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I express sorrow that the woman depicted could not have been given a pair of panties that was in her own size, so as to mitigate the lamentable effect of having been cut off in the middle, thus emphasizing her shape not as one that is normal, but one that must be uncomfortably shoved into a garment too small for her frame.
One of the few good things about Walmart is that (at least the last time I saw a copy) the models in their circulars are all store employees and their families. Completely regular looking.
4.2:
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?page_id=9804
And nowhere near as good as Fat Chicks in Party Hats in any case.
They could have at least called it something like "Attention: Walmart Shoppers", but it still would have been in bad taste.
I remember there being a somewhat convoluted insult back in junior high implying that the target of the insult was born in a K-Mart. I can't remember how it went, but it involved the phrase "Attention K-Mart Shoppers." It might have been as simple as "You know what's the first thing you heard when you were born?"
9: I heard it as, "What are the first three words of the [insert target nationality here] national anthem?"
I hesitate to suggest it, but perhaps a nation of lazy fatasses ought to hesitate before it celebrates rotundity.
I think unless you're virtuous and hardworking enough to be underweight, you shouldn't be able to buy clothing.
12: I'm surprised that you would say that, as a liberal. Surely the state should provide simple clothing for those not lucky enough to be able to buy clothes in stores. I'm envisioning a line of plus-size Mao jackets.
13: The only thing they're getting from the government is speed. By God, when I'm in charge, thin people will have the exclusive clothing they deserve, and the overweight will have to get by naked and on speed!
I knew someday you'd go too far, AWB. I see that day is today.
11, 12: The good thing about "heavies" is that no arbitrary labels like armbands or badges are needed to identify them. I propose that "human colanders" be installed at the entrances to all cool areas.
... but what if they get fat while they're in there? Drat, there's always a flaw.
I'm pretty sure if we ramp up the shame factor, fat people will realize that there is a societal incentive to get thin. That should take care of things.
17: It's been working well so far.
(I've turned into Paul Campos.)
16: There's a Pooh story about exactly this dilemma.
Let's take away all the incentives to be unemployed, too. Those people offend me æsthetically.
Just to say the obvious, clothing is pretty symbolic, a spectacle created or chosen by the purchaser. It's an aspirational object, like pricey rims or car decals for men who like cars.
Simplifying this away works well only for people who do not think this way.
From DeBord:
But if consumable survival is something which must always increase, this is because it continues to contain privation. If there is nothing beyond increasing survival, if there is no point where it might stop growing, this is not because it is beyond privation, but because it is enriched privation.
Just on the subject of size. I watched the original Karate Kid with Rory last night and was sort of astonished by how "big" Elisabeth Shue seemed by contemporary movie/TV standards. And how scrawny Ralph Macchio looked.
"It is not enough that I succeed--others must fail."
22: I've noticed that too! I remember watching some interview with Andie MacDowell in which they embarrassed her by showing an early commercial she was in during the 80's, and she spent the rest of the interview freaking out about how fat she was then. She was rather fleshy, and it was cute! People keep talking about how models/stars get thinner and thinner over time, but it really seems to me that the 80's were an anomaly. Even before Twiggy, women had itsy bitsy waists, even if their boobs and butt were bigger, and really thin faces.
I'm looking forward to the Rule of the White Bear and all of the fat naked people on speed.
24: Even compare first season Friends to every season after.
I"m sure I told this story here before, but I once refused to believe that the woman sitting next to me in a bar was Kim Cattrall because she was sooooo tiny. On SatC she looked like she could pop S. J. Parker into her pocket or eat her for a snack. One wonders what SJP looks like in person.
Even compare first season Friends to every season after.
I definitely noticed this one. Some of them start looking very brittle.
re: 24
I'm quite interested in photography, and have a fair number of photo books. It's striking how thin a lot of the 1940s and 1950s models were. They look older than their age, because the style was marked at 'mature' women [this is before the teenager was invented, after all], but they are certainly not curvier than today's models. Of course they were closer to the average, because people really were thinner then.
I'm envisioning a line of plus-size Mao jackets.
