tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post7559080112934242095..comments2024-03-26T01:10:13.720+00:00Comments on Teach Me Tonight: Hometown Cinderella and the Beauty MythE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-76992249452713811662008-10-26T11:45:00.000+00:002008-10-26T11:45:00.000+00:00Thanks, Eva. I'll definitely bear that in mind nex...Thanks, Eva. I'll definitely bear that in mind next time I see any of those covers.<BR/><BR/>It seems so wrong that on the one hand there are well-publicised health concerns about obesity, but on the other, the body ideals we're being presented with by the media are so often unattainable and/or harmful to health for most people. The end result seems to be to make a lot of people spend time worrying about/feeling dissatisfied with their bodies.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-42597234397353860562008-10-22T20:08:00.000+01:002008-10-22T20:08:00.000+01:00"Is that small relative to their vast body-size, o..."Is that small relative to their vast body-size, or small compared to those of other men?"<BR/><BR/>Small in comparison to other men, and men who bodybuild naturally. Men who build naturally will get big muscles (some moreso if they have the genetic predisposition toward it) but never THAT big. Basically it's body manipulaion just as much as plastic surgury. I'm not going to say that healthful people are doing such, but those extremes on magazine covers absolutely.Eva Galehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08834856467514439544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-79369737763922440792008-10-21T02:25:00.000+01:002008-10-21T02:25:00.000+01:00Laura, what are you--some sort of professional Ana...Laura, what are you--some sort of professional Anatædean Advocate?<BR/><BR/>Show me the home where the ducks and elephants roam, and I'll show you a messy apartment!talpiannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13978075304795724185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-30163193906768909872008-10-20T09:33:00.000+01:002008-10-20T09:33:00.000+01:00Tal, I think you must be confused. It's ducks tha...Tal, I think you must be confused. It's ducks that can't read but can catch spiders, and elephants that love audio-books and are very useful for doing the heavy lifting.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-50707543031439504132008-10-20T06:05:00.000+01:002008-10-20T06:05:00.000+01:00Who expects men to READ? We just keep them around...Who expects men to <B>READ?</B> We just keep them around to do the heavy lifting and kill spiders in the bath.talpiannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13978075304795724185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-54690187775560423942008-10-19T10:01:00.000+01:002008-10-19T10:01:00.000+01:00Talpianna, the Hamlet looks like fun. The Stephen...Talpianna, the Hamlet looks like fun. The <A HREF="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20225323_2,00.html" REL="nofollow">Stephen King article</A>, however, is dumb to a degree that I at first thought had to be deliberate, except that his logic is so startlingly crummy.<BR/><BR/>He makes one good point, and quite appropriate to this comment thread:<BR/><BR/>"<I>while it's true that manfiction can be guilty of objectifying women, chick lit often does the same thing to men. Reading Sandra Brown or Jodi Picoult, I'm sometimes reminded of an old Julie Brown song, 'I Like 'Em Big and Stupid.'</I>"<BR/><BR/>Fair enough.<BR/><BR/>However, this? Is a false premise based on sheer dumbitude:<BR/><BR/>"<I>Women like stories in which a gal meets a handsome (and possibly dangerous) hunk on a tropic isle; men like to imagine going to war against an army of bad guys with a Beretta, a blowtorch, and a submachine gun (grenades hung on the belt optional).</I>"<BR/><BR/>Thanks, Mr King, for limiting our horizons so very tidily. I'll set down a very interesting Michael Chabon novel and get back to reading a Heather Graham--set on a "tropic isle"--that as far as I can see has no purpose for existence except as a sleep aid.<BR/><BR/>And another false premise:<BR/><BR/>"<I>reports of the male reader's death have been greatly exaggerated. Women have chick lit; guys have... 'manfiction.' And publishers sell it by the ton.</I>"<BR/><BR/>Yes, they do indeed sell your "manfiction" by the ton... not because there are unsuspected numbers of male readers, but because women read it too.<BR/><BR/>King seems to start from the idea that male authors selling books means there are lots of male readers. However, studies have shown that not enough men read books to account for those sales figures; and furthermore that women will read almost anything. The male authors' best-sellers wouldn't be best-sellers without a female audience.<BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, there's also evidence that men don't cross the aisle as women do. When *women* authors sell books it's primarily because of women readers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-43960297742086925742008-10-19T07:15:00.000+01:002008-10-19T07:15:00.000+01:00Laura, at least people don't eat swans any more, a...Laura, at least people don't eat swans any more, as they did in the days of <B>Carmina Burana:</B><BR/><BR/>http://tinyurl.com/5bamqe<BR/><BR/>I think the "intellectual fraternity" referred to must be Mensa. I once attended a Mensa meeting, as a guest, in Berkeley; I'd say the description above wasn't that far off, except that it omits the paranoia.