Celebrity and Expectations of Beauty

Valley of the Dolls was written at a very turbulent time in history, politically and socially. The Civil Rights Movement of the previous decade had caused Americans to rethink the idea that what people looked like indicated their worth. The "hippies" were at the front of a wave of opposition to the traditional family dynamic (working father, housekeeping mother, up-to-date kitchen, happy children). They emphasized the needs of an individual over the need to keep up appearances. On a lighter note, perhaps, was the sudden widespread broadcast of color television. In 1965, NBC filled its prime-time lineup almost entirely with programming in color and kicked off the demand for color television sets in private homes. TV looked more than ever like real life, and stars needed more than ever to distinguish themselves from real people.

The three main characters in the novel, Anne, Neely, and...