LB and I are working on it. Patience.
19: Similarly, the pictures on the sewing patterns have not changed in the past 50 years. They've always been these elongated rubberband looking women.
I once refused to believe that the woman sitting next to me in a bar was Kim Cattrall because she was sooooo tiny.
Apparently movie makers favour little people of both sexes because it makes it easier to get the camera angles, or so I read somewhere. I think I've mentioned before that I once ran into Glenda Jackson in the street (literally) and she was shoulder high to me (I'm 5' 3"). Yet I'm sure she appeared bigger than Jenny Linden in Women in Love.
29: Yes, or all those Erté women in the 20s -- super, super thin with neither tits, ass, nor waist.
33: I blame John Held and his long, lithe flappers with their naked knees.
The women in 1920s and 30s movies, however, weren't tiny-tiny. Petite, sure, but they actually had flesh on their arms and hips.
(There's a strange commonality to 1930s women's shoulders: they're oddly small and high, as though the women never in their lives carried anything heavier than a martini. That's a trait that has just about disappeared from female physiques today; even the skinniest and smallest of women have squarer shoulders than the flappers did. For example: Dietrich in The Blue Angel or .)
That last link shoulda gone to Margaret Dumont, the awesome actress in the Marx Brothers movies.
That's so true about the shoulders. My sister can fit into my grandmother's dresses, but if she straightened her shoulders, she'd split the seams.
Kirstin Dunst has unbelievably narrow, tiny shoulders. I was preoccupied with this when rewatching Bring It On at some point. She just did not look believable as a cheerleader.
(She doesn't try to wear them, preferring to move her arms.)
It's even true for the women of the 60s compared to today's: my sisters and I all out grew the shoulders (and rib cage) of my mother's wedding dress long before we fit into the rest of it. I really believe it has to do with sports: women didn't use to be encouraged to do the kind of running and jumping and lifting sports that expand your ribcage and square your shoulders.
It can't really be sport, I'd have thought? A lot of women in the past did hard physical jobs, and started working at a young age. I'd expect it's much more likely to be nutrition, and changes in eating habits. I'd be willing to be 90% of the girls I grew up with never did any sports that did that much for upper body development, and women in the past did a fair amount of exactly the same sports -- netball, hockey, athletics, gymnastics -- as they do now.
In fact, I'd call foul on the whole 'sporting' hypotheses.
26: Far be it from me to judge anyone who likes a little caulk in the ass, but it's important to take precautions.
I'm not sure that the women in movies were the same ones who chopped the firewood. My grandmother and great-grandmother were both built like brick shithouses. As it were. I have another great-grandmother, however, who was a bit more of a lilly of the field, and she has those narrow rounded shoulders.
re: 43
I don't believe the reason there are almost no women with those tiny pre-1960s figures these days is because of sport. In the UK, at least, it's always been typical for upper-class women to be fairly sporty. Tennis, gymnastics, hockey, riding, etc.
As with anything, it's probably not a good measurement of how "people" are built in a particular era to look at how their favorite movie stars and models look. Body shapes go in and out of fashion with pretty little connection to the shifts in average "type."
Fashion is a perfectly reasonable explanation. I suspect that 41 is part of the reason, but the decisions about who gets cast in movies or TV shows is driven as much by fashion as anything else. It's not like there's a terrible shortage of attractive people with moderate-to-good acting chops. From that pool the ones selected by the gatekeepers are going to represent some compromise between fashion and suitability for the role, and if broader shoulders are in, those are the people who'll be cast.
41: I've been thinking the same thing -- what you say seems persuasive -- but I'm not sure. There's a lot of pre-second-wave feminism male-female interaction (I'm getting this from novels and movies, so I don't know how accurate this is) that's sort of predicated on the idea that women are very physically weak -- not just weaker than men, which, testosterone levels and all that, we still are, but weak enough to have trouble with fairly ordinary physical demands without help. Men carrying bags for women, opening doors, helping women down steps -- all that sort of schtick, but there seemed to be an awful lot of it, much more than the actual strength difference would come anywhere near justifying.