<BR/><BR/>JAK's TOO WILD TO WED has an academic setting; the heroine is a college librarian. It mostly takes place at a rather weird version of a Society for Creative Anachronism festival, at which a large number of the participants are academics.<BR/><BR/>rfp, you should take a look at THE ELSINORE APPEAL, a retrial of Hamlet put on by the New York Bar Association, with judges and English professors presiding.<BR/><BR/>And you might like to take a look at this, where Stephen King compares chick lit to "manfiction":<BR/><BR/>http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20225323,00.htmltalpiannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13978075304795724185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-52414769544859404582008-10-19T00:24:00.000+01:002008-10-19T00:24:00.000+01:00And I think the norms are more constraining in bot...<I>And I think the norms are more constraining in both life and romance novels for women. I can think of a lot of romance heroes who are disabled, perhaps with a mobility disorder or PTSD [...] but I can recall very few heroines who deviate at all from a pretty narrow definition of beauty</I><BR/><BR/>I think you're right. Women are more constrained in terms of how they can look and still be deemed attractive. Women are also more constrained in how they can act and still be considered heroine-material. Not that I'd necessarily want heroines to start acting like some of the more obnoxious romance-heroes, of course, but the inequality's there too. Appearance and life-history are often interconnected, I think, because one can "read" the hero's experience in his scars etc, for example.<BR/><BR/><I>a girl should never accept a date with a man who hadn't already seen her after she'd spent the day helping her father clean out the garage.</I><BR/><BR/>In my case it was having spent a few Sundays digging coastal paths, planting grass by the sea-shore to prevent erosion and picking up litter on the local beach, but I think the principle must be the same ;-)<BR/><BR/><I>Laura, you are right about the negatives that "Ugly Duckling" suggests about the duck community: but isn't it merited? Don't they mock the UD for being different and call it ugly?</I><BR/><BR/>You make some good points, but at the same time, two wrongs don't make a right and it would be dangerous to stoke the fires of anti-duck prejudice. As you say, "to most observers swans are much more beautiful than ducks anyway" and in the UK swans <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_upping" REL="nofollow">have special legal status</A> which ducks don't, so in general ducks suffer a lot of discrimination relative to swans.<BR/><BR/><I>It's not only a male beauty/behavior standard, though; I think there's an element of culture war there. I've seen "intellectuals" dissed even when they're not part of a love triangle.</I><BR/><BR/>I think you may well be right, sadly.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-52001023822139601712008-10-18T18:00:00.000+01:002008-10-18T18:00:00.000+01:00"[Krentz has] written some novels in which there a..."<I>[Krentz has] written some novels in which there are some rather effete academics who dress in white and like obscure poetry whose meaning they meditate on at length. ... the heroines didn't really fit in with them, so at least one of them had to find "primitive" man whose psychic powers were more to do with hunting than restrained intellectualism. ... it didn't seem particularly flattering to intellectuals.</I>"<BR/><BR/>I've seen that theme quite a few times: the intellectual, ineffectual, weedy, or academic fiancé she abandons for her "real" love. I think it functions rather like the historical-romance convention of the impotent first husband. In both cases, one of the subtexts is sometimes "real love with a real man". The "other" man doesn't fit the male beauty standard or the manly behavior standard.<BR/><BR/>It's not only a male beauty/behavior standard, though; I think there's an element of culture war there. I've seen "intellectuals" dissed even when they're not part of a love triangle. Gwynne Forster's <I>After The Loving</I>, which I read as a strongly didactic work, has a strange interlude in which the heroine caters a party for what's described several times as (don't have the book, but this is close) a fraternity for intellectuals. (But not a "Greek" university fraternity! That's carefully specified.) Drunkenness and pot smoking ensue (which is odd, as a Greek frat seems more that type than a group of middle-aged intellectuals), and both hero/ine are horrified at the behavior of these intellectuals (same description repeated). In the context of an aspirational, message-laden book, the "intellectuals" read to me like a social placeholder against which to assert the hero/ine's shared values.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, Kelley Armstrong's <I>Bitten</I> (urban fantasy romance) shows Elena choosing between Mr Weedy and Mr Wolf--but Mr Wolf is an academic. The wolf turns out to be closer to Elena's true nature, but that's not necessarily portrayed as a good thing: both Elena and her wolf-lover are troubled misfits. That combination of themes struck me as unusual.<BR/><BR/>"<I>isn't it merited? Don't [the duck community] mock the UD for being different and call it ugly?</I>"<BR/><BR/>Once in high school I had to conduct a mock trial of Hansel and Gretel as vandals, housebreakers, con artists, and ultimately murderers who pushed a helpless old woman into her own oven. Then there's Goldilocks, a chilling story of home invasion. Red Riding Hood, the original girl who cried Wolf and got a man in trouble for trying to help out. And oh, so many more.