I’ve been reading a lot about Frozen lately, and not even intentionally. I mean I watched it intentionally, but it was when I was having a slumber party with my niece. Okay, fine. You caught me. My niece is now a teenager and we were watching it in spite of not being the age demographic they were aiming for. Seriously though guys, why are Disney movies so appealing? There are so many things I can hate on in this movie. Like how it features ANOTHER typical white, skinny heroine whose eyes are bigger than her wrists.
Okay fine, I see you Jasmine… and Mulan.. and Pocahontas… and Tiana, but they’re still all skinny!
I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time now, however, a picture I recently saw finally gave me the push I needed to actually get down to it.
This was not that picture:
It was however, a picture very similar. Adalia Rose, the little girl in this photo, was contrasted up next to a picture of a model, the caption beneath it reading something along the lines of “Like if you think this girl is just as pretty as this model.”
Readers, Adalia Rose is not beautiful.
And that’s okay.
Because between this and my religion posts, I’m looking to get in hot water with everyone I know…
EVAN: Today, ladies and gentlemen, comes yet another E> that’s causing me seriously think about changing the title of the feature. Kat joins both Gordon and me in a three-person discussion we’ve been meaning to have for a while.
Today’s topic is one of Gordon’s making, so without further ado I am turning it over to him-
GORDON: Beauty is our topic for today.
Or perhaps “attraction” might be a better title. We’re going to be hashing out whether or not there’s an issue with being attracted to contemporary standards of beauty.
Now I bring this up because it’s been pretty well established that our contemporary standards of what’s attractive are, well, pretty unrealistic and often unhealthy. Though the 300 pounds of sheer blubber that would’ve turned heads two hundred years ago admittedly weren’t much better.
EVAN: Welcome, one and all, young and old, to what I am dubbing as the first ever Valentine’s Day Edition of Evan and Gordon Talk!
I had originally come up with this topic to rile my co-writer, but then realized that it fit in perfectly with tomorrow’s holiday.
GORDON: Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t rile me. My vindictive co-writer understands that I am a deeply unemotional individual who knows more about the surface of the moon than human interactions.
EVAN: I had mostly planned on this being me asking Gordon about what traits he appreciates in a woman, and I will start thusly:
Gordon, what is the first thing you notice in a woman, physically [that appeals to you]?
GORDON: You know that I am partial to redheads.
EVAN: Our readership did not. What do you like about them, exactly?
GORDON: No reason springs to mind, I guess it’s just an irrational preference. Similar to your irrational detestation of the ladies of your own ethnicity.
EVAN: Oh, I don’t detest Asian women, I’m just not as attracted to them as almost any other race. But we’re getting off topic, you can ask me potentially embarrassing questions in a moment.
What woman would you hold up above all others as an ideal example of physical beauty?
GORDON: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
This is beautiful to someone. Just not me. Or anyone I know. Or will ever know.
In my case, I’d cite Bryce Dallas Howard or Olivia Wilde as being prime examples. At least of physical attractiveness.
Obviously there’s plenty more that goes into it.
EVAN: Like what? I mean, I know there’s more, but what else do you think there is to it?
GORDON: Intelligence, obviously, is a major factor.
EVAN: So what’s the standard for your future significant other?
GORDON: I’ve answered quite a few- I’ll let you answer that first.
EVAN: I’d like to be with a lady who reads. Not being able to talk to her about a book [or, let’s be honest, a comic] that I’m reading would be pretty terrible.
So reasonable well-read, I’d say. She doesn’t have to have read Joyce’s Ulysses, but knowing who the Romantics are would be nice.
GORDON: Certainly we can agree on this.
EVAN: Certainly.
I’m going to describe who I’ve always seen you marrying/dating, since I feel like it’ll touch on another area of life you deem very important.
I’ve always imagined you getting together with what you would call “a dirty hippy.” Dreads, doesn’t shower very often, a conscientious consumer in that she pays for products that are ethically produced, someone who goes to rallies but knows what exactly she’s protesting.
GORDON: This is the part where I’d describe who I’ve always thought you’d wind up being only, only I don’t speculate on that because I’m not a pervert.
EVAN: I feel like your skirting around the subject and avoidance of outright denying my speculation gives it validity.
GORDON: Then here is my outright denial: I don’t like hippies. They’re pacifists.
EVAN: Fine, she advocates violence in certain situations.
