I thought of something else, this about Pamela Anderson's breasts. (Don't you think a clever way to get everyone to go to a link one wanted them to visit would be to say it was about Pamela Anderson's breasts, by the way? I wonder how many people didn't click on the url?!)
You can look at her striking characterization of Pamela Anderson's breasts as "raised scar tissue" the same way. (Though I dare say Germaine doesn't refer to her own breasts as lumps of "fatty meat.") Who would make a silly decision to have dramatically raised scar tissue on their chest instead of small lumps of fatty meat? Maybe no one, if the choice is seen so simply. But P.A.'s decision looks different if certain other information is included in the equation, such items as that millions of men would begin instantly to desire her, she would become rich and famous and have enormous freedom to do as she liked for the rest of her life, she could take care of her children and grandchildren into infinity, etc. Inveighing against plastic surgery is like inveighing against the wish of a woman to be desirable to as many men as she can manage, that is, to have as much sexual choice herself as possible in the world. It's like saying women shouldn't wear mascara or lipstick or revealing clothes and certainly one's little girl shouldn't get braces on her crooked teeth.
I know and understand why people are upset at the appearance-standards generated by the media. I just think expression contempt for the strong drive to make oneself desirable to one's preferred sex is a losing, and generally hypocritical, battle.
In a way, I don't blame the media. The thing is, they operate in a market. People give ratings to some images, not to others. Before TV, the local high school girls measured themselves (literally sometimes) against the other 50 girls their age in their school. Maybe there were one or two girls there who were dazzling, and attracted the most desirable boys. After TV, though, the images to which a high school girl is comparing herself are those of the most dazzling from all the high schools in the country! Naturally, she's going to head at some point for whatever technology can offer to make her feel less disadvantaged in that new, difficult comparison. These same standards are, at the same time, being internalized by boys, of course.
It's unhealthy in a way, and in another way it's so inevitable and comprehensible that it is almost pointless to blame it on anyone.
I hasten to add that I am aware that qualities other than looks also act as attractants or repellants. But those are probably not what primarily explained Marilyn Monroe's appeal to Arthur Miller. The most highly situated male will likely choose, among his current universe of physically attractive women, the one/s with other qualities he also likes, or thinks he does, to carry his genes into the future.
'Repellant' shows up as red on spellcheck. But it seems to me that, used as a noun, it should end with 'ant,' not 'ent.' And I'm too lazy to check it out. |