Possibly the amount of day to day lifting and carrying that women weren't expected to do turned into real missing muscle mass. This would only apply for middle class women, of course, but that's who wore the kind of clothes that have survived to be bought as vintage these days.
(Also, restrictive underwear? Even through the fifties, a middle class woman was likely to be wearing a heavily supportive corset/girdle type apparatus of some sort, which is going to affect how you use your body.)
re: 45
That'd sort of be my point, actually. There's a relatively standard 'model shape' that you see, right from the 1930s through to the present day. There are periods when things change a little, and always individual exceptions, but there's much less variation there than there is in the look of movie stars, or the woman in the street; which seem to vary more with fashion.
This reminds me of a talk I went to in which the speaker was attempting to describe common historical attitudes toward sex practices by looking at pornography. I was like, dude, do you watch any pornography from now? At all?
This is a cherished hypothesis you're snarking at, nattarGcM! I will say, though, that the pre-1960s physique I'm trying to describe wasn't universal. A woman could be considered beautiful and elegant, however, with shoulders that would strike us today as sort of strange.
Here's another example of how fashion can shape bodies: in the US, especially NY, women prize muscular biceps; in France, the American woman with "awesome arms" is going to be looked on as a bit of a freak. (My female friend who did a lot of yoga received a weird comment on her arms at least once a week.) It's not that no French women carry groceries or work out; the look isn't considered particularly desirable, however, and so women in general don't aim for it.
OTOH, to 49, it's possible that everyone else is having way pornier sex than I am. (shakes fist!)
Even if they are, that wouldn't prove anything about their attitudes.
51: That is highly doubtful. But it makes sense that an era's porn would bear some relation to its generalized attitudes about sex, even if the relation is not one of accurate representation.
In order to use pornographically embedded information, we must search out the sexual homomorphism.
It is also interesting that what counted as 'buff' for men* is pretty laughable by modern standards.
* with a few exceptions -- the young Connery, Burt Lancaster, etc
53: Right. In Victorian British porn, there are a lot of images of men being spanked or beaten on the ass with rods by stern, gleeful headmistresses. Yes, there were, apparently, quite a few men who actually sought out this service, to the point that it was known as the English Vice. Does it mean everyone generally accepted that a good lady-on-top thrashing was a normal part of the sex act? Of course not. Still says something about who they were as a culture.
The normalization of plastic surgery really makes me crazy. Being cut up for beauty! This is mutilation! This should be appalling!
they're oddly small and high, as though the women never in their lives carried anything heavier than a martini. That's a trait that has just about disappeared from female physiques today
I totally have this kind of shoulders. See for illustration the picture with me in it that I just added to the Unfogged Flickr pool.
55: Yeah, there was a sudden, sharp transition from male movie stars looking not all that different, muscles-wise, from a fittish man on the street, to the vast majority of male stars having bodybuilder bodies. It happened sometime in the eighties.
I think I've brought this up here before: I remember seeing a movie with Tommy Lee Jones from the early eighties where he's some sort of science-fictional car thief, and there's a scene where he's lounging shirtless in a hot tub being sexy. And by modern movie standards, he's both skinny and flabby (considered as a normal person, he looks fine) -- any time after '87 or so, an actor who looked like that wouldn't take his shirt off unless the movie was making a point about how sad he looked.
57: What's saddest to me is that they're doing all that expensive work to change their faces, and then the fashionable thing they were trying to get goes out of style. Big fat lips? Not so hot anymore, sorry! Vast expressionless brows? Eh! Giant triangular cheekbone implants? Gone before you even knew they were here. I miss seeing weird noses, too. I like them.
Being cut up for beauty! This is mutilation!
How many piercings do you have, heebie?
58: Oh, man, she's adorable. And you look great as well.
I'm edgy. That's totally different.
I don't know what movie 59 is talking about, but you should compare Tommy Lee Jones himself to his 1988 incarnation, who looked quite buff in Gotham.
I miss seeing weird noses, too. I like them.
Me too.
British TV and film isn't as homogeneous. Shit, even British models are often a bit odd looking. Weird noses still exist.
