for her long nails that there are stories about her bringing recording sessions to a halt if she needed a nail repair.

But then she went to a more natural look when she started acting in movies because well, of course, serious actors need to have serious nails. It makes total sense.

She has recently started wearing longer nails again but with less color.

(Click to enlarge)

Biting your nails is probably one of the better bad habits, all things considered. I mean they keep growing back so…live a little.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 5

July 16, 2024 / / 0 Comments

What a picture this week! Cher is wearing some future-Cher-signature hoop earrings. She was literally before her own time, not just everybody else’s time. This is also classic 60s-Cher with the thick eyeliner and the neutral lips, the thick bangs. She looks slightly miffed, like kids are writing to her via 16 Magazine and they are not telling her how old they were. (Can you believe it?)

This also marks the last solo effort of this column. From now on, Sonny will weigh in on questions, too. Maybe his new movie-mogul schedule has freed up. Who knows. The bottom line is Cher only got through three of them by herself.

 

If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, Do you think it is wrong for a girl to try and make herself look like another girl? For instance, I think you are beautiful and I model my hair, clothes and looks after you. Who would I try to look like? I flip for John Lennon. Worried, Niagara Falls, Ont.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Worried, Since you didn’t say how old you are, it is hard to give you advice. You 16-ers must remember to state your age when you writer to me—as that does make a difference. If you are 14 or younger, I think it is quite a good thing to choose another girl whom you admire to model yourself after. However, as you get older, you should start discovering yourself. You should—sooner or later—get your own style. That’s like letting the real you emerge. Everybody starts by copying, but in the end they must come to themselves. I agree with you that John Lennon is quite flippy.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

From Canada. She’s getting international letters now! I think this is a very good response, except for the scoldy you-16-ers part…and the part about John Lennon being flippy. I don’t agree with them on that one and the comment itself seems aside from the question. Just a non-sequitur. Maybe it was a hey, girl-to-girl thing, look at that hottie John Lennon. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

Truth be told, I don’t find any of the Beatles “flippy” or handsome and I know this will piss off millions of Boomer ladies by saying that. I have always struggled with the mandatory exercise of “picking my Beatle” and I have defaulted to Paul just because he and his wife Linda sided with the animals and Linda had a line of TV-dinners taste-tested in St. Louis. The dinners didn’t ever “go” but it was back when there were no vegetarian TV dinners in grocery stores and, incidentally, they were very tasty and so I also have her cookbook. You could argue I’m more of a Linda McCartney fan. But I do like the Beatles themselves. It’s more of a problem of picking a cute one. (And Cher Scholar’s gonna drop some catty bits here).  I contend that there is a fatal flaw in each of the Beatle faces. I had these thoughts watching the excellent Get Back documentary. For Ringo, yes, unfortunately it is the nose. For Paul, it’s those droopy eyes that most Boomer girls did indeed flip for. George Harrison has the most classically handsome face, but I can’t get past those teeth. For John Lennon, the eyes, nose and teeth are fine. It’s his mouth.

That all is needlessly (and maybe inappropriately) said because quantifying beauty is very subjective and cultural. For example. I love Cher’s older crooked teeth. I don’t like George Harrison’s crooked teeth. Probably sentimentality plays into our evaluations more than we like to admit. I have no sentimental attachment to the Beatles so I can nit-pick away. Maybe if I was an older person, I would have joined my peers and “flipped.” As it was, I was born later and flipped (and floundered) for people in my 1980s-teen-era instead. (However, I did not pick a Duran Duran member either. Sigh. Okay, maybe it’s me.)

And how are all these I-want-to-look-like-you Cher questions coming through the slush pile anyway? Is that the bulk of the mail coming in? Are they choosing only questions that discuss Cher beauty or Cher hair? Which is an interesting marketing strategy to pick only those questions that made Cher look good (but look at me being all conspiracy theory right now).

I am fascinated by these changing age borderlines in the 16 Magazine responses. Like was some teen-psychologist being consulted? Age 14 seems like the fulcrum of many changes in one’s life. Boys getting more sensible with girls, girls coming into their “real you-ness.” The real Eunice, as it were. How can I get to my real Eunice?

