Ethel
Bangert
GP Putnam & Sons, 1959
Genre:
Realistic
Description
Young
Polly Perry finds herself fired from selling Grime-Gone. Luckily for
her, her best friend, Lorna, informs her that a new job has come up a
TV station KBCB. When Polly returns home that night her mother tells
her that her aunt is sick and her mom needs to head out of town to
stay with her. Knowing that her family needs help as Polly was in
college until her father died three months ago, Polly is determined
to go to the studio the next day and try out for the job. At the
studio she meets a young man named Jake who happens to be an old
classmate of hers. He wishes her luck as she goes into audition for a
commercial for Garden Valley Milk. Listening to Jake's advice, she
decides to go with the flow and improvises a bit instead of reading
the cue cards word for word. While she comes off as sincere, she does
not land the job and is told that TV is serious and expensive and
that they will only hire people that will follow the rules. However,
Polly's attitude has attracted Jake's friend, Roberta Roberts, who
tells her manager, Vince, that she would like to hire Polly as her
assistant. Roberta does a cooking show called Hearth and Home. She
offers Polly the job and she readily accepts it.
On
her first day Polly finds herself extremely busy. She's introduced by
Roberta to everything that goes on at a busy television studio. The
next day she gets to sit with Vince and see him run the show from
behind-the-scenes. Polly follows the day-to-day life as Roberta’s
assistant until one day she gets a chance at her big break
unexpectedly. She goes into work after doing the shopping for
Roberta's show that day in which she plans to make a chocolate cake
to find that Roberta has called in saying that she feels like crap
and is planning to take the morning off and then come in for the show
in the afternoon. Polly informs Vince and he sends a doctor to
Roberta, who happens to be his fiancée. It turns out the Roberta is
running 103° temperature and is not allowed to come into work. Vince
decides against his better judgment to let Polly run the show even
though overbearing Roberta will probably kill him.
Polly
goes home to practice making the cake in her own familiar kitchen.
Whereas Roberta uses all the new high-tech gadgets and cooking, Polly
prefers to do things the old-fashioned way by hand. She decides that
she will do this on the show as well because what if there are some
viewers out there who cannot afford the fancy equipment or some who
prefer to do it the old-fashioned way? Polly feels like she has aced
her TV appearance. As she sits down to finish some busy work after
the show, she decides that if Roberta is out sick again tomorrow
should create her own menu for the show and not follow Roberta's
notes. Unfortunately, Polly is not prepared for Roberta to storm in
and start yelling at her for ruining her show. While Roberta is very
angry, she does make some good points. Roberta uses the electronic
gadgets to sell ad space for the television show. Thus, Polly not
showcasing those items is probably going to get Roberta in trouble.
Secondly, she yells at Polly to never shut up an important guest like
she did today when she interrupted one of the chefs when they ran out
of time. Thirdly, she yells at Polly for flashing around some cooking
products with name brands on them. They do not showcase name brands
that they do not get paid to advertise and she felt that Polly
should've known this considering how many times she is covered up
logos for Roberta's show. Roberta demands to come to work tomorrow
even though she is ill. This means that Polly has to admit that she
has not yet shopped for Roberta's ingredients and she also has to
admit that she called new guests to appear on the show. Roberta looks
over Polly's menu and claims that her ideas are too expensive and
yells at her for not looking into the background of her guests
because the chefs she invited tomorrow are bitter rivals who would
probably turn the studio into a battleground. Completely frustrated,
Roberta fires Polly.
Later
that night, Jake informs Polly that Vince told him to pass along some
information about a TV position that is opening up at the new studio,
KCPC. Polly heads down to the studio in the morning and Vince's name
gets her an interview with the studio’s program manager, Mr.
Prince. The job is for a woman's world program and a 30 minute
“what's new” segment. He offers Polly the job and she accepts it.
Polly is introduced to Brian Bradley, sports announcer, who pretty
much shoots down her new confidence when he says that Vince
practically blackmailed Mr. Prince to take her on. Polly does not
like Brian. He offers to introduce her to everyone at the studio only
if she goes out to dinner with him and even though she's only known
him for a few minutes she's irritated that he calls other people mean
names. Polly fines herself wishing she had Jake around and his
“honest, encouraging smile and sensible conversation” (p. 117).
The
next day, her new director, Robert Slewart, takes one look at her and
decides that she's too young to draw the audience needed for the
show. He says, “That’s the trouble with the new station—they
put all the wrong people in the wrong jobs” (p. 118). Polly feels
depressed at the thought of how hard this job is going to be but
hopes that she will learn from her experienced coworkers.