<BR/><BR/>"<I>As a practical matter, I'll pass along the recommendation of my grandmother (born 1871-died 1963) who said that a girl should never accept a date with a man who hadn't already seen her after she'd spent the day helping her father clean out the garage.</I>"<BR/><BR/>Thank you, Virginia. Though it strikes me that my father will be the primary beneficiary....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-59893051468215491952008-10-18T07:32:00.000+01:002008-10-18T07:32:00.000+01:00Just thought I'd mention a scene that I can't forg...Just thought I'd mention a scene that I can't forget and which makes me cringe every time I think of it. In the TV-film version of Larry McMurtry's BUFFALO GIRLS, Calamity Jane (Anjelica Huston),who has a longstanding unrequited crush on Wild Bill Hickok, is persuaded by her friend Dora the madam to get gussied up like a real girl instead of her usual buffalo-hunter gear, so he'll look at her differently. He takes one look at her and roars with laughter.<BR/><BR/>Later that evening they wind up in the hay, but I still don't understand why she didn't shoot him. I would have.talpiannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13978075304795724185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-70959772031369793592008-10-18T02:53:00.000+01:002008-10-18T02:53:00.000+01:00Laura, you are right about the negatives that "Ugl...Laura, you are right about the negatives that "Ugly Duckling" suggests about the duck community: but isn't it merited? Don't they mock the UD for being different and call it ugly? I think there's a reason Anderson made the story about ducks and swans, as to most observers swans are much more beautiful than ducks anyway. I wonder what the story would be like if the ducks had been kind and supportive to the cygnet in their midst? Maybe that's worth trying.<BR/><BR/>As it happens, I just reread SWEET STARFIRE. The point is explicitly made that the Harmonics couldn't survive without the Wolves. The Harmonics' city even has Wolf gate guards. The hero points out that the Harmonics are a cultural luxury, and the Wolves value and support them because they represent the mostly unattainable best of human qualities. In fact, the previous inhabitants, the "Ghosts," died out because the whole society evolved into the equivalent of the Harmonics. There's a very dystopian version of the same theme in John D. MacDonald's WINE OF THE DREAMERS.<BR/><BR/>The same thing applies to the similar group in Castle's St. Helens series. In both cases, the "swans," if we can truly call them that, are supported by the general, more Darwinian culture; in return, they provide the idealism that the human race needs, as well as discoveries and inventions that advance progress.<BR/><BR/>I admit that my interpretation of the Ugly Duckling story is not the norm; but I think it works.<BR/><BR/>WV: qluadouc--Inuit for "ugly duckling"talpiannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13978075304795724185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-68761010585693345782008-10-18T01:29:00.000+01:002008-10-18T01:29:00.000+01:00As a practical matter, I'll pass along the recomme...As a practical matter, I'll pass along the recommendation of my grandmother (born 1871-died 1963) who said that a girl should never accept a date with a man who hadn't already seen her after she'd spent the day helping her father clean out the garage.<BR/><BR/>Feel free to spread that wisdom among the young women of your acquaintance :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-75766703449581758972008-10-17T17:31:00.000+01:002008-10-17T17:31:00.000+01:00I think if anyone is wondering about whether roman...I think if anyone is wondering about whether romance novels uphold dominant beauty norms they just have to look at the covers. And reading the books wouldn't change their minds.<BR/><BR/>How many romances have you read about a woman who was not at least pretty? Sure, we are seeing more of those, but it's more likely the heroine feels unattractive, when the reader is cued to her attractiveness through a male character's eyes (and it's usually not that the hero alone finds her attractive: usually others have to as well, often for him to notice her in the first place).<BR/><BR/>But even if we had lots and lots of romances featuring unattractive heroines, the problem wouldn't be solved (whatever that problem is, and there are several different ways to look at it: it's unrepresentative, it's demeaning, it's oppressive, it's boring and unimaginative, whatever). <BR/><BR/>As Laura mentions, beauty myths are shot through with all kinds of intersecting norms. To be beautiful isn't just to be white Anglo, it's also to be young, healthy, and able bodied to name just a few. <BR/><BR/>And I think the norms are more constraining in both life and romance novels for women. I can think of a lot of romance heroes who are disabled, perhaps with a mobility disorder or PTSD, from war, scarred from whips or beatings, and/or not conventionally attractive or handsome (his nose is too long, his jaw is too stern, etc.), and their ages range wider than heroines', but I can recall very few heroines who deviate at all from a pretty narrow definition of beauty.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-81747917656212670732008-10-17T16:30:00.000+01:002008-10-17T16:30:00.000+01:00I think in some ways I was lucky that so few men f...