I actually love the idea that you begin to discover your own look by copying others and then making small tweaks away from that copy, so many tweaks that eventually you won’t recognize the source. I would love to hear (or read) about Cher’s childhood models, what and from whom she copied to finally define her Cherness, her Eunice. And I think this practice applies to probably everything we do as creative people or thinkers. We model other things until we understand the thing fair enough to try out tweaks for ourselves. There’s some great quote out there about artists who become great because they fail at trying to be someone else.

I was 15 or 16 when the Cher movie Mask came out. But since I was a slow kid, let’s just say I had the maturity of a 14-year old and that’s being generous. Watching the movie in the theaters I remember thinking Cher looked so great and that of all the eras of Cher, this look seemed somewhat copy-able for a girl from Missouri. You know, a sprinkle of hillbilly in there? Her 1960s-hippy chic look: eh. The glamourous TV star look: not do-able. Biker chick: possibly. Looking back it seems folly but I did try it out. And the form it took was to copy her character’s white undershirts and ribbon/shoestring necklaces. The shirts didn’t work immediately. But I did wear those shoestring necklaces all through my Sophomore year until I decided, you know, I’m not really a choker-necklace person.

Dear Cher, I have very dark, coarse hair on my forearms and on my face. Do you have any suggestion as to how I could get rid of this unwanted hair? Hairy, Ft. Collins, Col. 

Cher’s Response:

Dear Hairy, YOU FORGOT TO GIVE YOUR AGE!! If you are under 16, I advise you to try to ignore this excess hair for the time being. It may just be a passing thing and soon gradually begin to disappear. But if you are over 16, it is probably going to be a permanent problem, and you should speak to your family doctor about recommending a good electrolysist. There are people who scientifically remove hairs permanently—one at a time. Do not use “hair removing” creams and plasters on your body or face, as it is very dangerous.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, THE YELLING!! Maybe 16 Magazine needs a form kids can fill out to send in with their letter. That would eliminate all the forgetting to tell Cher what age you are. I now feel compelled by these stern reprimands to give my age when I have a question for anyone. “I’m 55!” That’s got to be the boundary of some kind of life cycle change, right? Wait a minute. Maybe Cher should start an AARP advice column right now! “Dear Cher, I’m 55 and not yet having hot flashes like all my friends? Am I a freak of nature. I feel so left out. What should I do?”

And I notice the age boundary has moved to 16 in this case. I hope there’s a chart somewhere of all these teen thresholds. Or is 16 just the age when girls can start going through draconian beauty practices? Boys can get drafted into the military at 18; girls can start electrolysis at 16?

There is some intense social pressure to be hairless, oddly. As a race, human animals are turning into hairless cats. I personally like hair on people, cats and dogs. And I know some very beautiful girls with hairy arms. In the third grade, a girl named Laura moved to our neighborhood from somewhere in the south. She sat next to me and we became friends for a year. All the boys went nuts. She was very pretty and had a southern accent. And hairy arms. The boys did not care. She was the most popular girl that year.

It’s interesting that this response differentiates between removing hair scientifically as opposed to what? Magically? I think they mean these snake-oil type remedies. You know, the whole skin care industry basically. I have a love-hate relationship with skin care products and I wrote about this extensively in Cher Zine 3, “Cher and Your Skin (The Infomercials).”

Hair removal has come along way (err, scientifically) since the 1960s. Just look at this Wikipedia page with its hilarious drawings of human hair and old-tyme ads for hair removal. There is now sugaring, threading, drugs, laser, IPL, diode epilation.

One thing is for certain, people care an awful lot about their hair. It’s a very serious business. Do I have too much? Not enough? One good thing about hair is that you can play with it.

Dear Cher, My father is in the Army and we lived in Europe for five years until about five months ago.  Before I left, all of my friends told me they would write to me. I have written to them all and given them my new address, and not a single one has responded. What is wrong with me—or with them? Now that I have gone, have they forgotten me? Depressed, Ft. Ord. Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Depressed, Nothing is wrong with you or them—except that you are all human beings acting in a very human way. You remembered to write and [were] anxious to hear from them. In fact, it was probably easier for you to spend a lot of time writing to your old friends, rather than make new ones. They, however, still have each other, and are not lonely—though I am sure they miss you and speak of you often (and also feel guilty about not writing). But you should also remember that writing a letter is hard for your former friends, as they are all caught up in the busy life they share. That doesn’t mean they think ill of you. Don’t be such a pessimist. Go out and get some new buddies and start all over. When you remember the past, think only of the good things and—if you feel so inclined—if you feel so inclined—just drop your old friends a happy little picture postcard from time to time,. You’ll make out all right—you’ll see.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Europeans!