Unfortunately for her that is not what happens and her first show is
a failure. Her pie ended up melting under the hot lights of the
studio, a can of whipped cream she was supposed to be promoting
wouldn’t squirt properly, she attempted to fill dead air by spewing
out all of the advertising materials she had read about her product
and then was told that they had gone off air for 2 minutes due to
technical difficulties. When asked to repeat her whole spiel again
she couldn't muster the strength and instead decided to show off some
party favors she made which ended up being too small to telecast
properly. She then had invited a Chinese cook and a Chinese interior
decorator as her guests who ended up being political enemies and she
couldn't get them to shut up. Eventually, Brian had to step in and
save the mess. Jake and Polly go out later that night and get into a
fight when he tells her that she needs to simplify her show or she
will get fired again.
The
station decides to hold an open house and it is Polly's
responsibility to entertain her to sponsors. One of them, Mr. Saxon,
of the whipped cream, is a drunk and is constantly trying to touch
Polly. When she finally reprimands him he says that maybe he will
take his product somewhere else. At this point Polly decides to quit
before she gets fired but Prince tells her to suck it up because he
will never be able to face Vince if he fires her. Realizing that she
got the job because of her connections and not her talent, she quits
anyway and as she is trying to leave the building gets a flat tire.
She calls Jake who comes to her rescue but doesn't say anything about
reconciling.
Three
weeks later she still hasn't heard from Jake and now has a sales job
at Wilson's Department Store. At the encouragement from her best
friend she is also enrolled in the Paris School of TV and Dramatic
Arts. Polly loves everything that she learning at her new school and
performs in a play as part of her graduation. She is shocked when
Jake calls her one night and invites her and Lorna to a surprise
party celebrating Vince and Roberta who are coming back from their
honeymoon. At the party Jake confesses that he is moving to San
Francisco for a new job. At the party, Polly comes to the realization
that Roberta and Vince are not going to ask her back to the station
and that while she and Jake seem to have made up he will be moving
away. When she gets home that night she finds a message requesting an
interview for food show hostess with television station KDXE, which
happens to be in San Francisco. Everyone wishes her luck except for
Roberta who is mad that Vince did not tell her about the job opening.
Polly knows that if she happens to be lucky enough to get the job
Roberta will always dislike her and even more so.
Six
months later Polly has a show of her own—Foods and Fancy Frills
with Polly Perry, Rangerider—in San Francisco. She is allowed total
creative control over her show and only has two rules—that each
show must have a guest star and that she must make her commercials
interesting and forceful for her one sponsor, a shortening company.
She finds these rules easy to follow, especially since she believes
in her sponsor's product. In the end, Polly gets her dream career and
Jake proposes to her.
Thoughts
and Nuggets of Wisdom for Research
This
is part of a series of loosely connected career books for girls. I
love the career books because they are different stories and feature
a wide range of careers. Of course, there is the expectation of
gender stereotypes to be found and that is what gems this book mainly
serves up. I do admit that I purchased this one because I have a love
of reality TV cooking shows so I was in a long Hell’s Kitchen
marathon and saw “TV Cook” and was like, “I need that book!”
I desperately want a copy of a Dodd Mead career book about a girl
librarian!
We
quickly learn that Polly had two years training in home economics
during her time at college and has taken a lot of public speaking
courses too (p. 10), which are acceptable girl courses. Polly’s mom
has a freelance type job herself in which she writes jingles for
greeting cards. It is funny how, despite the fact that she now needs
the job since her husband died, she still refers to it like it is a
fluke that she’s even working or has a talent when she tells Polly,
“I'm certainly glad I bought a portable typewriter when I went into
this greeting card business full-time. It's funny, really, when you
think a little knack you've played with for years could be useful
when you need it to make a living—writing jingles, I mean” (p.
15). When Polly gets fired from her Grime-Gone gig her mother’s
first reaction is suggesting a typical (and acceptable) job for girls
but at least acknowledges the fact that girls can do more. The job is
for a girl in a real estate office and Polly’s mom says, “They
said shorthand in the ad. So many put that in. Honestly, you'd think
the only thing women could do besides type is clean houses for people
and there's plenty of that kind of work offered” (p. 16). Jake, of
course, is the sports announcer (and later Brian is also a sports
announcer too—clearly one of the few jobs a guy can do) and his
description of it makes it sound like it is so complicated and hard:
“I have the sports announcer’s job here. Busy. Crazy. I have to
be familiar with every sport—all its fine points, it's special
vocabulary, all that. Gosh, last week I covered a golf tourney and if
I didn't know a hook from a slice I'd be out looking for another job”
(p. 24). In regards to Polly’s new job as Roberta’s assistant
she’s told straight up, “I know we're asking at great deal from
you, Polly, but if you've got what it takes, you'll cope with all
that and ask for more. Now get hold of yourself, girl. You’ll get
the swing of it all before you know it” (p. 55-56).
