So what exactly are we looking into this week. Well from the readings, it looks like the body, the image of the body, what the body represents, and how exactly it is used to say something, commodified that it is no longer just the sole possession of the wearer of the body shape, but owned and defined by others and used by others. Although the majority of these readings focuses heavily upon women, and there is nothing wrong with that. I couldn't help but think of the movie Zoolander while reading these readings, as extremely ridicilious the movie, it does make a good portrayal of the image of the b
ody, who has the right to define the body and what is the body used for.For those of you who have not watched the movie, firstly, WATCH IT, secondly, to give you a short synopsis, it's about male models.The story revolves aroud three time male supermodel of the year Derek Zoolander, who is the epitome of the male figure, and his quest to save the Malyasian prime minister from himself and the evil Mugatu.
Yet, how this movie is at all related to the usage of the body and commodification of the body is that the body of these male models are put on sale in this movie and are portraying the roles that Aristotle describes about the beautiful body. How beauty is not equitable with that of men, but rather women. That beauty is to be associate with women, which thus equals evil. As we see in the reading by Spellman, "to have more concern for your body rthan your soul is to act just like a woman....the worst possible model for young men could be 'a woman...'"(pg.37). And for anyone who has seen this movie, this is quite evident.
One of the quotes to describe the feminimity portayed by beatuy arrives when Zoolander says, "Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking 'wow, you're ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career.'" Including this and his overall feminin demeanour, the view is led to assume that Zoolander is less than a normal masculine man. Yet at the same time, Zoolander is seen as expendible because He is used as the perfect model/assassin, excuse me, assassin/ model, an expendble agent chosen to kill the Malyasian Prime Minister.
So my question posed here is, why is beauty automatically associated as female in gender portrays? And if you have seen the movie, how is beatuy viewed as powerless? Is a prerequisit to be beauty is to be illogical?
To answer your question about why beauty is always associated women, I believe from the time a girl is born she is put on scale to judge whether she is beautiful or not. As she gets older physical features become more apparent and important. This is why so many women go through with plastic surgery to enhance their physical beings. Even in society now women have to have a certain look in order to be considered beautiful whether it be having hair, thick eyebrows, a small nose, thin waist or large butt. No matter what is being evaluated it’ about beauty. As far as men it really doesn’t matter in society if a man fits the beauty criteria as long as they are seen as strong men and providers.
ReplyDeleteI think that the movie Zoolander does a great job of parodying the ridiculous emphasis placed on the body in the popular American media, and the way that this has led to a deterioration of intellect in the popular figures we see. This reminded me of the Spellman reading for this week that was analyzing the theories of the great philosophers from a feminist perspective. She mentioned how Plato believed that the body kept the individual from real knowledge and a virtuous life because of its deceptive senses. Derrick Zoolander is an example of somebody who has been so blinded by his good looks to the point that everything else in his life has diminished in importance. Hansel seems to also have a personality and seek knowledge, but is not a particularly smart man.
ReplyDeleteWhen you ask "why is beauty automatically associated as female in gender portrays? " ... I think "automatically" is an interesting word choice. Specially because what can be understood as automatic, is often constructed and in a way "fixed" or "naturalized" (Butler).
ReplyDeleteBeauty associated with female body, is an idea worth investigating, since historically the term 'beauty' not always has being associated with female body per se, like Plato propose with the idea of Beauty, rather than the object of beauty....
But since beauty has also an interjection with desire, women's body has being the place where these notions takes place.
ZOOLANDER NEEDS TO LEARN!!!
watch this: VOGUING baby yeah!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMtMy0ndo0
I think women are looked upon becauseof their sexual features, so their pressured to get plastic surgery done to their bodies. They are suppose to be naturally beautiful. However, I think it depends on the culture because different cultures sees something different that attract them to women such as hair, clothes, style etc. The movie is beauty is powerless because they put supermodels that are suppose already have beauty to the test of being appealing to anything clothing. It isn't prerequisit to beauty it's naturally come as you see yourself appearing to love yourself and body.