I was a big nerd and also in French class so I had a lot of international pen pans in high school. The two pals who petered out first were the boy from Germany and the boy from France. I really don’t think this is because they were Europeans. I think this is because (can we all agree?) they were boys. My best pen pals were from New Mexico (Maureen I had as a pen pal the longest, through my twenties, and yet have never met her, even though I lived in the small city of Santa Fe for three years where she was from and probably still living), the French-Canadian (who wrote to me in French and I returned letters to her in English) and the girl from the Philippines (who wrote to me until the Marcos were deposed and then I never heard from her again). So it’s situational is what I’m saying.

I guess I’m pretty hot-headed because I didn’t spend much time making additional attempts after one went unanswered. So for this question I went to one of my bffs, Julie, to get advice. She has a remarkable reputation among our group for doing something we call “never forcing a falling out.” You know, sometimes you get fed up with a friend and you “force a falling out.” You instigate trouble to cull that friend from your herd. This may be a catty girl thing to do but we would often find Julie in a situation where “forcing a falling out” would seem beneficial and we would recommend she do it and she would never do it. Admirable really. So I told her this scenario and she texted me back: “I wouldn’t send more than two unanswered letters unless this was a really long-time relationship, then maybe three or four. And I would probably try calling if it was a long-term relationship before accepting being ghosted.” We then discussed the word ghosting and me using it here in this anachronistic scenario and we decided it was a very useful term. Because ghosting was happening long before “ghosted” was a word. To be clear, ghosting is not nice. To force a falling out is, although still dysfunctional, somewhat nicer. At least the victim has closure.

I do like the idea of converting to postcards as a way to touch base without the pressure of a response. “Remember me? I’m in America now doing obnoxious American things! Thbbbbffttt!” Then again, I can see where that wouldn’t help things much.

There’s probably not much hope in this sort of situation and I see Cher now giving me the stern Cher-stare and saying, “Cher Scholar, don’t be such a pessimist!”

Dear Cher, I have fat thighs. I am not tall, so it really shows on me. I am 14 years old. [Thank God she said how old she was!] What should I do? Out Of Shape, Bossier City, La.

Cher’s Response:

Be glad you are 14—for that means that some of this weight is still “baby fat” and it will slowly disappear in the next couple of years. However, I think you should practice rolling around on the floor. [Is this code for sex?] What you do is recline on the floor propped up by your arms with your elbows straight. Point your toes and stiffen your leg muscles. Now slowing roll over to the right as far as you can. Hold it for a moment, and then slowly roll all the way back to your left. Repeat this 25 times a day, and within two weeks your measurements will be on the way down.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Roll around on the floor?? There’s not a better, more “scientific” name for this exercise? Ok, I’m gonna try it. Hold on a minute…

Okay I don’t think I did this right because it seemed more of a workout for my arms than my thighs, which were also chubby as kid. I have a distinct memory of being in my Wonder Woman swimsuit down at our neighborhood pool where Lillian, Diana and I would yell “Laugh at Me,” (after Sonny’s solo opus, no kidding and no idea why), and then jumping into the pool and grabbing at each other underwater and then Lillian coming up to tell me she found my legs chubby. And I wasn’t mad about it but I do remember being a bit irritated, thinking “Oh great, now I have to worry about my legs.”

Those chubby legs turned into tween-anorexic skinny legs (you saw that coming) and then I had a decade in my late-teens and twenties with normal legs and now we’re back to elderly chubby legs again.

I just did a google search that made me feel a bit fat- shamey: “best workout for fat thighs.” I got the usual suspects: lunges, squats, dead lifts with weights and jumping jacks (which are hard on your knees…just ask Jane Fonda).

Cher obviously couldn’t have thrown this out in the mid-1960s but there will come a time in the 1990s when Cher would turn into somewhat of a fitness guru. So we have quite a suite of workouts, guides and encouragements to suggest now.

Cher’s VHS A New Attitude, a step workout, was released in 1991. Body Confidence was released in 1992 with weight band exercises and a hot dance. When these came out, I just watched them while eating ice cream. I was thin then and the devil may care. Years ago I actually bought a step and tried the workouts. They were good and hard. The most distracting thing about them is the fact Cher is really overdressed in them. And that is kind of a turn off somehow. She does honestly struggle through her own workouts sometimes and that is refreshing. But to show up dressed for singing “Turn Back Time” is not motivating for those of us who do not have Turn-Back-Time-fits or care to.

