She was, in other words, both a great broad and a great lady, and I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. Looking back, I think how lucky I was to have grown up at a time when the likes of Katharine Hepburn were women to emulate. We didn't have to study the history of feminism or gender dynamics or endure patronizing sensitivity training or cheer the cultural gelding of our brothers. We just watched Katharine Hepburn and learned the craft of being independent, accomplished, humorous women.
Hepburn was our own swashbuckling Annie Oakley riding English saddle. In today's vernacular, she was "liberated," yet I doubt she saw it that way. Her life wasn't meant to be a public statement. She was above all a private person and probably grateful that she didn't have to be anyone's poster girl.
By contrast, being liberated today apparently means to flaunt everything and screw the boys, both figuratively and literally. Young movie-going girls today don't have access to many in the mold of Katharine Hepburn. Instead, by my mall observations, most are Britney wannabes - hip-hugged, tattooed, pierced and Out There. The female navel has become the refrigerator man's continental divide. I hate to break it to you, oh future daughters-in-law, but everybody's got a belly button. Your inney- or outey-ness is not the stuff either of revelation or revolution.
Can you imagine a young Katharine Hepburn wearing jeans down to her bikini line and a navel ring?
I realize these musings place me squarely in the old fogy demographic, but I'm unapologetically grateful to have grown up in the cinematic shadow of a Hepburn. Some things really were better in the old days and she was one of them. Bless her heart and rest her soul.