64: Googling TLJ and "car thief" reminds me that it was "Black Moon Rising". But I can't find a picture of him with his shirt off from the movie.
60: I still remember, in 7th grade, thinking a particular 8th grade boy was irresistibly attractive in part, not in spite of, a smile full of quirkily crooked teeth. I imagine he's since had braces and looks perfectly ordinary.
26, 42: Huh. I wonder how they removed the stuff. Probably some sort of wizard caulk sucker.
I keep waiting for someone to find my crooked teeth charming, but it hasn't happened yet.
57: It's not clear to me why plastic surgery is worse than piercings, tattoos, depilation, or any of the other ways in which we routinely modify our bodies. I dislike some of the trends (Botox gives you dead eyes, for example), but the general idea of chopping up your body because you want to look different seems unobjectionable to me.
I totally have this kind of shoulders.
Awesome! Let me test my theory: have you ever lifted anything heavier than a martini?
This is not a full answer to why it's objectionable, but body modification in the service of deliberately visible artificiality (piercings, tattoos) seems very different from body modification in the service of attempting to create an apparently unaltered image ("What face lift? No, I just went on vacation and got enough sleep for once.")
The cute baby looks like it weighs more than a martini!
It is entirely possible that I am just self-conscious about having broad shoulders.
The cute baby looks like it weighs more than a martini!
Not the way I pour them.
re: 77
There's a rich and elaborate historical tradition of constructing an elaborate theory around, "Why I am perfectly normal! Dammit! No, not a freak, not me! Nothing weird to see here. Move along now."
79: For some of us, of course, that sort of theorizing breaks down under its own implausibility.
Elaborate elaborate elaborate.... I should preview.
I mean, I think plastic surgery is weird (and often counter-productive, as in Meg Ryan's creepy trout mouth), but I think lots and lots of things people do in the name of fashion are weird. All that said, I still totally want a chin tuck.
This is not a full answer to why it's objectionable, but body modification in the service of deliberately visible artificiality (piercings, tattoos) seems very different from body modification in the service of attempting to create an apparently unaltered image
Okay, but the modification aspect and the artificiality aspect run on two different axes. If we don't find dyeing away grey hairs objectionable, and we don't find tattoos/piercing objectionable, then it's not clear why we should find the intersection face lifts objectionable, since that's basically just the intersection of the other two.
84: Well, what are you waiting for? Someone ought to make me laugh today.
I'm inclined to agree with Nattargrammat way up there in 41, about diet and eating habits. Living in Japan in the late 80s, I found the generational difference in body types very striking.
I'M INCLINED TO AGREE WITH THE TETRAGRAMMATON
I have demonstrated my vested interest in the Flickr Unfogged group.
But most plastic surgery is on another level of invasiveness and danger. I mean, it requires general anesthesia! And putting implants in your body strikes me as far weirder and ickier than adorning the outside of your body (or hanging things off of it, as with piercings).
Diet will make you taller and generally bigger, sure---but would it really change the proportions of bodies? I could see an argument for fatty tissues---breasts have indeed gotten larger (and naturally, you pervs)---but a specific part of the skeletal structure?
89: implants? Are you referring just to breast implants, or do you have a problem with all body-mod implants?
I could see an argument for fatty tissues---breasts have indeed gotten larger (and naturally, you pervs)
Some would say that less natural factors contibute to that.
60: I read an article, probably by S/a/nder Gi/l/man, about the first boom of rhinoplasty in this country. According to him, the bulk of that procedure's first customers were Irish folks getting rid of their perky Irish noses (think, say, Matt Damon). By the 80s, that kind of turned-up pixie nose had become the most sought look in rhinoplasty.
I was referring to all kinds of implants. Breast, chin, buttock, whatever. For lifts and tucks and such there isn't the question of putting a foreign body into your own body, but it's still at a different level of invasiveness than tattooing or piercing.
Body mod is something different, and does seem to bridge that boundary between plastic surgery and adornment a bit more. But its impulse is still toward adornment: it's going for a certain look or style, sure, but it isn't trying to achieve a sort of body ideal in the same way.