In 1991, Cher also came out with a nutrition and fitness book, co-authored by nutritionist Robert Haas (who wrote Eat to Win), not to be confused with the poet Robert Hass (who wrote “The Nineteenth Century as a Song“).

Cher also did a series of commercials for Jack LaLanne gyms from 1984 to 1989. You can get some inspiration for your fat thighs here by listening to some memorable Cher epigrams about sweating:

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 4

July 7, 2024 / / 0 Comments

We are here today with the next installment of Dear Cher (and later Sonny) from 16 Magazine.  From this new preamble, we can tell this is column number two. I really should have ordered these.

We also get an unusually earnest photo choice, maybe meant to engender some trust here. I’d say it’s working. I, myself, am ready to divulge my deepest, darkest secrets to 1960s Cher. Luckily this column redux isn’t (all) about me so I won’t have to.

We’re only four columns into this exercise and we can already see recurring teen-girl themes. A “life full of problems” amounts to basically two things, boys and insecurity about how we look. No one is struggling to raise money to backpack across Europe or training to become Amelia Earhart. (Don’t look at me. I wasn’t either.) That’s too bad but not surprising, I guess.

Here we go:

 

“If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants help you—right here in the pages of 16!

HELLO AGAIN!

As you know, last month I started a regular column in 16 in which I will answer the letters you write to me and attempt to help you in any way I can with your problems—large or small. When you write to me (since most of your letters are of a very personal nature), if you choose to use a code name I will write back to you in that name. Each month I will answer as many of your letters as I possibly can, so keep looking here for your reply.

Dear Cher, There is a boy who lives near me who hangs out at the soda shop where all we kids go in the afternoon [all we kids?]. If I see him on our block and he is alone, he speaks to me and seems to be very friendly, but when I see him with the gang down [at] the soda shop, he doesn’t speak and looks right through me. I really like him very much (in fact, I think I am in love with him), but I don’t know how he feels. He sure does act funny. What can I do? Confused, Little Rock, Ark. 

Cher’s Response:

You didn’t tell me your age (most of you forget to do that when you write—try not to, for it is helpful to know how old you are when I am writing my answers to you), but I’d guess that you are about 14 or 15 and he is about a year older than you. The reason I guess these ages is because of his behavior. Most boys of 14 or 15 are really and truly interested in girls, but they are still sort of shy about it and hate the idea of their buddies catching them showing interest in a girl—for they will get teased unmercifully about it. What this boy does is speak to you (because he wants to and probably likes you) when there is no one else around, and when he is in the company of his pals he clams up rather than risk their ridicule. You have to try to be understanding. There is no great mystery to his behavior. Just give him a very pleasant smile when you pass in him in “public” and don’t expect him to speak (he’ll get around to it one day, so don’t worry). He will appreciate your discretion and sensitivity to his “plight” and like you all the more for it.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Dear Confused, we saw this very issue come up a few weeks ago in Part 2, “How Do You Know When He Cares?” as a sign of his seriousness or unseriousness and at that time I alluded to the disturbing story by the writer Roxanne Gay from her book Bad Feminist. In her case, the same behavior was a big red flag. The boy was grooming her for a gang rape.

But I like how Cher brings the age range into consideration here. An older boy behaving this way might seriously be a red flag: either he’s a jerk or worse. But Cher brings up a good point about younger boys. They’re swimming in the proverbial shark tank of love without their swimmies. As awful as teen girlhood can be, being a young boy has always sounded much worse. So some sympathy goes there, for sure.

But this behavior also signifies the fact that this boy is probably not yet ready for girls. And this is fine. There seems to be a pressure during this period of boyhood to simultaneous like girls and not like girls. Which is very confusing for the girls. I’ve written about this elsewhere but I never understood what the mad dash was all about. Why were we all in such a rush? Ok, I was a tad slow in this area and most of the boys were ready long before I was, so I missed this whole awkward, confusing phase. But I had to sit and listen to all my girlfriends go through it which was truly awful, once removed.