GORDON: I don’t like vegetarianism or veganism or any of those other affronts to god and nature.
EVAN: So you’re saying being a vegetarian is a deal-breaker for you?
GORDON: Totally. My little sister is a vegetarian, and I am so ashamed of the fact that I just tell people that she’s actually a meth dealer.
If cows had the chance, they’d kill you and everyone you love…
EVAN: While we as an audience are probably relieved that you would never date your sister, I think now would be a great time to list off the [presumably] many deal-breakers you have when it comes to a significant other.
GORDON: Emotions. Talkativeness. A need for companionship or validation of any kind. Playing any music which isn’t heavy metal without earphones. More than three pairs of shoes. Adherence to any political belief that Glenn Beck wouldn’t decry as being forged in the fires of hell.
This could go on, you know this.
EVAN: I’m going to take it from your second deal-breaker that you prefer your women to be seen and not heard. How are our readers supposed to perceive this?
GORDON: The readers can take it any way they want- my own point is that I don’t like people who I hang out with to have to talk, as a baffling number of people on this little blue rock apparently feel obliged to.
EVAN: You live a hard life, Gordon.
GORDON: I truly do.
EVAN: To switch our places while still hopefully making you equally uncomfortable, you can ask me a question about my feelings. My feelings about women.
GORDON: . . . why are you doing this to me?
EVAN: Gordon, I am doing this for our readers.
GORDON: In that case, I guess what the reader apparently wants to know is. . . I have no idea. I have literally no idea. . .
EVAN: Gordon, if a girl wanted to send you a Valentine, what sort of gift/card would you most appreciate?
GORDON: Can cigars count? You can write on the little labels. . .
EVAN: Only if we’re allowed to read something Freudian into your choice.
GORDON: Do I still get cigars?
EVAN: Sure.
GORDON: Then I can live with that.
EVAN: Conversely, what sort of Valentine would you give a girl?
GORDON: . . . Cigars? They’re like chocolate, only they don’t taste lousy and make a mess.
EVAN: Also, they don’t go straight to your thighs.
GORDON: This is true.
EVAN: I’m going to try to come up with one more question you don’t want to answer, and then we can wrap this up. When was the last time you had a crush on someone?
GORDON: Ah, an easy one. Never.
EVAN: The last time you considered a woman you saw to be very attractive [not counting on TV/on the internet]?
GORDON: That’d be when I went to Toronto with you. Though it must be noted that I had been stuck in a tiny college town with the same people for the past four years. So I wouldn’t put much stock in my judgment at that point.
EVAN: The women of Toronto will try not to read too much into your comment. And I suppose that brings this Special Evan and Gordon Talk Valentine’s Day Edition to a close!
GORDON: For next week, I suggest: Drugs, Legalization, and Culture. It won once before, I think it deserves another shot.
EVAN: Oh yeah, it did. I think we talked about Django instead.
EVAN: Cool stuff. You should end this by telling our readers how you feel about them.
GORDON: You people make me sick. Prying into a dude’s personal life at the cackling delight of Evan. He’s an impressionable child and easily led astray. You should be ashamed of yourselves for encouraging his bad behavior.
EVAN: I think you are all wonderful people, and should consider yourselves lucky to have been privy to Gordon’s life. Tune in next time, as always!
I was recently listening to a stand-up routine by British comedian Robert Newman, who in the course of an Iraq War joke stated something I thought was pretty dang profound.
“Just because you’re fighting the bad guys doesn’t mean that you’re the good guys.”
I really can’t think of anyone this statement applies better to than the adherents of the rising “Body Positive Movement.”
You hear that, starving kids in Sudan?
Who are these people? Well, the the “body positive” movement is the result of a reaction against the air-brushed, Photoshopped, and ultimately anorexic presentation of beauty offered by mainstream culture. It’s given us Dove’s “True Beauty Campaign” in which “real” women were used as models (hoping you’ll forget that the same people who run Dove run Axe).
It’s given us memes like this:
And it’s given us a host of philosophical epitaphs on how the size of your brain or heart are vastly more important than the size of your waistline.
“Buuuut we’re gonna use a skinny model anyways…”
And it all has a certain logic to it. Forget society’s standards! Be comfortable with who you are! Your insides are all that should count! Reject anorexic beauty standards! Enough making yourself sick trying to pursue unrealistic and unattainable goals! Only you can make you feel inferior!
