BODY WATCH : To Heel or Not To Heel : Spiky pumps can lift the soul as well as the soles. She’ll risk her feet for a few extra inches.
You don’t need to walk a mile in my high heels to know me. I’ll make it easy: I am a 5-foot-5 brunette who believes 5-foot-8 blondes live on greener grass.
I tried being blond once--with a wig--and was glad I hadn’t used bleach. But standing taller is another issue, one that I won’t abandon as long as there are friends like Manolo, Roger, Kenneth, Sam, Libby, Joan and David.
They haven’t crippled my feet, ruined my back or broken my legs. And I don’t want to be saved from my modest addiction by medical mumbo jumbo. (I am sure, as with most things medical, that someday some health journal will report that elevation is good for your soles.)
True, I know more about Pedro Almodovar than podiatry. I have never invested in a foot fix, but I did pay good money to see Almodovar’s “High Heels.” I was disappointed. I had expected to watch sexy stilettos and the like clicking metaphorically all over Madrid. Instead there were a lot of shots of Chanel jackets, necklaces and handbags.
I think Henry Jaglom is the man for the job--and the double-entendre. He could call the movie “Heel Talk” and plant his usual female corps in front of the camera to expound extemporaneously on heels--the ones they have worn and the ones that have worn them to a frazzle.
Of course, men have their own high-heel doublespeak. Theirs is a love-love relationship: They love to see women in them and they love to make snide remarks about them, poking fun at imaginary squished toes, tortoise-speeds and altitude-related nose bleeds.
Perhaps they’re angry because they lost a sexy accessory. You’ve probably forgotten that men once wore heels, prancing to minuets in splendid surroundings with mistresses in every corner. But it’s a good thing the shoe is on the other foot now. Can you imagine the fate of “The Seven Year Itch” if it had been Tom Ewell instead of Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grate in sling backs?
And what if Marilyn had worn flats? Not exactly the stuff movie history is made of.
Women need high heels. They don’t need them all the time and most are smart enough to know when to come down to Earth for a rest. But believe me, on a bad hair-face-figure day, heels come in handy. They also double as exercise equipment, working out the calves and posterior-- if you remember to squeeze that rear while in motion.
I can run, walk and climb in heels. But I do object to the cinematic ridiculous. You know, women thrown from airplanes and cars into dire straits, walking for miles, sometimes for days, in high heels. Screenwriters need to think about this heel issue. Maybe the heroines could get lucky and find sneakers. Then again, maybe they could just get smart and break off the heels.
If podiatrists and others were really worried about freaky footwear, they would point to pointe shoes. A ballerina’s feet are not a pretty sight. Of course, that’s considered suffering for art’s sake. But fine shoes are art. Just look at Mary Trasko’s book “Heavenly Soles,” or the Ferragamos exhibited in museums, or Dorothy’s ruby slippers--for which an anonymous bidder paid $165,000.
Which brings to mind dancer-actresses such as Ginger Rogers and Cyd Charisse, gliding effortlessly across the screen in high heels. And what about those chorus lines of women tap-dancing in top hats and heels? Maybe that’s the trouble--no one makes movies like that anymore. High heels aren’t getting the treatment they deserve. They need old Hollywood and a new grass-roots organization.
It could be called HHISS: High Heel Information Service Society. There could be a monthly newsletter, a Washington lobby, celebrity fund-raisers and grants for research at prestigious universities. Famous designers could create the miniature mouse (a.k.a. mini mouse) shoes needed for the rodent experiments. The results would end years of high-heel hysteria. They would prove once and for all that mice that wear heels live longer and happier lives than mice that don’t.
The debate would be over. The anti-heel movement would vanish. “No High Heels” signs would be removed from podiatrists’ waiting rooms. And women would be free at last to walk as they wish.
