Coolness is an amorphous and indefinable phenomenon of society. Many people have tried to pin down just what cool is, but somehow it keeps on eluding them. Daniel Harris is one of these people. In his essay Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic he attempts to define what is cool and why. Harris focuses mainly on the masculine cool and does a fairly good job in defining and researching that side of the cool. He is mistaken however to so blithely dismiss the cool of "the voluptuous blond cheerleader" (Harris 69), often times called the valley girl. Her "lantern-jawed, all-American boyfriend" (69) may not be as cool as the leather-jacket wearing, cigarette smoking, tattoo sporting boy under bleachers, but the valley girl is his equal. .
As opposed to the cool people Harris talks about, the valley girl is not a rebel (63). It is her job to conform and to ostracize all who do not. She is not part of the mystique of technological wizardry (60), choosing instead the guise of airhead and dumb blonde. She does not emulate the fantasy of poverty (54). She spends daddy's money with practiced ease. She is not part of "the cult of the grotesque" (69). Her beauty is one of the keys to her coolness. .
The rebel, the nihilist, the machine magician, the wigger, and the drifter are all very cool men. The only time Harris touches on a cool woman is in his opening when he sights "the beautiful blonde in Paul Morrisey's Mixed Blood" (51). She is the grown up version of the before mentioned voluptuous blond cheerleader. The thing that makes this woman cool is her calm assurance of her beauty. .
A cool woman is beautiful and ethereal. She is beyond the reach of mortal men. Whomever she chooses to grace with her presence is seen as the luckiest man in the world. A cool woman is a casual seductress. She lures men in with her impeccable style, unearthly grace, and beautiful face. A cool woman has a sexual presence that cannot be denied.