And so on.
Now I know that it must sound pretty weird that these people would wind up being the subject of a Shame Day. After all, what’s wrong with rejecting the media’s unattainable and anorexic standard of beauty and embracing your body for what it is?
Well, suppose your body looked something like this:
Sure, I could say this guy is “husky” or “bigger” or “shaped differently” or use any other paper-thin euphemism for fat. Doesn’t change a thing. I could name the asteroid about the hit the earth Friendly Ed and there’d still be as much devastation when Edward hits New York. We can call it anything we want- we’re still not changing the fact that being fat isn’t any more healthy than being stick-thin.
“But Gordon, you incandescent beacon of enlightenment, surely these people aren’t advocating anything like that!“
And no, not all of them are- but enough of the big players are endorsing pretty much this philosophy. Let me offer this post from The Body Positive’s website as an example. In her article “‘Tis the Season to be Squishy”, Connie Sobczak asserts that there’s really nothing wrong with gaining weight during winter months, as this is simply the body’s natural reaction the cold as a result of evolutionary adaption. And that is true- only Sobczak goes on to use that factual statement to prop up some far more dubious claims.
“So, the next time you ‘feel like a steak’ or ‘need a cookie’ it could be your brain and not your stomach talking.” Out of the mouths of doctors!”
**** That.
What Sobczak is doing here is attempting to twist evolutionary biology into an excuse for lack of self-control. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to eat a bag of chips. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to eat a bag of chips in winter when you need more calories. There’s nothing wrong with stating that as your reason for eating more chips. But taking all of that and coming away with the conclusion that eating chips (or anything else) is retroactively sanctioned by biology and stating that this conclusion is supported by medical professionals is as dishonest as it is deluded.
Case and point.
Look, it’s true that who you are on the inside is vastly more important than who you are on the outside, no one is going to argue that. But let’s talk about excess, people. Let’s talk about gluttony. Aren’t these realities? Let’s compare the number of people who have had become ill or died as a result of being overweight and contrast it to the number who have become ill or died as a result of being underweight in this country. Which side is gonna have claimed more?
Now that ain’t an endorsement of anorexia or our twisted standards by any means, it’s simply a counter-point.
But hey- maybe it’s not a health thing. Maybe it’s just about being comfortable with who you are regardless of your size. That’s the line taken up by comedian Gabriel Iglesias in his stand-up routine.
Towards the end of one of his acts he states that he wouldn’t want to live to be a hundred if it means he couldn’t eat cake. He asserts that working out doesn’t ensure you’ll live long- why not enjoy life while you have it?
Why not indeed?
So if that’s the case, why are we jumping on the bulimic and anorexic members of society in the fist place? Hey- if health isn’t an issue and happiness is, why is a a girl weighing less than seventy five pounds any worse than a girl weighing three hundred? Why is it “Body Positive” for a woman to expand her waistline and self-loathing when she expands her bust line? It just doesn’t pan out.
Look, I’m not here to offer any solutions. I’m six feet tall (when I’m not slouching, which is always) and skinny. I smoke a little bit, drink a little more, and could stand to cut down on the meat and up my intake of fruits and vegetables considerably. I don’t work out, but then again, if wolves were to be introduced to my city, I’d probably be ok. Despite my extreme examples, the vast majority of us are neither morbidly obese or carried off by strong winds. All that’s to say that I’m in no place to pass judgment on anyone, nor is it my intention to do so. I’m simply here to point out the hypocritical and seemingly self-serving logic being employed by the group in question.
Despite our focus on American issues, we here at Culture War Reportersrecognize that in our world of ever-shrinking borders, there’s plenty more out there than just the cloudless skies of Nevada or the homeless-packed streets of Toronto (Evan, seriously- if the healthcare system’s so good, why does Canada have so many crazy people?).
Today we turn our attention to our pasty cousins across the pond, more specifically, their TV, excuse me, “Telly” (this is why you lost your empire- well, this and genocide), and how it stacks up next to ours.
CGI and Production Values
Now I have to admit- I haven’t extensively researched British and American television financing, nor have I had a chance to compare the two, taking into consideration differences in the economy and advertising fees over the past couple decades.
What I’m saying is- I’m not an expert.
That said, I don’t need to be an architect to tell you that chances are pretty good that a lot less money was put into making a tent than a condo. British TV shows, put bluntly, just seems to be vastly less funded than their American counterparts. Just take a look at this scene from America’s Battlestar Galactica.