95: no, I was thinking specifically of body-mod "adornment" implants. Horns, etc. Although, your standard of evaluation was "weirder and ickier", so I guess they probably also fail.
90: Maybe not a specific part of the skeletal structure, but skeletal development as a whole. The generation raised with lots of meat and dairy in their developing years looks very different—bigger frame, broader chest and shoulders. I hasten to add that this is just my memory of my impression at the time, and I could be totally wrong.
Unrelated: Mrs. Landers has recently decided she wants a nose-piercing. I'm not sure how to react to that.
According to him, the bulk of that procedure's first customers were Irish folks getting rid of their perky Irish noses (think, say, Matt Damon).
This does not comport with my cultural self-understanding.
Unrelated: Mrs. Landers has recently decided she wants a nose-piercing. I'm not sure how to react to that.
I associate piercings of areas other than the ear and tongue as indicators of hotness, so, you know.
Your horns are okay, Brock.
Did he get them in the traditional way, I wonder.
100: Well, his wife does seem to be hot.
No discussion of women, sport and British people is complete without an allusion to Bertie Wooster's many trials at the hands of girls who played field hockey.
OT:
Hypothesis: Nerds like Joanna Newsom because they find her even less intimidating than Zooey Deschanel.
I probably do less upper-body stuff than my grandfather did at my age (he was a rock climber) but my shoulders still don't fit into his jackets...
how to react
Ask if there are other fun things she's been thinking about.
100: Because I'm a feminist I was exploring the great (new to me) portmanteau, "wittol", and came across this arresting question on Yahoo! Answers (listed as Resolved): Did Mary Make a wittol of Joseph, or was she the victim of the Angel of the lord?
I did not know that 'wittol' meant 'cuckold' -- I thought it was something like 'idiot' in the 'village idiot' sense.
It seems to have moved there from originally describing a "witting cuckold".
The problems with plastic surgery: that it is part of a general "you must look youthful and 'perfect' in order to avoid shaming, make yourself a stronger candidate for paying work, etc. That it is expensive and time-consuming and thus allows those who already have time and money to avoid shaming, get ahead in job interviews, etc. That it isn't about choice and diversity of appearance; rather, it's about conforming to a narrow and rather stupid view of what people (especially but not exclusively) women should look like.
If this were the cyberpunk-novel future, where plastic surgery was ridiculously cheap and easy and where people were always making themselves look like sharks or giving themselves weird eyes or making themselves extremely short, I would have far fewer problems with it.
(Oh, perhaps you notice that I appear in reverse! I have developed a creepy right-wing stalker based on some of my other political activities and wish to Google-proof myself a bit.)
There's a sort of vomitous elegance in "Renworf".
Chinese leg-extension surgery was the topic of my first unfogged comment. It still creeps me out to think about, but so do lip implants. Don't those hurt? And do they cause loss of sensation?
Poor Michael Jackson. And I'm not sure whether Farrah Fawcett's death being overshadowed should be considered a blessing or a curse-- blessing if there's a desire for privacy, but she seemed to like fame.
a specific part of the skeletal structure
A severe version of this would be rickets, which is a nutritional deficiency (Vitamin D and calcium) that softens the bones and leads to bowed legs.
Diet will make you taller and generally bigger,
As you say, we've gotten taller over the centuries; that is surely dependent on skeletal changes tied to nutrition, not just fatty tissue.
I'm very broad shouldered myself (to the point of not fitting in many clothes technically my size), which is also a distinct change from the earlier generations of my family although I always attribute it to my peasant roots.
109, 110: "Renworf" chosen over "Smiler"!
There's a sort of vomitous elegance in "Renworf"
My brain keeps turning it into Renfrow. Sorry to hear about the unpleasantness, Renworf.
The body modification that has always seemed to me to be the obviously subject to fleeting fashion trends is the ass implant.
On the other hand, it probably isn't much of a counter-argument to point out that flat asses were all the rage in the 1970s and will likely be so again in the future. I can totally hear the potential ass-implantee retorting: "but I'm young NOW and want to be hot NOW." And since they're already willing to have surgery, they can always have their ass implant removed and their ass reshaped for the new trend.
