> For all people talk about "youth culture," people are regarded as
>potentially attractive for a much longer time today than in past. In
>Rosenkavalier, the Marschallin is having what she knows is her last love
>affair-- at 32! the gym is the price. Except for you and me :).
firstly, don't get me wrong, i'm not some raving feminist freakazoid who huffs and puffs about sex, porn and luscious bodies as unilaterally oppressive. i'm simply pointing out that these images are *clearly* historical. yes, i recall my mother and her friends have 29 one more time parties for years. they mourned turning thirty. and i recall the commercial about being over the hill at 25. nonetheless, i grew up to believe that the thirties and forties would be the best time of my life -- in all aspects. this is because *culture* doens't operate like some sort of monolithic opressive machine --there are contradictions, fissures, gaps, social movemnts, complexity, the media, etc.
but let's not imagine that "attractive for much longer than they used to be" magically appeaed on the scence or that it is somehow the result of greater enligtenment. this phenom surely has to do with changed dating/marriage/familial patterns which has much to do with work. it surely also has to do with the fact that we live longer. surely has to do with higher divorce rates. and oh let's not forget the baby boomers to whom advertisers cater still, no? that last one is very important to what we are talking about here: *representations* [not individual experiences or relations to those represenations]
and since we're talking representatons of bodies, -then we can look at holly wood and ask about how many roles there are for women in their 40s/50s/60s? [i think i wanted to scream the summer of 98 ifi had to see one more trailer for flick with a 60 yr lead male and a 25 yr old lead female!]
and, ange might appreciate this. zizek might remind us to ask ourselves what the "i work out at the gym for my health, not because i'm conceited and victim to the media" line is doing for us.
sorry to harp on this. i happen to be doing some research for someone which involves classifying some old photos for analysis [a sociology of photography]. i'm thoroughly fascinated by the changes in body type over the past century. so, it got me to looking more carefully at older television programs/films and, again, i was fascinated particularly by the ways in which men's ideal body types have changed over the past decades. superman was a wimpy sack of cheese by today's standards
i'm with ehrenreich on these sorts of things -- all of this plays quite nicely into the consumption needs of the economy. speaking of hot numbers, but oh boy, i stumbled over B;s pic at DSA and wooo woo she looks good in that pic! i'm not one who believe that beauty standards are a priori oppressive. in fact, i hated that sort of feminism so much that i refuse to wear anything by heels when i worked with other campus feminist. just to piss em off. [identity politics is good for narcissistic delights]
nothing wrong with health. but i'll have to say that i was so freaked out by it when i was a kid that i took to limiting my calorie intake to 600 cl a day and running two hours at least. if i ate more than 600 cal. then i went biking or swimming or what have you. completely screwed up my metabolism. fortunately i didn't do the binge and purge thing as a lot of my friends did. it was a regular club. get together on friday nights, binge out on all the foods that they denied themselves, get drunk and eliminate it from your system. then their were the girls who used laxatives and ipecac syrup, etc.
kelley,
who must go nap b/c i was working all night again