Part of dating another person is the melding of the friend groups. And since you’re not the same people, these are never the same friend groups. Drama can ensue. Sometimes the friends don’t even like each other. But it’s part of the process. I’ve seen some of my friends (men and women both) compartmentalize their dating life. You could be hanging out with them for years before ever meeting their significant other. It’s not terrible but it’s not healthy either. It’s like having part of your life in quarantine. Now if you’re dating the mad woman (or man) in the attic like Mr. Rochester was, then maybe you want to keep this person from your friends. But wouldn’t you rather have friends who understand?

Honestly, this doesn’t sound like a Cher response to me. I don’t think Cher would put up with this for very long. I could be wrong but I don’t see her having much patience for this sort of thing considering she doesn’t feel men are a necessity. I also can’t see a self-respecting Sonny or Robert Camilletti doing this. Cher says Gregg Allman and Les Dudek were very nice. Maybe Gene Simmons would do this. Yeah, probably Gene Simmons. But I don’t think she took much grief off Gene Simmons either.

Look, she made him carry Gregg Allman’s baby:

Dear Cher, My parents consider it “wild” to have long hair, wear short skirt[s] and listen to rock and roll music—and forget about boys! I am 15, I get good grades, and I work part-time during the summer. I’m not wild, but I do like rock and roll and all the other things I mentioned, including boys [don’t forget the boys]. Please, please help me. “Sally,” Spokane, Wash.

Cher’s Response:

Dear “Sally,” You sound to me like a reliable, level-headed young girl who just wants to [buy Sonny & Cher records and] have some fun once in a while.  I think you might try asking your mother to sit down with you for a talk (mothers are usually more understanding about these things than dads are). Tell her that you can be trusted, that you just want to follow the fashions in a normal way—and that dancing, music and boys are also a part of being normal. Tell her that you will introduce her to any boy you go out with (I know that’s a pain, but you must admit it’s worth a try), and that you will gladly bring your other friends home for her to meet and approve. Ask her to give you a certain period of time (like a month) to prove that you can do all the things you wish to without being (or becoming) wild. Come through your “trial” period with all A pluses and I am sure your troubles will be over.

[For some reason, this week’s column was full of typos like “busic and boys” (busic is a combination of booze and boys maybe), a “certan period of time” and “of prove that” [I had to choose between “to prove that” or “of proof that.”]

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Dear Spokane Sally, Cher left home at 16. That’s how Cher handled it. She moved in with some girlfriends in Hollywood, got kicked out and moved in with a man who could have gotten arrested for it.

I myself had the opposite experience with my parents. I was so afraid I’d run afoul of some bad situation, I religiously told my parents everywhere I was planning to go. They found this problematically annoying. I would be like, “send out a search party if I’m not home by daylight” and they would look at me warily like, “well, maybe by noon we’ll look into it.”

Ugh. I’ll be dead by then! First 48!

When I finally did move out they were very skeptical that I would be able to fend for myself. To be honest, I was skeptical as well. But love can give you the power to do many adulting things, I’m here to tell you. I think my family would have liked for me to be wilder. They certainly all were. So I entirely relate to this goody-two-shoes who likes rock and roll. If I would have said, “I just want to follow fashions in a normal way” my mother would have cried with joy.

In the novel Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace talks about how every generation of fathers was a rejection of the previous generation, like a see-saw of points of view. Cher was from a musical family so I don’t think music was an issue per se, but Cher’s wildness was. Her mother didn’t know what to do. And Cher often says Chas was more conservative than she was, the indicative story being the time Chastity once stood in the bathroom with her mother, barring the door in order to prevent Cher from getting a mohawk. So Cher got a mohawk colored onto her head instead.

Dear Cher, What about us ugly girls? I am 12 years old and I am (not chubby, fat), really homely in the face. [Oh dear, the classic butterface.] I have no friends and spend all my time alone day-dreaming. I want to be liked and to have some fun, but I can’t seem to get anywhere. can you give us “uglies” some advice? Homely, Chicago, Ill.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Homely, I admire your honesty. Instead of beating around the bush, you get right to the heart of the problem—so I’ll get right to the heart of the solution. Every single person living on the face of this earth has something good and beautiful in them. Behind the homely face there is often a sensitive soul, and many a fat girl houses an understanding heart. You must endeavor to seek out your own good qualities and then to develop them. I  remember a fat girl in our school whom everybody loved because she was so good and kind. We all went to her with our problems and she became more dear to us than the pretty, popular girls who were just good for “decoration.” I am sure that you have some wonderful thoughts and some fine feelings buried in you. You must forget that you are not “Nature’s favorite” and start concentrating on the positive side of yourself. Remember to go about with a smile on your face (even when you feel blue), to be clean, and neat, and don’t be afraid to reach out to others—even if you feel they may reject you. If you reach out often enough, sooner or later you will find them—in turn—reaching back for you.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Dear Unfinished Person, You’re only 12! Oy. As they say about growing faces, there’s still a lot of football left to play. Okay, they don’t say that about young faces, but they should.

