Ginger or Mary Ann?

It’s become an age-old question: Ginger or Mary Ann?

And more often than not, men between the ages of 40 and 60 do not hesitate with their response.

With the passing yesterday of Donna Douglas (Elly Mae Clampett), I once again started thinking about the television shows of my youth. And more than any other popular show of that genre (The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, The Beverly Hillbillies or Room 222), Gilligan’s Island has achieved iconic status in the world of pop culture and recently celebrated its 50th birthday.

Gilligan’s Island ran between 1964 and 1967 on the CBS network.

We all know the plot and the premise of Gilligan’s Island, but let’s save the critiques for later.

Of the two single women stranded on the tropical island (Mrs. Howell was taken), if you put farm girl Mary Ann Summers up against Hollywood movie starlet Ginger Grant, Mary Ann almost invariably trumps her much more curvaceous, sexpot co-star, among both men and women.

Why?

I’m not entirely sure, but I have a theory.

It’s because Mary Ann was the essence of innocence. She was nurturing (forever making coconut cream pies for her fellow islanders) She was modest, honest and just a little bit sassy.

On the other hand, Ginger was narcissistic, insecure and rather one-dimensional.

Men, more often than not, choose Mary Ann because of deeper instincts than sexual desire. Would you want Ginger to be the mother of your children? Would Ginger nurture you when you were sick with island fever? Probably not.

Men may choose Ginger for a night, but Mary Ann was a keeper.

Women choose Mary Ann, I think, because she embodies a better reality about women. Women are tired of the images of female body perfection that has been forced on them through media for generations.

But let’s not dance around the also obvious.

Mary Ann was smoking hot in her own right. Her shorts were always short and tight. She may have worn a farm girl’s checkered shirt, but even in the early 1960s, Mary Ann was not afraid to expose her midriff, tying that symbolic shirt of innocence around her waist.

That’s my theory about why Mary Ann trumps Ginger, despite the latter’s overt sex appeal.

In the end, virtue always wins, and Mary Ann managed to stay on the right side of that line for three years, and in our minds for 50 years thereafter.

I close by asking you to take a simple poll: Ginger or Mary Ann?