Polly’s
relationship with Roberta is interesting in that it is an early look
at female rivalry in careers. It never seems that girls can work
together or support each other. Instead it is always about
competition. Polly is warned to “take it easy with Roberta. Don't
crowd her—ever. She's very jealous of her show and I've seen her
really turn mean if she thought somebody was trying to take her
place” (p. 52). Roberta, while a pretty selfish and mean-spirited
woman is a good representative of a career minded woman, a character
that is a good role model. Polly learns that Roberta and Vince are
actually engaged but haven’t gotten married yet because Roberta
doesn’t want to take time off from her job to go on a honeymoon
(for fear that if she is gone even one day she’ll loose her show).
Overhearing conversations between them Polly realizes that Vince is
“probably trying very hard to get Roberta to forget her career and
take care of his home” (p. 64). As Jake later confirms: “Roberta
and Vince are made for each other and should get married. Vincent is
in love with her and I guess Roberta is pretty fond of him, but do
you think she'll go off on a honeymoon and leave her pans and pots in
somebody else’s hands? She will not. Vince wants a honeymoon, soooo
. . . They just don't even get married. Nope—if talent does allow a
person to take their place in front of that old camera for more than
a day you can bet that person is so awkward or so ugly that the
viewers will write in demand their old pet back again. Just don't
count on Roberta ever allowing you to take her place on camera,
Polly, she won't. Uncle Jake knows. I'm talent and you can bet nobody
gets my show” (p. 70).
When
Polly gets the job at the second TV studio, her new boss doesn’t
look fondly at her “career” much either when he tells her that
“he did not want any cooking presented on either show except
desserts made with one of the sponsors products, canned whipped
cream” and that her women’s world news segment will be her
“special baby. That and the sewing machine company. In your portion
of the show, you'll present different silly ideas that will sell our
sponsors product” (p. 112-113).
The
other big gender aspect that is covered in this story is how rude and
condescending the males are to Polly. Jake is a condescending
asshole. Throughout the book he constantly calls Polly by many pet
names, such as kiddo, his little fireball, and angelpuss. He is also
was constantly kissing her romantically though he shows no actual
interest in her. When she accuses him of being jealous of Brian he
replies, “No, I'm not jealous of that creep. Why should I be? You
are only one of my girlfriends, Polly my pretty. I make it a rule not
to be jealous of anybody. I'll admit I don't like the way he slipped
his arm around you on camera, he cheapened the show somehow” (p.
124). However, the biggest creep factor was when Polly was to
entertain Mr. Saxon, one of her sponsors. He proves to be a drunk who
wants to be all touchy feely with Polly and when she tells him to
basically keep his hands to himself he threatens to take her
sponsorship. When she goes to her boss to report Saxon’s behavior
he just laughs it off like it’s no big deal: “Aww, forget it. Go
back and give Saxon a good time, honey. Smile pretty at him. He
doesn't mean any harm. He's just a little fuzzy. Be smart, girl. This
is show business. Be smart” (p. 138). He is implying the horrible
idea that if a girl gets harassed on the job it is just part of her
job and she has to put up with it. When Polly insists on quitting
than waiting to get fired her boss replies with, “You really mean
this, don't you? You're a fool, Polly. If you hadn't had Vince
Montgomery to push you, you'd never have had such a chance. Now
you're going to throw it all away because you can't brush off an old
man who's had too much to drink. O.K. So be it. Margie has been dying
to try for your job. So, now it's her turn. Well, see 'round, girl.
No hard feelings” (p. 139).
In
the end it is good to see Polly preserve—she went to a film school
and she even moved to San Francisco for a job she loves at a TV
station. However, since this is the 1950s and she is a girl the end
of the book ends on a lovely-dovey note: “She had Jake, and she
loved him so much. She had her mother. And she had a career. Of
course, Jake knew she intended to go on with her work in TV for no
one realized better than he how hard she had struggled for the
successes she now knew. Indeed, together they both looked forward to
the years of professional life in this strange TV world” (p. 180).
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