H'wood's major geisha complex

Hollywood creates femmes who are little more than geishas, says Dowd.

Last weekend I saw "Geisha" and read Dowd back-to-back -- definitely an off-putting adventure in sexual intrigue.

Dowd -- Maureen Dowd, that is -- argues in her new book that women (especially actresses) have become mannequin-like Botox babes because men (who are dummies) want them that way. Her book, not surprisingly, is titled "Are Men Necessary?"

"Memoirs of a Geisha," Rob Marshall's new film, takes us back to the era when women were in fact primped, pampered and paid to be, well, mannequin-like Botox babes (without the Botox). The entire exercise was, of course, aimed at appeasing their clients (dummies) who were "necessary" only for their wallets.

"Geisha" is likely the most expensive chick flick in movie history. And Dowd's book, subtitled "When Sexes Collide," reads like grist for a sequel, because she clearly feels Hollywood is a major culprit.

Dowd, who writes an astringent column for the New York Times, believes "actresses are ensnared in a cosmetic catch twenty-two: They must look young to get juicy roles, so they do Botox, which makes it impossible to express themselves in juicy roles." She fondly remembers the time when filmgoers welcomed idiosyncratic women like Hepburn, Bacall and Bette Davis, who posed a sharp contrast to the present crop of "Formica foreheads, collagen protruding lips, surgically narrowed noses and taut jaws."

Thanks to Hollywood, Dowd says she endorses the theory that there are now four stages of women -- pre-Babe, Babe, post-Babe and Cher.

"In some wacky, self-defeating conspiracy," she writes, "stylists have joined forces with surgeons to homogenize today's actresses so it's hard to tell one from another."

A key reason this has happened, she believes, is that men are evolutionary retards who shrivel before women who have a point of view. That's why powerful men only marry their assistants -- Botox babes who will serve but not challenge. Dowd reminds us of her mother's admonition that "it's a man's world today more than ever and men can eat their cake in unlimited bakeries." To Dowd, the remake of "Stepford Wives" failed because "it was no longer a satire but a documentary."

The answer to Dowd's question, "Are Men Necessary?" becomes very clear in "Geisha." The faceless male characters in the film are relevant only as customers. They have expense accounts but not names -- the lead male character is simply called the Chairman, but it's never clear what he's chairman of. In fact, sections of the story are impenetrable unless one has mastered the book upon which it is based and can thus decipher the stilted patois spoken by the cast, most of which has never made a film in English.

At least no one can accuse the women in "Geisha" of selling out, as Dowd characterizes today's women. By mandate the geishas were bought and sold. They were a commodity, which is what Dowd suggests is happening today.

It's not hard to imagine her sequel: A tough Washington politico hooking up with a submissive, twentysomething Botox babe who really turns out to be Cher. Clearly it will be Cher who ends up running the country.