ReplyDeleteI think Zoolander is an excellent example to go along with the Spelman reading even though he's a male. The movie is clearly a parody on how superficial our society is and the gender norms and stereotypes that exist. The scene in the movie when he goes back to his mining town to his "tough, manly, working class" family continues to show how unusual his behavior is. As a parody we laugh at it and see the obvious extremity but we don't look very far beyond that.
ReplyDeleteI think that when we tie that in with what Spelman discusses on 33 "Feminist theorist frequently wanted to reject the kinds of descriptions of woman's nature found in Plato and other philosophers, and yet at the same time have in their own theorizing continued to accept uncritically other aspects of the tradition that informs those ideas about 'woman's nature.'" We reject the blatant ideas through mediums such as parodies but do we truly address the fundamental flaws relating to the representations and varying views of the body?
Why is beauty automatically associated as female in gender portrayals?
ReplyDeleteI agree that women discipline their bodies, in getting plastic surgery for example, to attempt to fit the "standard" of beauty that culture defines. Also, since culture is meaningfully fleeting and historically specific, different cultures have different standards of beauty. For example, our culture sets the thin, white feminine body as the standard, whereas a cultural in Africa could set the standard as plump and black. In Mauritania, heavier women are valued as being more desirable (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3429903.stm). Beauty automatically is associated as female in portrayals of gender because culture says so (meaning through discourse produces a coding that is reproduced and institutionalized, which then becomes the "norm" and orients social relations). The female body is inherently associated with beauty because it is objectified and desired (desire for beauty), by a man, who is supposed to "catch" and possess the woman, who's beauty then reinforces the image of the male. "If the only difference between women and men is that they have different bodies, and if bodies are merely incidental attachments to what constitutes one's real identity, then there is no important difference between men and women" (Spelman). Our culture, and attached discourse, does not view the male and female body as equal (or the being). Rather, it sees bodies as key markers of one's real identity; beauty is an evaluative measure of the body and its "worth," especially for the female. Power, dominance, fertility, and masculinity are tied to the viability of the male. Beauty and the ability to reproduce and nurture "healthy" offspring are tied to the viability of the female. In nature, the female species is "supposed to" attract the male species. How the notion of beauty is defined and coded in the context of a particular culture creates the binary of what is beautiful and what is not. Disciplining of the body then results in relationship to, or according to, this illusory, socially constructed "ideal." Kelly Necastro, pre-blog
I agree with bola, women are more often judged by the way they look from the moment they are born than men are. Men are often judged by their level of masculinity, which is defined as strength and manliness. However I don’t feel that women are the image of real beauty even though they are often the scale that beauty is assessed by. Spelmen states, “Yes, there are beautiful things, but they only are entitled to be described that way because they 'partake in' the form of Beauty, which itself is not found in the material world. Real beauty has characteristics which merely beautiful things cannot have; real beauty is an everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor goes, which neither flowers nor fades, for such beauty is the same on every hand, the same then as now, here as there, this way as that way, the same to every worshipper as it is to every other”. I find this statement thought provoking because Real beauty is something that is not conditional in my opinion. As Antionette discussed, women are pressured into getting plastic surgery because they want to maintain a particular anesthetic. The beauty that they are trying to capture is a superficial form of beauty. The only eternal beauty that people have is what is on the inside.
ReplyDeleteOn why women are associated with the concept of beauty:
ReplyDeleteI think that the feminine ideal and beauty of women are strongly associated with the notion of women being closer to the "natural world." As the foundation for the women's beauty - there is the goddess myth that informs this notion. Patrick referenced a great quote from the Spelman reading, and I think it helps us question our underestandings of what is "natural." Women are "naturally" associated with beauty because they are beautiful (like nature). The problem with this is not that "women are beautiful" but rather WHY women are considered to be beautiful or beauty is feminine. This movie seems to play at this tension a bit when portraying the male model - yet he is still portrayed as an effeminite male.