I’ve encountered mean and cruel people in all shapes and sizes. I see no correlation. But since beauty is a cultural idea 100%, I’ve seen some people become very bitter about being born out of time, so to speak. Being voluptuous when thin is in, having the wrong face for where and when they were born. If you happen have attributes a culture considers better than others, life can be easier for you no doubt. But so what. Everyone should endeavor to  seek out their good qualities and develop them. And I honestly cant imagine any human animal right now being “Nature’s favorite.” Please. I also think it’s fine to refrain from having a smile on your face 24/7 if you’re just not feelin it. We need to learn how to cope with feelings but letting ourselves have some.

What does a homely face even mean in all the culture blather anyway? American culture didn’t consider women like Cher beautiful for hundreds of years. I, for one, am not buying into it.

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 2

June 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

So here we are with the next installment of Sonny & Cher’s advice column in 16 Magazine. I’ve stapled them together randomly and this is the second in line. And it’s a doozy.

This was so arduous a question, Sonny & Cher took up the whole column to answer it.

Let’s try to hit this awkward topic head on, the way Sonny & Cher did (or their handlers) back in the mid-60s. And there’s so much to unpack here in this list, Cher Scholar is going to respond differently than she did in Part 1. We’ll take the responses point by point.

How Do You Know When He Cares?

Dear Cher,

[CS: Notice this is addressed to Cher only but Sonny will weigh in too (unasked) at the end with some emblematic Sonnysplaining; but Sonny’s advice is actually better so…  In fact, Cher’s answers feel a bit off-track to me in that they assume a lot, like they assume our young lady is on friendly ground with this fellow already and that they’re already doing things together. This makes me wonder if these were actually aspects of Cher’s relationship with Sonny, things that had really happened between Cher and Sonny. They did move from friends to lovers so her antennas were probably set to these particular relationship markers. She’s only a teenager, after all, or barely into her twenties at this point in time. And immature at that. Still solidly more girl than woman here. So can she be expected to be giving expert relationship advice? Sonny, who is 11 years older and a likely player to boot, probably has some bankable dish for us!]

“I am 14 years old and there is a boy who lives near me whom I like very, very much. [What 14 year old uses the formal whom in a question about a boy?] I think he likes me too, but I’m not sure. I see him from time to time in the neighborhood, downtown, and at sports and social gatherings. I really think he likes me. Please let me know ho I can tell whether he likes me or not.”  IN LOVE, Meridian, Miss.”

Cher’s Response:

Dear In Love, Both Sonny and I read your letter with great interest. I, as a girl, made up a list of the things that I feel are dead giveaways—showing when a boy really likes a girl. When you get through reading my list—read on cos Sonny will give you the very necessary “boy’s point of view”. Here’s my list. Best of luck!:

[Oy. The colon after the exclamation point!:!]

+ He smiles or speaks to you when he’s alone, but becomes bashful when he’s with his friends.

[CS: Bashful is such a great word; This describes what appears to be a literal Grease situation. This could be a positive indicator, in a fantastical movie maybe. It could also mean he’s just being a dick. Roxanne Gay has a harrowing rape story in Bad Feminist along these same girl-confusing lines. Behavior around friends could be a big red flag. Sorry to deflate everyone’s Danny Zucko fantasies. That nightmare aside, I can totally see there being a public and private, behind-closed-doors-with-Cher Sonny. I always say don’t be quick to judge couples, because behind closed doors people are very different. And although that’s true, it’s not a great place to judge early behavior around, especially with people you really don’t know that well. Here is a photo of Cher meeting all of Sonny’s friends:]

 

+ At parties (or local hangouts), you occasionally catch him staring at you.