<I>I think in some ways I was lucky that so few men found me attractive. But if someone had found me attractive, and I hadn't initially found him attractive (but didn't find him repulsive or scary or boring), I'd probably have given him a chance, because my experience is that my perception of a man's attractiveness can change as I get to know him better and like him more. Conversely, someone I might initially have found attractive can seem really repulsive to me if I come to dislike their personality.</I><BR/><BR/>I myself am not a big dater and most of my comments were based on observation of those around me rather than personal experience. Certainly, there is a portion of the male population that does not feel this way; however, I firmly believe that no matter how much low self-esteem a man may acquire due to magazines and television shows that depict idealized standards of beauty they will never experience the added problem of having their bodies considered communal property regardless of whether or not they are beautiful. I just think that it is more acute for beautiful women than for women who do not fit that mold as much. So I certainly agree with Baumeister and Voh's about the marketplace.<BR/><BR/><I>they are entitled to call them names and cheat on them with any pole dancer who will have them.</I> That's what gets me: the sense of entitlement that if not an overt aspect of male character is often a dark presence in the psyche. Even some of the best men I know are often blind to the double standards about body and beauty. <BR/><BR/>I'm not even comfortable using the term "beautiful" because I feel it is as arbitrary and nebulous as the word "nice" but I suppose that is the point of the post. In any case, I have long held that the standard of beauty is not so much about being beautiful as say art or architecture or nature but about being as homogeneously attractive as possible. I realized this whilst watching "Beauty and the Geek" when I say the beauties first thing in the morning without their make-up. They weren't particularly beautiful without MAC.Angelahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10036078211777850499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-67718763664797703142008-10-17T10:45:00.000+01:002008-10-17T10:45:00.000+01:00Angela--Amen, Sister! One of my occasional guilty...Angela--Amen, Sister! One of my occasional guilty pleasures is DR. PHIL, where lardassed slobs often complain that their wives have gained 30 lbs. since their wedding day (and borne them three children, but that doesn't count) so they are entitled to call them names and cheat on them with any pole dancer who will have them.talpiannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13978075304795724185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-69844148813144080702008-10-17T10:39:00.000+01:002008-10-17T10:39:00.000+01:00To me the point of the Ugly Duckling story is that...<I>To me the point of the Ugly Duckling story is that the cygnet found her true place with those like her, rather than trying to meet the standards of the wrong group.</I><BR/><BR/>I wonder if this interpretation of the story is hampered by many people's fixation on the fact that the duckling is the "Ugly" duckling, and they don't get beyond that. Another problem might be that this interpretation could promote dislike of the group of people who are identified with the ducks. In the examples you give, the ducks have musical talent and artistic talent. I wonder if some readers might decide that those people/ducks are elitist? Obviously if the story was about <BR/><BR/><I>someone who was always an outsider in high school because of having intellectual or sophisticated interests going off to college and finding like-minded friends</I><BR/><BR/>then it would go in the opposite direction, defending the group with intellectual/sophisticated interests.<BR/><BR/>Since you mentioned Krentz, that reminded me that she's written some novels in which there are some rather effete academics who dress in white and like obscure poetry whose meaning they meditate on at length. I can't remember the titles or which name she wrote those books under. The point seemed to be that the heroines didn't really fit in with them, so at least one of them had to find "primitive" man whose psychic powers were more to do with hunting than restrained intellectualism. I suppose it could be thought of as an Ugly Duckling theme as you describe it, but it didn't seem particularly flattering to intellectuals. The same dynamic's at work in <I>Sweet Starfire</I>, in which the heroine is descended from intellectual parents. In her world the intellectuals are so emotionally affected by the sight of violence that it can kill them. The heroine, however, is not an intellectual and pacifist, and therefore leaves their enclosed city.<BR/><BR/>I know Krentz has got an academic who's a hero in <I>Absolutely Positively</I>, but he's a bit of a duckling himself, since he's a mixture and again has the hyper-fast reflexes of a hunter.<BR/><BR/><I>Remember how in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Darcy at first thinks Elizabeth has nothing going for her but "a pair of fine eyes," </I><BR/><BR/>Yes, I was thinking of looking at that in a bit more detail in my next post, because I think the way opinions about the heroine's beauty fit into the development of the central relationship is interesting.<BR/><BR/><I>I admit I am a terrible human being because when people tell me that men now suffer from bad body image and low self-esteem since they have failed to achieve the male standard of beauty, I laugh with malicious glee.