Ode to the Bimbos of HBO

The Sopranos’ Adriana La Cerva dies with the prettiest acrylic nails on. They’re square shaped, pink at the base, purple at the top, with some flowery silvery-and-black patterns on the corners of each finger. Despite being desperately out of sorts after being lead to believe that her beloved fiancé, New Jersey mafia member Christopher Moltisanti (whom she often affectionately refers to as “Chrissy” in her New Jersey drawl), has attempted suicide, Adriana is still completely put together. Nothing about her look is effortless—a carefully slicked ponytail, some tidy eyeliner, a pretty little coat. And when Chrissy’s suicide turns out to be a ruse, and Adriana is unceremoniously shot in the back of the head despite years of dedication to both Chrissy and the toxic mafia world he is entangled in, I was devastated. I stopped watching The Sopranos for months after Adriana’s death. It hit me far harder than a fictional death should, but I had become tied to Adriana and her hyperfemininity.

When I speak of the hyperfeminine, I am referring to an aesthetic that highlights a practiced, distinct, and obvious effort into looking traditionally, or even stereotypically, feminine. Think the color pink, effortful makeup, big jewelry, flashy clothing, and well-manicured acrylic nails. Hyperfemininity is in-your-face, often purposefully exaggerated. It has a rich queer history, particularly regarding queer people who identify as femme.

But when I was a kid—a tween and teen in the late aughts—the hyperfeminine was considered a failing, a punch line, and an aesthetic signaling of an inherent lack of worth. Disney Channel’s meanest or dumbest were always overly put together and vapid, perhaps most famously illustrated by the loathed Sharpay Evans of High School Musical. The entire premise of Mean Girls relies upon us knowing that fretting over your hyperfeminine looks is a signal of losing your moral and ethical compass, as Cady Heron is only truly lost when she becomes excessively feminine.

And in 2000s celebrity culture, our most vicious hate was saved for hyperfeminine women. Anna Nicole Smith was a punch line more than anything, and I have vivid memories of keeping up with the marriage of sixteen-year-old Courtney Stodden to fifty-year-old Doug Hutchison, where Courtney was frequently derided as the gold-digging idiot by the media, instead of an obviously groomed and manipulated teenager. I even remember a personal push against the hyperfeminine when I was younger, as my dad disliked the notion of me painting my nails and wearing makeup in any noticeable way. It was a signaling of something uncomfortable, incorrect.

I remember only feeling brave enough to begin trying out some makeup (and even then, it was cautious neutrals and some blush) in early high school, scared I would have to explain myself to the world, or would have to give up on my perception of myself as a smart, interesting girl. I learned again and again that one could not possibly be taken seriously if one leaned into pinks and purples and sparkles and immodesty and strappy shoes and long nails.

But the catch is that I fucking love the hyperfeminine, and I always have. I envied the mean girls, the Mean Girls, and the girls at my elementary and middle school who were brave enough to embrace aesthetics that put them at risk for being deemed vapid, catty, or ditzy. But I had read the writing on the wall, so I dressed in jeans and T-shirts and neutral colors—clothes that were “cute” without necessarily being “girly.” I insisted I cared about feeling smart and cool over feeling pretty. And beyond that, I certainly wasn’t interested in unpacking the ever-blurring line between how I wanted both to be and be with these beautiful, feminine women that I often privately gawked at and desired.

I wanted to both be and be with these beautiful women that I privately gawked at and desired.

High school got better. I came out of the closet, and I inched ever closer to how I wanted to present (a little more pink, a little more exposed skin, a little more eyeliner), but always with some hesitancy, hoping that some biting self-awareness about what I was doing would make it a little bit different, or a little bit ironic. And then, in late high school, I was saved by finding the vapid, beautiful bimbos of HBO.

Recently, hyperfemininity and the notion of being a bimbo has been in the messy, complicated process of reclamation. A bimbo is, by definition, a very beautiful woman who is generally considered to be unintelligent, naive, or frivolous. When you look up the definition, the dictionary includes a descriptor of the word as derogatory, but many are beginning to work to subvert this connotation. People are now exploring the notion that if the hyperfeminine is an aesthetic you are drawn to (which it need not be—these aesthetics are by no means the be-all and end-all of expressing femininity or womanhood), you should be able to play with those aesthetics without any sort of degradation of your humanity and worth. And when I watched the women of HBO, I was transfixed by this duality.

I’ve been a die-hard HBO-original kind of girl since I was sixteen, but I have a particular infatuation with Deadwood and The Sopranos above all else. The Sopranos is a tragic, suburban, existential exploration of the dying mafia scene in New Jersey in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and Deadwood is a hyperrealistic, gritty, unromantic look at what truly constituted the Wild West in the 1870s.