The comments above really bring together great observations from the Butler and Spellman readings, the notion that "meaning through discourse produces a coding that is reproduced and institutionalized, which then becomes the "norm" and orients social relations" is at the heart of Peter's questions. Beauty has always functioned as a commodity -- it's value or worth shifts and changes historically and spatially and culturally. The alignment of beauty with femininely gendered bodies is western and contemporary as Spellman points out. It produces some interesting binaries -- Women-Beauty-Body-Nature-Emotional-Irrational-Devalued and Men-Mind-Logic-Rational-Valued -- that we see carried out in contemporary popular culture. I admit I haven't seen Zoolander -- but it does present a very interesting case study as it seems to parody both the binary and the commodification of beauty. Isabel
ReplyDeletePeter, I really like your second question to add to the concept of beauty, why is it deemed at powerless? I wonder whether beauty was first powerless than attached to the woman's body, or vice versus.
ReplyDeleteOne particular quote from Spelman's piece in discussion of Plato's ideologies seemed to open the door for this very discussion: "To have more concern for your body than your soul is to act just like a woman; hence, the most proper penalty for a soldier who surrenders to save his body, when he should be willing to die out of the courage of his soul, is for the soldier to be turned into a woman."
This seems like an early development of the 24-7 self conscious woman about her looks. The ideology of beauty, such as shown in Zoolander, is a powerless/brainless being that is lost in their body, rather than soul. Interesting..
I was also drawn to the question you asked, "how is beauty viewed as powerless?"
ReplyDeleteI agree that beauty can be viewed and understood as powerless. But thinking about what beauty is used for in popular media and everyday life, I guess I would have to say that Beauty has become a very powerful commodity.
Beauty, in popular media is used for the sole purpose of trying to sell yourself or sell a particular product. Why do some people wake up in the morning to do their make up and get dressed in these expensive clothes? to give off a certain kinda of beauty? to make one look more presentable? Beauty has become a commodity in the sense that one has to dress up a certain way in order to get a certain job, to get the attention of another person etc..Beauty has also become a commodity in the sense that models need to be beautiful and skinny in order for them to sell a particular product.
It seems as if this conception of beauty that is politicized around females points to a power structure that conveniently leaves out men, or in the least can be used to de-masculate men. If beauty can be tied to femininity then it seems to serve that in a patriarchal-male-dominated society, and subsequent spaces, that it can take on the role of being less than what is seen as powerful.
ReplyDeleteIn certain struggles for power beauty can be twisted to mean one thing or another. In one instance it can be called on as a positive trait, in another, like in zoo lander, used as a negative.
It also seems to be a concept that forces all in the system to "chase the dragon" to a certain extent as beauty is a concept that is challenged and defined on a continuing basis, affecting those in different social locations in different ways.
It seems like the binaries Isabel mentions may extend to economic discourse. Can the preoccupation with the bodily be read in somehow in association with consumer capitalism (as commodities attempt to fulfill the body's desires)?
ReplyDelete"Women-Beauty-Body-Nature-Emotional-Irrational-Devalued"-economic-mundane
"Men-Mind-Logic-Rational-Valued"-intellectual/philosophical-transcendent
Peter has presented us with a really great challenge--looking at Zoolander, and wondering at the "mapping" of the Woman's body...
ReplyDeleteI found the Spelman reading particularly interesting, especially in the discussion of the frameworks discussing women in popular Greco-Roman-German philosophy--that they are sidenotes, and inconsequential, unrelated addenda to the discourse surrounding truth, knowledge and FREEEDOM.
I took a moment to think of another popular "dumb protagonist" comedy, but this one starred a woman being VERY womanly---Legally Blonde!
The nature of either character's (Zoolander or Elle Woods) stupidity is saddening in its consistency--women are women when they think with their hearts, like wanting to go to Harvard Law to catch up with your cute fiance. But a man is stupid, and mocked by other men when he behaves like a woman--being a model, thinking about appearances...but he is still able to do so via thinking stupidly. His feelings are still rarely used....or he'd be the GAY, dumb protagonist.....these are all stereotypes we've seen. Pop culture is full of them.
