Friday, March 19, 2010

Sandra, Groucho and the Oscar Love Curse

The disturbing image of the day is Sandra Bullock happily clutching her Academy Award earlier this month, only to learn days later that her husband had been cheating on her with a tattoo model whose forehead reads "Pray For Us Sinners."

The news prompts the New York Post to discover an "Oscar love curse" afflicting women who won in recent years but lost their mates--Kate Winslet, Julia Roberts, Hillary Swank, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon--an observation reflecting Feminist chestnuts about men being unable to cope with powerful, successful women and macho counter-arguments about their loss of femininity.

In Bullock's case at least, that doesn't seem to be an issue as biker husband Jesse James apologizes for "my poor judgment" in his liaison with tattoo-covered "Bombshell," who works as a stripper and poses on adult web sites.

Whatever the sociological import, the sad episode brings back memories of Groucho's classic:

"Lydia oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia,/Lydia, the Tattooed Lady./She has eyes that folks adore so,/And a torso even more so.

"Lydia oh Lydia, that encyclopidia,/Oh Lydia the Queen of Tattoo./On her back is the Battle of Waterloo./Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus, too./And proudly above waves the Red, White, and Blue,/You can learn a lot from Lydia."

Sandra Bullock's marriage went awry while she was working on "The Blind Side." What would Groucho have made of that?

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