They’re really, really good television shows, and I love them for all sorts of reasons. But I would be lying if I said that I think of anything else about these shows before I think about the women. More specifically, the women with unrepentant attachment and devotion to the hyperfeminine. I was enthralled by Adriana. I was enthralled by Deadwood’s Dolly, the soft-spoken, naive prostitute who spends most nights with the gruff, cold brothel owner, Al Swearengen. I was enthralled by Deadwood’s pretty, curly haired, corset-wearing Lila, who works at the rival brothel, and by The Sopranos’ endless line of goomars (mistresses), especially the Eastern European Irina, who is so delicate that she needs to wear little arm floaties when she spends time on Tony’s boat. There was something about the power in which they shamelessly wielded their in-your-face, effortfully curated womanhood and femininity that was so unlike the “right kind” of woman I was taught to embody. I couldn’t look away. And neither, it seemed, could anyone else.

The women that most interested me in these shows were the ones that were beautiful in an obvious and purposeful manner, sometimes bordering on excessive or immodest. I liked imagining the work it would take for Adriana or one of Tony’s goomars to put on the makeup they applied every day, to go and get their acrylic nails filled and refilled on an endless loop, to always have their hair up in little curls or carefully blow-dried.

The hyperfeminine women on these shows felt like a whole new level of desire for how I wanted to present to the world. It felt like the more vapid, the more naive, the more overtly and obviously invested these women were in primping themselves and doting after stern men, the more I felt this strange sort of yearning. I wanted to be them, I wanted to mimic them, I wanted to hold them.

When Dolly is giving Al Swearengen a blow job one night, as is their general routine, he pets at her head drunkenly. “Did you dye your hair?” he asks. Dolly nods quietly. I find myself more interested in how one would even successfully dye one’s hair the brassy red she does in 1876 than the sex that’s taking place during the exchange. It thrills me to think about the effort Dolly puts in to feel pretty, to imagine the way in which she wants to see herself and the way she finds time to value feeling pretty in an otherwise fairly grim, bland, day-to-day life. This is also perhaps the only moment we see Dolly having any sense of agency over anything. Dolly’s life, her work, and her ability to stay fed and sheltered are all decided by male-defined desirability. And yet she takes the time to dye her hair, to pick a color she wants and make an adjustment to her physical form, seemingly just for herself. I think all the time about the way she forces a little bit of autonomy through her physical appearance in this one moment, in a life where she is otherwise offered so little room to choose anything.

There are plenty of women on HBO who are very feminine and very stylized: the likes of Maddy from Euphoria or Willa of Succession are beautiful and put effort into their beauty, and they dote upon the men they love (or if not love, at least tolerate with undeserving compassion). But they do so with motives, goals, and plans. Maddy longs for a life of being cared for, and she is fairly certain this can be provided by her boyfriend, Nate, even if it comes at traumatic, violent costs. Willa’s dreams of being able to focus on her writing are aided greatly by her partner, Connor, who pays Willa for her time and affections. True HBO bimbos, on the other hand, stand out by having an important second trait: They are beauty queens with bleeding hearts and no major ulterior motives outside of feeling good and loving—or at least caring for in some manner—those around them for the sake of it.

These women have no interest in gaining or social climbing or winning (admittedly perhaps partially because they do not feel they deserve anything else). Their daydreams involve simply being happy and making others around them feel happy and heard as well—even the truly shitty, abusive, undeserving men. At most, they dream of white picket fences or a bed to sleep on, and not much else. When an intervention is organized for Christopher, the beginning of Adriana’s letter to him reads simply, “Christopher, I love you very much. My only dream is that we have a happy life together.”

This, and the little pleasant details she pictures with it—a June wedding so she can have more flowers, knowing Chrissy’s dinner order before he’s even at the table—really are her only dreams. Deadwood’s Dolly is a much smaller, more peripheral character compared to Adriana, but she has that same tendency to be far too kind to undeserving people. Dolly is a quiet and attentive listener, and minus the occasional eye roll she seems relatively patient and content, despite the fact that it is absolutely justifiable that she would utterly resent the life she has been given.

To be abundantly clear, I am aware that most of these women are in immensely precarious positions (so precarious that they end up fatal for some), and I do not find the circumstances they are in to be romantic or desirable. They live miserable lives, with cruel men, and I do not envy the ways they are reduced to so little by those around them, nor am I endeared to the way their patience and compassion is preyed upon and benefited off of. I am drawn to the women themselves, outside of the worlds they are forced into. I am enchanted by the way they refuse to harden themselves or turn cold, how they find space to care for themselves and daydream and love, even if it is in the form of careful, stylized primping.

And in the unrepentant, unironic, full-fledged femininity and softness, a sort of superpower emerges. These women are some of the only people that get HBO’s toughest men to crack open. Christopher cries in front of Adriana, and Tony privately shares a cancer scare with her. Adriana always listens and comforts them both endlessly. On one of their nights together, Al fully opens up to Dolly about his childhood traumas, and on another night, after he is unexpectedly attacked, he bemoans the feeling of being held down as Dolly listens. Al has a moment of unexpected, rare, empathetic clarity. He looks to Dolly and murmurs softly, even bordering on regretfully, “I guess I do that [hold you down], huh?”