</I><BR/><BR/>The Wikipedia <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude" REL="nofollow">entry on schadenfreude</A> says that<BR/><BR/><I><A HREF="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3D6153CF937A1575BC0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1" REL="nofollow">A New York Times article in 2002</A> cited a number of scientific studies of schadenfreude, which it defined as "delighting in others' misfortune." Many such studies are based on social comparison theory, the idea that when people around us have bad luck, we look better to ourselves. Other researchers have found that people with low self-esteem are more likely to feel schadenfreude than are people who have high self-esteem.</I><BR/><BR/>It seems to me that women as a group have been made to feel low self-esteem about our looks, or at least to feel constant anxiety about it, and men are set up as the target and judges of female beauty. When the tables are turned, it would make sense according to these scientific findings, that some women would feel glee/schadenfreude.<BR/><BR/><I>they are simultaneously encouraged to settle for men they are not sexually attracted merely because that man happens to fancy them. "Oh but he really likes you and he's nice. You should give him a chance." Have any of us not heard that at least once?</I><BR/><BR/>I haven't, perhaps because there were almost no men wanting a chance to go out with me. Also, I got married quite young, which took me out of the dating-game altogether. So perhaps my circumstances meant that I never experienced this particular pressure. And it may also explain why I've not had this experience either:<BR/><BR/><I>in my experience there is a large portion of the male population who is under the mis-guided notion that they are entitled to date/have sex with/marry beautiful women regardless of whether or not they themselves possess any particular qualities that any woman would find attractive.</I><BR/><BR/>I think in some ways I was lucky that so few men found me attractive. But if someone had found me attractive, and I hadn't initially found him attractive (but didn't find him repulsive or scary or boring), I'd probably have given him a chance, because my experience is that my perception of a man's attractiveness can change as I get to know him better and like him more. Conversely, someone I might initially have found attractive can seem really repulsive to me if I come to dislike their personality.<BR/><BR/>As I mentioned, though, I wasn't in the dating-pool for long, so I'm drawing those conclusions mostly from how I've felt about actors in films. My opinion of their attractiveness depends in large part on the personality of the characters they were playing.<BR/><BR/><I>where women feel desire, where women feel attraction is less important than her ability to cause those same feelings in men</I><BR/><BR/>I think that might relate to the economics of sex. I'm thinking in particular of Baumeister and Vohs's paper which I discussed (quite a long way through) <A HREF="http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2007/12/rakes-progress.html" REL="nofollow">this post</A>. Here's a short extract from the abstract for their article:<BR/><BR/><I>A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex.</I>Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-2341394489436889982008-10-17T04:46:00.000+01:002008-10-17T04:46:00.000+01:00I admit I am a terrible human being because when p...I admit I am a terrible human being because when people tell me that men now suffer from bad body image and low self-esteem since they have failed to achieve the male standard of beauty, I laugh with malicious glee. I find it refreshing, quite frankly, because in my experience there is a large portion of the male population who is under the mis-guided notion that they are entitled to date/have sex with/marry beautiful women regardless of whether or not they themselves possess any particular qualities that any woman would find attractive. <BR/><BR/>Not only are woman pushed to achieve an ideal standard of beauty that is beyond reach (like some sort of Sisyphian punishment)but they are simultaneously encouraged to settle for men they are not sexually attracted merely because that man happens to fancy them. "Oh but he really likes you and he's nice. You should give him a chance." Have any of us not heard that at least once? Implied in that is you should just settle for what you can get because clearly you are not getting any younger or thinner and oh, yeah, he's nice, the most nebulous of attributes. <BR/><BR/>For me one of the most infuriating bits of the beauty myth is that not only are women are held to ridiculous ideals or that beauty is purported to be only way to get romantic love, but that where women feel desire, where women feel attraction is less important than her ability to cause those same feelings in men. It's like a reverse Pygmalion project in which a woman is only an object of art upon which a man can project his fantasies on rather than a fantasy that becomes human.Angelahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10036078211777850499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-56030597856949452502008-10-17T03:56:00.000+01:002008-10-17T03:56:00.000+01:00The detailed descriptions of dressing up remind me...The detailed descriptions of dressing up remind me of a really lovely example--the dance number in SILK STOCKINGS where Ninotchka (Cyd Charisse) sheds her Soviet uniform for silk stockings, lacy undies, and a glamorous evening gown. <BR/><BR/>Also the "I Enjoy Being a Girl" number from FLOWER DRUM SONG.