Defining wellness with paradigms as ancient as creation and as modern as today.
Monday, August 15, 2011
The Real Woman. Does She Exist? (or is she a fantasy in our minds?)
An old Rod Serling TV program from the Twilight Zone posed the scenario that a beautiful girl had to have surgery. I mean she was absolutely gorgeous; perfect features, perfect body. Any man today would tear down doors to get to her. Nevertheless, her parents insisted she have the surgery to change her face. Why? She was considered ugly because she didn't look like everyone else. Rod Serling was not only prescient, he was downright scary...it's as if it's a conspiracy to make the themes of many of his Twilight Zone shows come to pass. Do...do...do...do...do...do...do...do!
Not really. Anyone who lived during the time could prophesy that unseen hands in the Advertising Industry, Entertainment Industry and Big Pharma (yes, think Quiz Show and Geritol) would be conjuring up ways to make money by using Group Think to cattle prod American minds into buying product, ideas and concepts to allay their fears and fulfill their wants and needs. A fabulous way to create the necessity for beauty products, diet products, clothing, etc., was to blast an iconic look of physical beauty across the airwaves, one designed to be antithetical to what most real women look like. So what if the fascists did the same thing? Often the very people who would have been slaughtered in Fascist Germany opted for nose jobs, boob jobs, face lifts, lipo and fillers to look less like who they were! You have to respect Barbra Streisand for resisting such fascism and NOT getting her Jewish nose fixed.(A year ago I saw a plastic surgeon on TV; he commented that "everyone" Jewish on LI who was over 17 had gotten a nose job. A show guest quipped that she hadn't and his assessment wasn't accurate, at least where she was concerned.)
This whole idea of enhancements, surgeries (some of it absolutely incredible, like clitoral surgical enhancement) plastic, saline, lipo, fillers to make oneself appear "prettier" decries everything that is most foul and pathetic about human nature. Above all it reveals our penchant to judge, condemn, discriminate and hate "The Other," "The Different," "The Unusual," (translate that as ultimately, oneself). Just ask a 90 year old Black Woman what she went through with her clothing, hair, etc., trying to downplay her racial heritage. The problem is, fashion is king. And as Serling intimated as dangerous, if you do not get with the program, expect rejection, ridicule and disdain. When you have to live and work in the tangible, material world, you must use all of your other powers (charm, intelligence, wisdom, humor) to get around the idiocy and above all you must not internalize the leperous values and genocide yourself (reject your own ethnic appearance). Your self-hatred and inner unhappiness will grow despite all your attempts to change your face and body! Honey, surgery has to be redone every few years or so. Gravity is not a myth. You want to be forever young? Read "To An Athlete Dying Young," by A.E. Housman to get some really viable ideas.
That's why I like what is beginning to happen with the Fat Acceptance Movement. And I like this website. (click here) which embraces the shapes of REAL WOMEN!!!. And I like that The American Girl Doll has trumped Barbie in its presentation of who women are. Barbie is indeed plastic and everything about her look embraces the plastic woman. And her mate, Ken, no genitals??? Sounds like what has been happening to the Caucasian American male! Online porn is big business. Who watches it the most? Gee. I can't imagine!!! Poor guys. What do they have to look forward to? Prostate cancer, and the vitality in a little pill like Viagra, Extenze or Cealis. Certainly, all the plastic women they see on TV or in online porn do not hold a candle to their middle aged wives in bed. Or is it the other way around?
Anyone with his or her eyes open could have seen the symbolism with Barbie and Ken. And how many women who played with these dolls and internalized those standards of beauty have recreated the net effect of the unfruitful relationship between the plastic couple? True love and intimacy are inner spiritual forces which culminate in a union that those who have never experienced it THINK is sex. But they have no idea. No wonder why the jokers running the porn business and the individuals who people those films are plastic-fantastic, frustrated and largely unsatisfied seeking greater and greater sex adventures (a veiw D.H. Lawrence posits in his work). They have no clue what true intimacy, love and fulfillment is. The sex they're playing with is baby stuff, like playing at Ken and Barbie.
There is hope for the younger generation of females in America if we join with others to turn things around to stop objectifying the female body and stop presenting WHAT the ICONIC female body should look like. We come in all shapes and sizes. AND SO WHAT if you bulge here and I have skin flab. (The young men I know who choose for looks and body are getting divorced sooner in their marriages, anyway.) I am sick of these profit motive NAZIS who think I'm a goose to imprint upon.
If you have any great websites that are working to overthrow the "Barbie" look for women, let me know. I'll post about them...and list the websites here on The Fat and The Skinny.
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2 comments:
AMEN!!! This post is so true. And thank you for being brave and probably handling the haze of comments from insecure women who INSIST that being the perfect size 4 is the holy grail of all women. Women are beautiful because of WHO they are...that's where the real beauty is. We as a society have to get that soon or we got a lot of unhappy young girls turning into destructive women.
Thanks Lorena for your comments. Wasn't able to answer this sooner. The pictures that initiated all the comments are so important because I think every American woman suffers from thinking she isn't "good" enough or "attractive" enough, especially when images of this abound everywhere. Even some young men buy into the baloney. I have been infuriated about this for ALL of my life, ALL! Only recently I think I worked through it so I could lose weight carefully and take 2 years and more to do it. But I was a teacher and have seen a lot of the girls suffer about their weight, needlessly. To some extent, I think it has gotten better. I hope so. Writing a book about this. Cultural attitudes...which destroy must be changed. Anyway, thanks so much for sharing here. Keep in touch. Am going to write an article about the link you FB. Thanks again.
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