It’s an incredibly intimate moment, one of my favorites in the whole series. Tony or Christopher or Al don’t open up to these women just because. It’s because these women, internally and externally, represent a sort of safe and wholeheartedly open space that is so disarmingly genuine that men generally devoid of compassion are suddenly struck with epiphanies of immense empathy. It’s a superpower in itself, and I don’t doubt part of their appeal to these men is the way they represent a sort of ideal femininity.

I get to share my tenderness with those who are tender in return.

And in a crueler person, or a person interested in cunning or hustling, these moments of vulnerability, this access to these cruel men’s humanity, would eventually lead to some fantastic double cross or moment of revenge. But these women are as patient and too-good-for this-earth as they seem. And whenever I watch, or rewatch, I do not envy this ability to open up cruel people with their softness but instead long for these women to know how much better they deserve, how their softness and sweetness externally and internally belongs in a far safer, more loving place.

And in that longing, I realize, I can extend the same expectations of love and worth to myself. I can present how I want to present, I can love and trust how I want to love and trust, and I can be so worthy of respect and of a vibrant, loving life, not in spite of but because of these desires I have.

Once I realized my internal desire for performing and presenting in traditional, over-the-top feminine ways could go hand in hand with a sense of inherent worth, my whole world opened up. I remember my first few Adriana-inspired purchases: a faux-diamond choker, some heart-shaped golden hoops with little jewels in them, and a tiny Adidas sports top. When I went to get my nails done, I found myself asking for pointier, longer acrylics. I developed an infatuation for leopard print. At twenty-one, I started dating a woman who bought me pretty pink frilly gifts that she knew I’d look good in, and I was thrilled by those attentions to my body and my aesthetics.

But even more thrilling, I was bestowed the unique pleasure of spending time with a loved one who also sometimes wanted to play feminine dress-up. She taught me how to put on false lashes (sometimes even carefully, tenderly putting them on for me herself), she lent me the lip gloss she liked to use (the kind that stings your lips), and we laughed about the way we’d have to kiss so carefully once our makeup was all done up.

And as I leaned into my bimbo side, I was not struck down by the universe as I had anticipated I would be. I didn’t get stupider, or meaner, or more insecure. I was developing some of the most mutually supportive friendships I’d ever had. I would arrive to my university classes in bright blue eyeshadow and fuzzy sweaters and still was doing fantastic in school. It felt (and still feels) like the more I leaned into it, the more I was rewarded with more confidence, more joy, more creativity, and a newfound security in my body and my queerness.

I’d be remiss not to note here that a lot of this ease in my narrative of blossoming into full-on hyperfeminine bimbo aesthetics comes from my immense privilege. Playing with these aesthetics as a white, cisgender, financially stable woman means I don’t have to worry about potential racialized responses or having to present a certain way to be taken seriously or to retain a job or a space in my community. My only real obstacles to overcome in reaching my ideal aesthetic performance were my internalized narratives and occasionally having to roll my eyes at some homophobic or misogynistic shit (though, for the record, my once-skittish father has since become incredibly supportive of my aesthethic choices). Playing with the hyperfeminine like this, stylizing myself in a way that is both playful and an attempt to be visibly queer in its femme aesthetics, is not as immediate or easy a choice for many people.

And I sometimes see that privilege reflected in the women I love on HBO too—a quiet turning of a blind eye to harmful amounts of wealth or racism or misogyny in their loved ones to keep a status quo, to ensure that they can continue to benefit from the way that they are beautiful and approved of. So what I now work to emulate comes not from the conditions of their lives (which are mostly tragic and immensely unjust), but the basic tenets behind their hyperfemininity—an in-your-face focus on feeling and looking and acting beautiful in the way only the hyperfeminine makes me feel. I get to share my tenderness with those who are tender in return. I get to feel comfortable in my cheetah-print-covered, acrylic-nailed, sometimes-heavily-made-up skin. I get to choose who I smash my glossy lips against in a kiss—and, much to my delight, a lot of the time it’s women with equally glossy lips to mine—and I need not feel any shame or fear for it.

I write this with the prettiest acrylic nails on. This draft takes me through two full sets, some long hot-pink talons followed by some slightly shorter almond-shaped sparkly silver ones. I stain my coffee cup with some cheap pink lip gloss. Maybe when I’m done I’ll call my sister and ask her about her day, or maybe I’ll walk to the dive bar down the street and let the regular who always buys my drinks buy me something girly and headachey. Maybe I’ll listen to him talk because it feels nice to listen to someone and care for the sake of it, and because he is kind and listens to me too.

I don’t know what it all means; I don’t know if I’m reclaiming or subverting anything. But I feel good when I do all of this, when I love like this, when I look like this. And I think that’s all that Adriana would want for me, just like it’s all I want for her every time I rewatch.

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