<BR/><BR/>To me the point of the Ugly Duckling story is that the cygnet found her true place with those like her, rather than trying to meet the standards of the wrong group. It's like someone who was always an outsider in high school because of having intellectual or sophisticated interests going off to college and finding like-minded friends. The hero of Dick Francis's NERVE comes from a family of musical geniuses. He can't even carry a tune--but he becomes a very successful jump jockey. One of JAK's heroines (I think it's in SILVER LININGS) comes from a family of artistic geniuses but has no artistic talent--but she runs a very successful art gallery which, much to her relatives' dismay, sells not their kind of "high art" but more popular representational stuff by talented realist painters.<BR/><BR/>I remember one perfectly ghastly Regency in which the whole focus of the story seemed to be on the heroine's breasts: they were too large to be fashionable and she was deeply ashamed of them. Needless to say, the hero didn't mind a bit!<BR/><BR/>The overbuilt heroes like the one described in the blog do indeed sound off-putting to me. I like the heroes of JAK and Nora Roberts, who tend to be lean and lanky but very fit and well coordinated.<BR/><BR/>There's also the fact that steroid use tends not just to reduce genital size but also to induce "'roid rage," which makes the user a danger to anyone close to him because he has a hair-trigger temper and is very violent.<BR/><BR/>In most of the books I read (chiefly romantic suspense) the heroines are neither ugly ducklings nor glamor goddesses; they tend to be subtly attractive in a way that is only noticeable at second or third glance, so that the hero who sees that beauty is demonstrating more perception than the average man. Remember how in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Darcy at first thinks Elizabeth has nothing going for her but "a pair of fine eyes," but later in the book says something to the effect that it has been quite a while since he's seen her as anything but the loveliest woman of his acquaintance.talpiannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13978075304795724185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-69149980666663056772008-10-16T23:36:00.000+01:002008-10-16T23:36:00.000+01:00There are an awful lot of ways a Duckling story ca...<I>There are an awful lot of ways a Duckling story can give not-entirely-positive messages.</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, I tend to have reservations about the Ugly Duckling motif too. It can work, but sometimes the novels that contain it end up sending the message that any woman with access to a skilled makeover team (which generally costs time and money) can look attractive. I'm thinking of the heroine who buys/ has bought for her a whole new wardrobe full of clothes, is given tips on how to style her hair etc. And suddenly she's beautiful.<BR/><BR/>Actually, thinking about what you said about magazines, it strikes me that this is something you can see there too, with the "before and after" makeover features. On the one hand it's presented as positive because it says "everyone can be beautiful" but on the other there's the unspoken addition of "but only if she spends lots of money and time trying." In addition, if one believes that everyone can look beautiful in the approved style, then the implication is that women who don't look beautiful in the approved style are lazy/letting themselves go/not trying hard enough.<BR/><BR/><I>You know, the funniest part about men who take steroids-or are described like they have the physique of a huge bodybuilder-in actuality they have very small penis'. So, there you go. :-)</I><BR/><BR/>Is that small relative to their vast body-size, or small compared to those of other men? If it's the latter, I wonder if informing men about that might be one way of discouraging them from aspiring to this kind of body-shape? I know that one of the new anti-smoking photos in the UK will be featuring that kind of message: it highlights the fact that smoking can cause impotence. [Details <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7635929.stm" REL="nofollow">here</A> and photos (including some rather gruesome ones) <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6968580.stm" REL="nofollow">here</A>. The impotence one is number 6.]<BR/><BR/><I>It also takes three to four months of an exremely strict diet and six day a week weight training to drop down to skin over muscle. You -anyone-could not possibly live like that on a daily basis.</I><BR/><BR/>Thanks, that fleshes out (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) what Dr Morgan was saying about "it's not a naturally obtainable figure."<BR/><BR/><I>Ironically enough, however, I love when heroines are described as voluptuous or burlesque - at least for me I get a sense of a woman whose beauty is in curves and not thin-ness.</I><BR/><BR/>I think that's understandable. I mean, if you're used to a constant bombardment of images and descriptions which present an unattainable ideal, it makes a nice change to be told that your body shape is, in fact, already beautiful. Obviously if all novels started implying that only curvy women were beautiful that just be applying a different, but equally oppressive, beauty standard. In the current context, though, these depictions are a challenge to the norm and help to present a more diverse picture of what constitutes beauty.<BR/><BR/><I>I can't think of any examples of books like that off the top of my head, but I'll have to go look and come back.