About MARIAL Faculty, Fellows, and Staff Calendar of Events Research and Publications Fellowships Work-Family Resources Virtual Exhibitions	About MARIAL MARIAL in the News NPR TRANSCRIPT: From Takeoff to Landing: The Fantasy of the Flight Attendant December, 2005 By Katie Goetz Produced by: Vicki Farden Host Lead: This year marks the 75th anniversary of the flight attendant.  In 1930, cabin boys gave way to a sorority in the sky: cabin attendants, airline hostesses, then stewardesses.  Intern Edition's Katie Goetz wondered why the distance between our fantasies of flight attendants and reality is as vast as a transatlantic flight. [Duration:0'05"] TAPE / AIRPLANE (Harp music) Attendant: Excuse me, sir…would you like some coffee before we serve dinner?    The 1980 spoof Airplane is among dozens of movies that show flight attendants as sexy, eager to please, and totally available.  Corey Caldwell is the spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants.  [Duration:0'09"] TAPE / COREY CALDWELL Back in the 30s and 40s, flight attendants weren't allowed to be married.  They had to quit working when they got to a certain age.  They weren't allowed to have children.  And they had to be female and white.  The first flight attendant union used the Civil Rights Act to challenge unfair hiring and firing practices.  The last such policy - which stipulated a maximum weight for flight attendants - was banned in 1992!   But at the beginning, airline ads were built around the appeal of the flight attendant.  Ads first centered on safety, then comfort in the 1930s and 40s; glamour in the 1950s, and in the 1960s, SEX.  Drew Whitelegg is an Emory University sociologist who studies flight attendants.  [Duration:0'03"] TAPE / WHITELEGG The most outrageous one was Braniff with the Air Strip… [Duration:0'07"] TAPE / BRANIFF AD / FADES IN, STAYS UNDER "When a Braniff International Hostess meets you on the airplane, she'll be dressed like this…(12 second pause)… [Duration:0'06"] TAPE / WHITELEGG There would be this woman in an Emilio Pucci-designed uniform who would basically disrobe layer by layer on a flight. [Duration:0'00"] The sex-kitten stewardess slipped out of airline ads nearly altogether after 1978.  That's when the industry was deregulated, so for the first time, airlines competed on the basis of price.  But the fantasy of flight attendants is still embedded in our culture.  Patrick Smith is the author of a column on Salon.com called Ask the Pilot.  [Duration:0'06"] ASK THE PILOT / 13:13-13:23 Generally, I try to avoid any and all movies that deal with air travel because they're usually so over the top... Take 2003's View from the Top starring Gwyneth Paltrow.  A current flight attendant named Silver Tree says, in fact, it's the worst depiction of flight attendants she's ever seen.  [Duration:0'01"] TAPE / SILVER TREE When they showed training... [Duration:0'09"] TAPE / VIEW FROM THE TOP Jump!  Jump!  Remove your shoes!  Don't take anything with you!  WHOA!  11 seconds!  A new training record!  (Applause) [Duration:0'07"] TAPE / SILVER TREE ...I felt really made a mockery of what flight attendants are predominantly trained to do, which is protect people and the aircraft. ...so Tree wrote and produced her own movie that touched on the job's loneliness and anonymity.  It's called The Aviary.  It's about a hapless, doe-eyed flight attendant torn between her lives on the ground and in the sky.  [Duration:0'10"] TAPE / THE AVIARY Attendant 1: I don't mean to be rude, but, you really wanna be flying around, tossing out boxed lunches when you're 45?  Attendant 2: Damn straight - on my way to Tahiti for a paid layover. A couple of recent mainstream movies abandon the old stereotype in favor of what may be a new one.  [Duration:0'09"] TAPE / FLIGHT PLAN Pilot: We're going to continue to search this aircraft from the waist upwards. Mom: Well I just saw two members of your crew coming back from the attic, and they did everything up there EXCEPT look for my daughter! Flight Plan, starring Jodie Foster, is about a mom whose daughter vanishes from a plane in mid-flight.  The flight staff is less than helpful.  The movie was boycotted by the Association of Flight Attendants and two similar unions.  That's 80,000 potential ticket buyers!  The AFA's Corey Caldwell.  [Duration:0'06"] TAPE / COREY CALDWELL This movie portrayed flight attendants in a very poor light - not something we're unaccustomed to.  But flight-attendant-turned-movie-producer Silver Tree believes a new image is emerging. [Duration:0'10"] TAPE / SILVER TREE That image of sexy young female flight attendants is being turned on its axis a bit because a lot of the men and women waiting on people in the airplanes are in their 50s.  Many airlines are looking to cut costs by winnowing out older workers, says sociologist Drew Whitelegg.  How?  One way is to revert to sexy uniforms, which would discourage women from staying on the job too long. For NPR's Intern Edition, I'm Katie Goetz.  < More MARIAL in the News