"Body as a Cultural Product: How does thinking about the body as a
cultural product affect our understanding of beauty and femininity?"
I found it so inspiring, it made me long to go to school again. I wish everyone would read this and was aware of these issues.
Along these lines, i found a similarly themed, though lighter scene from the movie, "Beautiful Girls." Have you seen it? I don't think i'd even heard of it before surfing by the site where which i will proceed to now rip off. Okay. Here goes:
"Gina Against the Models of the World
written by Scott Rosenberg
Gina: I'm speaking to both you, okay, you're both fucking insane. You wanna know what your problem is? MTV, Playboys, and Madison fucking Avenue. Yeah. Let me explain something to you. OK, look, girls with big tits have big asses, girls with little tits have little asses. That's the way it goes. God doesn't fuck around, he's a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits, and the skinnies little, tiny niddlers. If you don't like it, call him. (entering store) Hey Mitch. Thank you. Oh guys, look what we have here. (picking up Penthouse magazine and opening it) Look at this: your favorite. Oh, you like that?
written by Scott Rosenberg
Tommy (Matt Dillon): I'd go along with that.
Gina: Yeah, that's nice, right? Well, it doesn't exist, okay? Look at the hair. The hair is long, it's flowing, it's like a river. Well, it's a fucking weave, okay? And the tits. Please, I could hang my overcoat on them. Tits, by design, are intended to be suckled by babies. Yeah, they're purely functional. These are silcone city. And look, my favorite, the shaved pubis. Pubic hair being so unruly and all. Very vain. This is a mockery, this is a sham, this is bullshit. Implants, calogen, plastics, capped teeth, the fat sucked out, the hair extended, the nose fixed, the bush sh-these are not real women, alright? They're beauty freaks. And they make all us normal women with our wrinkles, our puckered boobs, hi Bob, our cellulite, seem somewhat inadequate. Well, I don't buy it, alright? What you fuckers, you think is that there's a chance in hell that you'll end up with one of these women you don't give us real women any thing approaching a commitment. It's pathetic. I don't know what you think you're going to do. You're going to end up 80 years old, drooling in some nursing home, and then you'll decide that it's time to settle down, get married, have kids? What are you going to do: find a cheerleader? Charge it, Mitch.
Willie (Timothy Hutton): I think you're over simplifying.
Gina: Oh, eat me. Look at Paul--with his models on the wall, his dog named Elle Macpherson. He's insane! He's obsessed. You're all obsessed. If you had an ounce of self-esteem, of self-worth, of self-confidence, you would realize that as trite as it may sound: beauty is truly skin deep. And you know what? If you ever did hook one of those girls, I guarantee you'd be sick of her.
Tommy: (looking at the magazine) Yeah, I suppose I'd get sick of her, after about, what, 20 or 30 years?
Gina: Get over yourself.
Tommy: What?
(They leave the store)
Gina: No matter how perfect the nipple, how supple the thigh, unless there's some other shit going on in the relationship besides physical, it's going get old, okay? And you guys, as a gender, have got to get a grip, otherwise the future of the human race is in jeopardy.