</I><BR/><BR/>I'm planning to post some excerpts next week from romances which I feel challenge the beauty myth in interesting ways, so if you find some examples you particularly like, I hope you'll come back and add them to that thread.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-52722391456302156962008-10-16T19:22:00.000+01:002008-10-16T19:22:00.000+01:00That description really doesn't sound pleasurable ...That description really doesn't sound pleasurable at all.<BR/><BR/>As someone who has struggled with weight all her life, I quickly loose tolerance for novels that emphasize too much on body image. I struggle enough with that on my own, I want to escape from it when I'm reading.<BR/><BR/>Ironically enough, however, I love when heroines are described as voluptuous or burlesque - at least for me I get a sense of a woman whose beauty is in curves and not thin-ness. I don't want the women struggling over their weight per se, but if they are described as being less-than-thin, and if the hero sees the beauty in that, it can be a quality of writing that I appreciate.<BR/><BR/>I can't think of any examples of books like that off the top of my head, but I'll have to go look and come back.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00539286824195140523noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-55174375378806278012008-10-16T14:57:00.000+01:002008-10-16T14:57:00.000+01:00You know, the funniest part about men who take ste...You know, the funniest part about men who take steroids-or are described like they have the physique of a huge bodybuilder-in actuality they have very small penis'. So, there you go. :-) <BR/><BR/>My family has been in the sports suppliment business for years and regularly go to bodybuilding shows like the Arnold. The bigger the man, the smaller the package. It also takes three to four months of an exremely strict diet and six day a week weight training to drop down to skin over muscle. You -anyone-could not possibly live like that on a daily basis. It's completely unrealistic. You'd have an easier time walking around with scuba gear and flippers on the streets of NY. And when they do get that big-they lose flexiblity-which is why you see them do splits and stuff. (ballet muscles are long and sinuous as oppsed to weight lifing muscles)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-54149622019180975052008-10-16T14:51:00.000+01:002008-10-16T14:51:00.000+01:00"rfp, maybe there's some influence there from the ..."<I>rfp, maybe there's some influence there from the "sex-and-shopping" novels that are popular beach reads.</I>"<BR/><BR/>I bet there is.<BR/>BTW, the latest PD James starts out like a warped version of Goldsmith's story: an investigative journalist goes for cosmetic surgery and is murdered.<BR/><BR/>"<I>'ouch' -- at the thought of having the heroine's breasts kneaded</I>"<BR/><BR/>It does sound like having them palpated rather than caressed.<BR/><BR/>"<I>even when people say that something "doesn't suit" someone else, there may perhaps be some ideal that they're being compared to</I>"<BR/><BR/>Yes, and whether that ideal is addressed can make a substantial difference in how I read an Ugly Duckling story. Does the duckling feel better because she looks better? (I don't discount the power of that) or because she's grown more comfortable in her own skin? or because she turns out to be someone else, be a fish out of water, so she should be judged by a different ideal? (E.g. the CL Wilson series.) Or does she have some special talent that "makes up for" her unattractiveness? There are an awful lot of ways a Duckling story can give not-entirely-positive messages.<BR/><BR/>"<I>Pade's novel isn't in the Modern/Presents line though. ... The hero and heroine aren't celebrities, so here the level of detail given about the heroine's appearance seems to say something about the extent to which the beauty myth affects (almost) all women in our society, not just celebrities.</I>"<BR/><BR/>It certainly says that. At the same time, I don't think celebrity is required to evoke that women's magazineish sense of being larger than life yet still accessible or emulatable. (Like the cover stories about not-so-ordinary non-celebs: "She lost 118 pounds! Find out how.") Anyway, I won't belabor the point. I think you said it well here:<BR/><BR/>"<I>I wonder if attention to the heroine's looks and beauty routine might be included... because cosmetics and beauty tips etc are such an important element of the magazines' content and also because the beauty myth is such a pervasive aspect of our culture.</I>"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-13291135305384963402008-10-16T12:34:00.000+01:002008-10-16T12:34:00.000+01:00Virginia, the whole description sounded painful to...Virginia, the whole description sounded painful to me. I can't remember a breast every being subjected to so many verbs in quick succession. I felt bruised by the end of the two sentences, despite the fact that the author describes the hero as being "careful":<BR/><BR/><I>He closed around her straining flesh, working it like a fragile mound of clay, kneading, lifting, pressing into it. Then he located that tightly knotted crest with his fingertips, tugging, tweaking, pinching, rolling it with careful tenderness and heightening her pleasure with each touch, each tease, each delicious torment</I> (162-63).<BR/><BR/>Having a knotted nipple sounds excruciatingly painful. Later on they're described as the "diamond-hard crests of her breasts" (195) and then they get knotted again: "tightening those ruddy buds to almost painful knots" (196).