Pretty intense, right? If there’s any poor-quality, it’s probably from the YouTube video, rather than the actual series.
Now look at this clip from Britain’s Doctor Who.
Way worse. And oddly enough, Doctor Who has a bigger fanbase than Galactica, and despite it’s ever-increasing popularity, still has to deal with props dug out of someone’s kitchen drawers. I’m not saying Doctor Who is bad- it’s not. It’s really good- only it’s tough to really feel the full effects of a horrific reveal when the monstrous alien that’s been lurking the shadows until now makes your sock-puppets look scary by comparison. I can’t claim to know the reason for it, and I’m not putting the Brits down for it- I’m simply saying that funding- especially in CGI- appears to be a significant difference between the worlds of British and American TV.
Pretty Faces
You’ve probably heard jokes cracked about this. Not the “British are ugly” or the “British have bad teeth” jokes- the fact that the people on British television have the audacity to look like the people you’d see on the street.
That’s not to say the Brits don’t share the American weakness for fantasizing and glamorizing each and every facet of life, but it’s pretty clear that it’s nowhere near on the scale we have here in the US. Here- take a look at the leading characters of the American version of Being Human.
The guy on the left is decently attractive, as is the girl, and the guy on the right looks more or less like a life-sized Ken doll. Idealized people- no question about it. Now look at the same characters in the British original:
There’s not a huge difference between the girl (the blonde girl is another character- ignore her), and the dark haired guy certainly isn’t his American counterpart and stop looking at that guy’s ears! Yes, they’re huge- they’re gargantuan– and no, this isn’t just an unflattering photo- they actually are trying to escape his head in the first three seasons.
The point is, when it comes to their actors, the British are- well, appear to be- considerably less shallow. They don’t need a couple of supermodels to tell a compelling story of murder, secrecy, and perversion- and speaking of which…
Raunch Codes
Watch this clip- but before you do, get all children and Weslyans out of the room.
Pretty nasty stuff, right? Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
People complain that American media is nothing but sex and violence, but believe me- those Axe commercials are prudish compared to the Brits (and indeed- most of Europe). We may give the Brits a run for their money when it comes to blood and gore but never will we compete with them when it comes to explicitness of this degree. It’s almost to the point where it’s not even repulsive- you’re just impressed at how logic-deafeningly far they take it.
But only almost.
The Dying and the Dead
It’s been said that the difference between British comedies and American comedies is that American comedies begin with everything going wrong and end with everything being fixed, while British comedies begin with everything going right and end with everything falling apart. I wouldn’t call a story where everyone dies of scurvy at the end a comedy, but then again, I don’t whittle my life away on a miserable island full of alcoholics and skinheads.
I can say that because the only people who hate the British more than the Irish, the Kenyans, the Indians, the Chinese, the Australians, the New Zealanders, Iranians, and the Egyptians are the British themselves.
The simple fact of the matter is that there is this viciously self-deprecating mentality that pervades every element of British culture (barring fox hunts, which are just weird) that couldn’t be further removed from the general sense of optimism that you tend to find in America. Just take a look at British crime series.
Now I’ve seen quite a few, and while this certainly isn’t universally true, what I’ve typically found is that British murder mysteries focus on the whole “Whodunnit?” element, whereas American murder mysteries either have a “How’d he do it?” or a drive to keep the murderer from murdering again. Gross over-generalizations, I know, but it does seem to be true that American crime series episodes end with the detectives patting each other on the back for having done justice, while British crime series episodes end with the detective giving some despairing monologue about the tragic depravity of all mankind.
Because that’s a very depressing (and therefore, British) way to end the post- allow me offer this:
To say I’ve been ragging a bit on the British would be an understatement, and no- despite our attempts to be unbiased, we here at Culture War Reporters don’t care much for contemporary English culture. That established, there may very well be something to be said for the Brit’s here. Is it pretty? Not remotely, but for all the weirdness (from our perspective) that British TV has to offer, it can’t be denied that it’s simply more “real” than American TV. The sets aren’t shiny, the people aren’t (exclusively) gorgeous, and a stories of sin and murder actually recognize human suffering. There’s certainly a lot from British TV that merits imitation here in America.
Except for sexually explicit sausage commercials. **** that.
Culture War Reporters 