[CS: One time in high school biology class this happened to me and the guy turned out to be gay. He was just trying to deconstruct my fashion sense or lack thereof. Not failsafe is all I’m saying. And in Sonny’s case, he was probably staring at every blonde that came by.  And it’s worth noting that three of the four women he married were not blondes. Men staring, I don’t know about that as a reliable rubric.]

+ He sends a Valentine or a friendship card [what’s a friendship card?] anonymously – but you know it’s from him.

[CS: Ok, I know I’m being a negative-Nellie here but this is terrible advice. If something is anonymous, by definition…you do not know who it is. Very dangerous terrain and potentially embarrassing to make assumptions. You don’t know. End stop. I’ve seen this end badly for people. Intuition is not evidence.]

+ You compliment him regarding a shirt or a sweater that he wears, and you notice that he wears it more often.

[CS: Ok, this seems reasonable.]

+ He asks if you would like to go for a ride in his car, and when he comes to pick you up you can tell that he must have spent hours polishing it.

[CS: This is a good sign no doubt–effort–but like point one above you should be careful about rides in cars. Unfortunately, the whole “go for a ride in their car thing” has changed in the modern era of both First 48 and Snapped. I’ve had a few close calls where I had to think fast on my feet (or think fast in the passenger seat). And I’m sure I have fewer stories than most people.  I’ve taken a few rides I should not have. One time I found myself with the son of someone I worked with at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy. The father was very nice. It seemed the son would be nice too. The first red flag was the car. It was a mess and had pictures of his estranged kids taped to the dashboard. Bad sign. At the time, I was going to be moving down to NYC and when he asked me out I said I didn’t want to start dating anyone. So he proposed a friendly dinner. (I know.) It turned out to be a very romantically-skewed Italian dinner in the North End of Boston. Over gnocchi, he confessed apropos of nothing that he didn’t believe in hitting women. (Whaaaa?) After dinner he didn’t want to take me home (yikes!) and I found myself in a beautiful but unplanned stop at a penthouse bar in downtown Boston where, get this, he sucked on my fingers. And because this is a Cher blog, I can tell you this should have been very funny because Gregg Allman did this to Cher on their disastrous first date. But it was just too creepy to be usefully funny. It helped immensely to have been living at the time with a brother I could make sound crazier than the date-crazy experience I was on (total fiction). And that is what, I believe, got me home that night. If the car seems weird, no matter how polished the fenders, drive separately (a very reasonable suggestion for a friendly dinner; why didn’t I think of that?) Cher was a bit of a runaway at 16 and had already gotten into cars with Warren Beatty and God knows who else? But sometimes, girl, you gotta drive yourself to those first few.]

+ He gives in and sees the movie you want to see.

[CS: What movie disagreements were Sonny and Cher having? I am dying to know. This clue assumes they are to the movie stage.]

+ He’s polite to your parents, and family – even to your little brother.

[CS: Whoa. We’re really jumping way ahead here. Meeting the parents already? I feel like Cher’s experience is very unique to Cher here. Our damsel in distress is still in the barely-a-stranger stage. It’s worth noting here that Sonny won over Cher’s mother, who was more than ready to call the cops on this adult man dating her underage daughter. In the documentary Sonny & Me, Cher also indicates she was so infatuated, her mother was worried a separation would just make the problem worse. Georgia did try it. And it did make it worse.]

+ He wears the hippie beads you gave him, though you know his buddies tease him about them.

[CS: Actually, a good clue. And Sonny did more than wear silly hippie beads. He wore fur fests.]

+ He’s there when you need him – not just when there are parties and fun.

[CS: Also a very good indicator for more serious relationship material, but premature at this point for our 16-Magazine-letter-writing heroine.]

 

Sonny’s Response:

It’s me—Sonny. Cher has just given you the clues a girl picks up on when she begins to realize that the guy she digs—digs her! But being a guy, I know a few things Cher doesn’t know, so I’ll pass these “secrets” on to you. Stay alert!:

[CS: Alright! The secrets to the castle. Here we go!]

+ He often drives his bike or car by your house. (He may not speak to you, but it’s his way of making sure that you notice him.)

[CS: Ok this is another borderline situation, like the ride in the car above. Times have changed. This could flip over into stalker-strategy maneuvers. Firefighting Academy Son did drive-bys. And stop and ring-the-door-bys.]

+ He starts combing his hair more often and dressing neater.