<BR/><BR/>I think the author must have been thinking of the word "knot" as<BR/><BR/><I><B>3</B> a protuberance in a stem, branch, or root. <B>4</B> a hard mass in wood at the intersection of a trunk with a branch. <B>5</B> a hard lump of bodily tissue.</I> (<A HREF="http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/knot_1?view=uk" REL="nofollow">Oxford Dictionary</A>)<BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, I imagined it as <BR/><BR/><I><B>1</B> a fastening made by looping a piece of string, rope, etc. on itself and tightening it. <B>2</B> a tangled mass in hair, wool, etc.</I><BR/><BR/>And there was more:<BR/><BR/><I>His hands were on her breasts, their grip one of leashed power that pulled and pushed and worked her flesh even as his fingers gently twisted her nipples into coins of pleasure.</I> (198)Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-37814230359907528092008-10-16T12:11:00.000+01:002008-10-16T12:11:00.000+01:00Does anyone else just go "ew" -- or, even better, ...Does anyone else just go "ew" -- or, even better, "ouch" -- at the thought of having the heroine's breasts kneaded. I've kneaded plenty of yeast doughs, and it just does not appeal at all. Who would want to make love with the male equivalent of a mammogram machine? Even manual breast exams don't put the amount of pressure on that would be required for "kneading."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-48590801744177578822008-10-16T10:17:00.000+01:002008-10-16T10:17:00.000+01:00Thanks for the link about Goldsmith, Tal. It sound...Thanks for <A HREF="http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9852/" REL="nofollow">the link</A> about Goldsmith, Tal. It sounds as though she, like Crusie, tackled these issues in her writing and was aware of how problematic the focus on female "beauty" is, but yet she was still deeply affected by those attitudes. I suspect that could be because of what Wolf describes as ""beauty" liv[ing] so deep in the psyche." Even if a person can understand the many problems with the beauty myth on an intellectual level, it can still affect them emotionally.<BR/><BR/><I>Back on your point, it sounds as though this Ugly Duckling's appearance is described in absolutes: as if glasses and kinky curls were unattractive in themselves, rather than simply not suiting her.</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, that's how I felt about the description. My impression was that the assessment of red, kinky hair looking like a clown's, for example, wasn't challenged. The hair was described in absolute terms as something lacking in beauty and the problem was solved by a change in hair colour and the use of hair straightener.<BR/><BR/>That said, even when people say that something "doesn't suit" someone else, there may perhaps be some ideal that they're being compared to, or to which it's thought they could better approximate were they to do things which would "suit" them.<BR/><BR/><I>That tight focus, taking the heroine's inner monologue and setting it on the page in all its minutiae--clothing, makeup, and reassuring self-talk--sounds very category romance to me.</I><BR/><BR/>I've been re-reading Rachel Anderson's book about romantic fiction (so taking in books which wouldn't be considered "romance" according to the RWA definition), and it seems as though what you're describing has been a feature of the romance genre (and related genres) for a long time:<BR/><BR/><I>In some romantic fiction of the 1950s and 1960s the account of the heroine’s outward appearance is developed to such an extent that one is given a peepshow of her entire toilette, rather in the nature of a Louis XIV </I>levée<I>, including a description of her bath, the putting on of her underclothes as well as her outer ones, the application of her make-up, and the combing out of her hair. But some indication, however slight, of the heroine’s physical attributes has always been an important part of the romantic novel</I> (85)<BR/><BR/>I agree that the Presents/Modern line is intended to include glamorous settings and rich people, so I suppose it's almost inevitable that some of the novels will include the sort of lifestyles, and the attention to fashion and beauty, that are to be found in the magazines which describe real-life celebrities. In other words, I wonder if attention to the heroine's looks and beauty routine might be included not because of a deliberate policy to do so, but because cosmetics and beauty tips etc are such an important element of the magazines' content and also because the beauty myth is such a pervasive aspect of our culture.<BR/><BR/>Pade's novel isn't in the Modern/Presents line though. It was published in the Mills & Boon Special Edition line in the UK and in Silhouette Special Edition in the US. The hero and heroine aren't celebrities, so here the level of detail given about the heroine's appearance seems to say something about the extent to which the beauty myth affects (almost) all women in our society, not just celebrities.<BR/><BR/>As for hand-washing, it's certainly important for health reasons, but I'd rather not think about it too much because, as with the beauty myth, one can get a bit too obsessive about it. If I thought about all the bacteria which lurk on everything I might touch when I leave the house, it would be very distracting and unpleasant. :-(<BR/><BR/>---<BR/><BR/>Anderson, Rachel. <I>The Purple Heart Throbs: The Sub-literature of Love</I>. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com