Another point, poxiejunior also references--how does beauty render one powerless. I think Spelman talks about Plato's CLEAR indications that the soul is more valuable than the body---and beauty IS, after all, only skin deep.
ReplyDeleteI think we are questioning as awesome question! Great post by the way! I think when it comes to beauty, American society has most definitely put a certain standard on it, that we get so wrap up in fitting in that standard that we forget and neglect the important things. I believe that is what is the parody in the movie Zoolander. We get so caught up in the superficial america that we forget that we live in reality. But this all due to what America highlight as important and portrays in the media.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I think this is one of the most dumbest movies of all time, it does a great job of making fun of the superficial beauty that we are so used to. I honestly think Plato would have a field day with this movie. However, I do not totally agree that beauty is associated with women alone, for men too can be pressured to have a certain "attractiveness" about themselves as well, which is often related to how much money does he have, which can make some women see "beauty" in a man. It is unfortunate that women are pressured to not only be beautiful, but to maintain it. I totally agree with Plato and his philosophy about the soul/body binaries...beauty is only skin deep
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bola in saying that the formulation of beauty standards and seeing women as beautiful and denoting men as handsome goes the same with our foundations as a baby. You were given a pink blanket if you were a girl and a blue blanket if you were a boy. The transition is seen throughout your life. I love how we discussed in class that it is through the formation of the soul and body in which we acknowledge this significance. To answer your question about about beauty being a prerequisite for illogical thinking I would say that Plato describes it best in Spelman's article when he agrees that the body is the escape from reality while the soul is the escape to reality and recognition of what's real (Spelman 34). As a black woman that is plus-sized, as well as a black hip hop feminist, I really believe that this is true. The Christian Bible speaks about beauty being fleeting while the soul is everlasting. Our society operates under Christian beliefs, for the most part (our money says, "In God we trust...hmmm?). Therefore, if we clearly see that beauty is not the realness of a person, how come we hold it up on a pedestal and make this the very nature and operation of our being? Our roots are in Judeo-Christianity which had heavy influences on the current society being that most of Americans are here through colonization. Therefore, it is illogical and it doesn't make sense. America is definitely in jeopardy of loosing its authenticity in so many ways which gives reason to why so many divorces occur annually and so many suicidal attempts are present in today's society. It's a lot to think about. However, if we act and think we will all be more productive.
ReplyDeleteBeauty is socially, culturally, historically, and politically constructed in society. For instance, the beauties in the US usually have big mouths and thick lips; while in the Chinese society, small mouth and thin lips are desirable. Comparing the pageants of Miss America and Miss Hong Kong, I also found that the desirable women in two different societies are gendered in different ways. Most of the candidates of Miss America have big smiles on their faces. When they walk, their steps are big and their arms swing back and forth at a wide angle. They have all kinds of skin colors. Most of them have “curvy bodies.” The candidates of Miss Hong Kong usually have reserved smile and facial expressions. They talk softly. Their steps are smaller than usual when they walk on the stage. Only light-color skin is desirable, if one has athletic skin tone, she will become the spotlight and may become the joke of the mass media. Most of them have very slim bodies with small breasts and hips. If one has “bigger” breasts, she will also become the spotlight and there may be some rumors of her having done plastic surgery. These are just some examples of how female bodies are gendered and how “beauty” is constructed in different ways.
ReplyDeleteWhy is beauty automatically associated as female in gender portrays? I agree with Kelly Necastro that female bodies are objectified by men. I consider this objectification as a manipulation of power. Men define and construct what beauty is on female bodies to maintain their power in patriarchal societies. If we look back to some fashion trends, tiny waist (in Victorian era), feet-binding (in dynastic China), and today’s high-heel shoes are totally opposed to the “nature.” I am wondering if these trends serve as the means to disempower women, to make them more fragile, dependent, and restricted so that they are less likely to threaten and challenge the male domination.
To answer the first question I truly think that beauty is something that has always been associated with women, since they were young girls they are always measured in terms of beauty. For men its always a question of their masculinity and how manly they can be and since beauty is not associated with the rugged rough image a masculine man should have, its always been associated with femininity.
ReplyDelete