[CS: Ok this seems reasonable but boys are better dressers these days in general so…not always the giveaway it sounds like it should be. Alexander, for example, was interested enough in fashion to be at Paris Fashion Week where he met Cher.]

+ He names something after you—like his dog, motorbike, etc.

[CS: Do boys do this??]

+ He takes on an afternoon job to have more money to take you out.

[CS: Again, this sounds reasonable but who but his friends would even know? Our girl only sporadically sees this guy out and about. In Sonny’s case, the extra job he took on was the nightclub circuit after promising Cher he’d get them back on top within three years after losing all their money while making a bad independent movie. This is Sonny’s extra job moment, but he made Cher work on it too. I guess it’s the thought that counts.]

+ He calls you earlier or sooner than he said he would—

[CS: Interesting idea, but if we could be much looser with this measurement: he’s not really, really late.]

+ and when he speaks to you on the phone, his voice is softer and deeper than usual.

[CS: Sonny! Good tip there! Now we’re getting somewhere….assuming she even gets to the phone stage. Here’s another example from Grease. Pretty much every item in this column we could tie back to Grease.]

+ He remembers your birthday and other special occasions.

[Yes, usually a sign.]

+ He somehow manages to offer to let you wear his class ring.

[CS: Ok, totally dated…even for Sonny. What other proto-hippies even had class rings? See hippy-beads above. Oh wait, this is 16 Magazine…but still…yeah, no. Now if he gets a ring with your name on it and gives you a ring with his name on it…]

+ He begins to spend more time with you than with his best friends.

{CS: Definitely good news, this clue, and also, sadly a sign the relationships is on the decline when it goes the other direction.]

 

Cher Scholar Adds:

So there were some good things up there. Not all bad, dated suggestions. But what can we add that isn’t on this list above? We’ve had 50 more years to reflect on this issue. In the early 1980s, teens would circle each other at the mall like groups of panthers in baggy neon. It was weird, too. Or alternatively, we had a new version of 1950s cruising, but only around shopping malls.

In college and the later workplace, the deal was finding excuses to work together on projects or figuring out how to set up meetings with each other. Alcohol also seemed to assist in getting those clues out in the open.

Our modern-day Internet has given us some interesting additional avenues:

  • They “like” or respond to a larger amount of your social media posts (that’s how we convinced a friend of ours she had a gentlemen suitor a few years ago when we pointed out he would like every single thing she ever posted.)
  • They find excuses to send you friendly emails or texts.

It’s been my experience that even the bashful have their own tricks, like they’re always hanging around or they’ll try to Cyrano-de-Bergerac-it with the help of a friend.

I had a friend of my friend’s brother once try the whole hang-out-with-us and then argue with everything I said strategy. It’s a strategy I guess. I mean people don’t have to agree about everything, but spread the debates out over a whole relationship, guy. No need to cover all the issues before the first date. Because I had to wonder if he thought everything about me was a hot mess (and I would never argue that point), then why are you hanging around? (The answer which I didn’t know at the time was: it’s complicated.)

This is probably the best sign or the second best sign (aside from telling someone straight out to their face, which is Neil Diamond’s recommend): their willingness to exist in discomforting conversations. A willingness to be candidly vulnerable. Even if they do not “dig” you as girlfriend or boyfriend material, this shows they appreciate you as a deep connection.

You will notice nobody (including me) said to just ask the other person. That’s because we’re all the too fucking afraid to do that. Nobody even suggests it. Isn’t that incredible?

This advice above is also missing its other shoe, so to speak: what should this lovely girl do if over a reasonable amount of time nothing on this list has materialized. We need to let our young inquisitive lover know what to do in case the answer is negatory. As I said to Hotpants last week, don’t escalate the pressure if the other person doesn’t “dig” you. People like who they like and it often defies reason or explanation. As it should.

Love should be more powerful than culture itself, bigger than the riff-raff of advice columns.

It’s also important to note that people often find themselves the object of unwanted attention. One of my brothers was a crush-magnet growing up so I witnessed a good example of this.  I also have a local relative who is exceedingly handsome but also painfully shy and actually grew the Oakridge-Boy-beard like the formerly handsome Oakridge Boy did for allegedly similar reasons.

This is all to say sometimes it’s a act of love to back off and leave them alone. It’s messy out there in Loveland and sometimes you have to take one for the team. Talk to Hotpants from last week and he’ll tell you.

 

Read more Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine

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