The body modification that has always seemed to me to be the obviously subject to fleeting fashion trends is the ass implant
Eyeliner tattoos, maybe?
but so do lip implants. Don't those hurt?
Fashion knows no pain, lw.
Maybe I should get biceps implants. They do those, right?
I'm young NOW and want to be hot NOW.
I'm young now and hot now and, having gone through adolescence kind of weird looking, would have thought "hot" would be more fun. It's not. I've been sort of purposefully working on looking more aged and dumpy.
114: Of course, Renfrow is a little easier to say, plus more euphonious. Hm. Now is the time to remake my identity! "Treacherous Smiler" is also nice, since it does allude to my right-wing stalky-buddy's beliefs about my politics. I'll have to think about this before my next post.
It's a bit of a drag (and in theory, dude could be sending poison-pen letters to my place of work) but we radical journalists refuse to be intimidated! Except for changing some of our internet personae, that is.
116.---Yeah, I hadn't even thought about the unfortunate permanent makeup trend. That stuff seems misguided from the outset.
120.---I've been there, honey! (And have I mentioned on the blog how many times I've dreamed about Monica Lewinsky the real-life person? It usually involves bringing pints of Ben-n-Jerrys over to her undisclosed location and gently upbraiding her for being silly.)
I forgot to say what I meant to say though, which is: not to miss out on wearing skimpy bikinis. I really could have rocked that string bikini I finally bought at 30 back when I was a modest 20 or 25.
Fashion knows no pain, lw.
I've heard this as a straight-faced explanation more than once. I shouldn't talk, I guess, I have tattoos myself.
120: Wonders can be done with an overly short haircut, and unfashionably schlumphy clothes.
124:
Oh please. JM is skinny with muscles. She'd rock the string bikini now.
126: I have learned from years of Hollywood movies that unflattering glasses are the key.
I am happy that JM sent me to the flickr pool bc I just saw the new baby!
Congrats, RFTS!
not to miss out on wearing skimpy bikinis
Oh, totally.
String bikinis do kind of suck for anything but lolling poolside, though -- you try to swim and they're always coming loose. I had one as a teenager who would have been hot in the absence of the giant chip on my shoulder, and found it more annoying than anything else.
They're not for swimming in, LB. Sheesh.
131: Cannot handle that shit today. Fucking hate PETA. Went into work today and was instantly regaled about some "really interesting" animal abuse case by coworker. As he got into the details, for the first time since knowing him, I just stopped him cold and said, "Stop. I do not want to hear about this. No, nothing else about it. I do not appreciate it. We are at a meeting right now. Thanks." AWKWARD TURTLE. Apparently no one has ever told him to STFU before? ???
Then we all sat around while people criticized my promotional work for a student initiative for not being "urban" enough. How to rectify this I am unsure.
They are for car washes to raise money for your group. You prance dangerously close to the road in them.
Yeah, I suppose I just never liked sunbathing. They don't make sunscreen that can keep me from burning if I'm out on the beach for too long.
Then we all sat around while people criticized my promotional work for a student initiative for not being "urban" enough. How to rectify this I am unsure.
Rendering all graphics as brick walls with the text written across them as 'graffiti'?
It was a little cartoon video. I think I should have the characters address each other with "homeboy" and "n****" and say, "By the way, I dropped a totally fresh new record of rap music over the weekend. What classes are you taking in the fall?"
138: Hmmm, maybe apo could help you with that "urban jive".
Exactly. They're for prancing and presenting yourself as a sex object. Will gets it.
They're for prancing and presenting yourself as a sex object
But once … arm in arm with your
fiancé you stood
and glared into the lens (slightly out of focus)
while that public eye scrutinised your shape,
afraid, the attitude shows, you might somehow
excite its dislike.
58: I am amused (though not terribly surprised) to see via the comments to your photos that you and Magpie and I have at least one more Internet acquaintance in common.
And 62 gets it right.
138: Hiphop soundtrack. Get ghostface killah to do a voiceover.
I think you're exaggerating the degree to which male sex object bodies have changed. Sure, the full on bulging muscle look wasn't popular, but they were definitely buff. Think a young Belmondo, or Cybulski Both were no flab with defined flat chests.
LB's TLJ example still fulfills my theory, which is that body standards in the 80's were just funny that way. Bodies were just less extremely thin/toned than at other times, and still considered sexy.
I actually don't think 80s bodies had much of a pattern, though. Elizabeth Shue did look somewhat nonscrawny in Karate Kid, but there were plenty of skinny girls as well.
I have to say, I have no memory of Elizabeth Shue looking non-thin in the Karate Kid, and the google images I'm finding seem to be backing me up. She is not big, by any measure.
(Sadly, I don't own the movie, so I can't turn this into a proper science experiment.)
I believe it was a question of a tiny amount baby fat, most of which was gone by the time she was in Cocktail and all of which was gone by the time of Leaving Las Vegas.
152: OK, but now imagine her in a string bikini. You wouldn't see that onscreen now.
Right; she's thin but not waifish.
152: By any measure? Measured against actresses cast as high school girls in more recent movie/tv shows?
To be clear, I thought she was terribly cute. Just a different body type from what we (as in Rory and I) see daily on TV now.
She also wasn't in a string bikini in Karate Kid (IIRC). I don't see much difference between, e.g., Jennifer Jason-Leigh and Phoebe Cates in Fast Times and whomever's on the screen today -- I just don't think the premise about the 1980s works.
148: Or, swoon, Paul Newman, particularly in Sweet Bird of Youth, but that's not where the linked pic is from.
Well, but there are thin but not waifish lead actresses in Hollywood today, too. And there were waifish lead actresses in the 1980s, too. That's what's confusing me--she doesn't strike me as a woman who would look out of place in a movie today. (I think I'm disagreeing with 154.)
I don't watch many movies, though, I guess.
157: Jason Leigh and Cates are easily 3 sizes bigger than any "cute, white high school chick" in teevee or movies these days. That still means they were only a 6, tops.
It was a weird change that happened quickly. Debra Messing was on a cheezy show whose name I forget. She's a tall woman and was at that time a size 10, and looked like any other attractive woman on television. By the time she was cast on Will and Grace, she was a 4. (Of course, all the sizes are wonky because basically they've bumped them all up in order to create 0 and, my fave, 00.)
00 is, they say, "talcum powder soft".
Well, and maybe it was just the juxtaposition with Ralph Macchio's scrawny little self. But it did strike me.
But he was supposed to be scrawny, right? Not action hero. The movie's premise wouldn't really have worked well if he'd been chiseled.
I basically agree with 159, though.
And Phoebe Cates was pretty dang skinny in that infamous red bikini.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is not a good example of anything, though, because she's this absurd otherworldly level of hot but nobody's quite certain why. We discussed this a few years back.
164: Sure, but when the movie came out he was totally my ideal for dreamy heartthrob. And I don't think I was alone.
But young boys are never supposed to be chiseled, even as romantic leads. They're this youthful androgynous impish thing. Same with boy bands.
Sure, but when the movie came out he was totally my ideal for dreamy heartthrob. And I don't think I was alone.
I'm pretty sure that you were alone, or close to it. And you should never, ever watch Karate Kid III, where fat Ralph Macchio shows up. Actually, that's only one of many reasons to avoid watching Karate Kid III.
My basic feeling is that the trend described in 160 was true for much of the 1990s, culminating in about 2000 when folks mysteriously thought that Gwyneth Paltrow was attractive, but is now in full speed reversal. I don't have the science to back me up, however.
The important thing is to be hot, though.
I dunno, Halford. He was in Tiger Beat and everything.
Heebie, as always, gets it right. The Ralph Macchio of Karate Kid I was and is within the Tiger Beat acceptable range of cute, skinny nonthreatening guys for 10-13 year old girls. But no one over the age of 14 today thinks that, e.g., the Jonas Brothers are hearthrobs.
Monica Lewinsky in 120 above, you should also wear short-shorts. Or, like, vintage playsuits.
