For big lipped males, is the archetype not Mick Jagger - who is pretty
masculine in my eyes, albeit a bit effeminate and an associate of
known occultists?
Noticed that Ellen Barkin gets a mildly surprising 'comeback' role in
Ocean's 13 - on account of her big lips?
In my original response to Henry's call, I mentioned the small mouths
of manga girls. Flippant as this may sound, perhaps the "eat you
alive" Julia Roberts thing can be linked to what Amy Taubin sees as
the jointly phallic and vaginal labia dentata of the alien in Ridley
Scott's Alien and subsequent sequels...? Julia Roberts AS alien -
other, threatening, but also alluring and wanted by "the Company"?
i.e. big-gobbed actresses as an indication of the continued
(patrarichal) sexism of Hollywood....? Perhaps (male) imaginings of
women in animation (Betty Boop through to Jessica Rabbit) point to
where films are heading: perfectly sculpted women - be it through
digital animation or in "real" life...
As for the idea of changing notions of beauty, I am not so sure. That
chasing crooked-teethed women is a joke in Around the World in 80 Days
surely implies that notions of beauty are NOT really changing, since
the film is mocking Victorian values - a time when humans would of
course have found other humans beautiful, even though they did not
have orthodontics, cosmetic surgery and the like (and only make-up,
perfume, hairstylists and clothes)?
Without getting too Naomi Wolf on Film-Philosophy's ass, notions of
beauty are becoming homogeneised (in a Stepford kind of way). A perty
and big mouth, big jugs, slim legs, all touched up. Andrew Niccol
seems to be making this point in S1m0ne - especially given that, in
interview, he explains that Rachel Roberts (the uncredited actress
that plays Simone) is 'sculpted' in every scene - thanks to digital
wizardry if not with some nip/tuck and a scalpel.
Difference is there to be mocked. Shallow Hal may try to be sweet,
but the film is also pretty merciless in exploiting our contempt for
fat chicks. As is Fat Chicks. I see they have remade Hairspray - and
that John Travolta plays the fat mother: another tacit anti-fat insult
in a film that nominally promotes difference. (An insult because why
not have a larger lady play the role - instead of everyone marvelling
at the "gag" of Travolta mimicking a fat person...?)
Even a more serious film like Shainberg's Fur ends with Diane Arbus
shaving her hirsuit neighbour before sleeping with him. If she had
shagged the lion, the film might have made a meaningful comment about
the darker side of desire, etc; but that Diane instead screws the
good-looking and rather familiar face of Robert Downey Jr, for me,
ruined what the film was building towards. Diane in fact has very
conservative desires that have been provoked by the weird and
wonderful, but which can only be followed through with the familiar...
Where are today's Harold and Maudes? Is Shrek a stand-alone film that
sees beauty in 'ugliness' (if anyone can tell what is ugly)...? Bring
back early John Waters films...!
[There are exceptions: Queen Latifah, for example, as a double-whammy
buxom and black... But these exceptions prove the rule - Hollywood's
collective equivalent of saying "I'm not racist; I have at least two
black friends," etc... On the subject of race, I read somewhere that
all-too-ften Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell are lit in such a way that
their skin is almost white; i.e. their 'beauty' is accentuated not on
account of their blackness, but, somehow, 'in spite of' their
blackness... Which was for me a very thought provoking argument about
the potential racism inherent in the current capsys.]
[It has aways struck me that humans have a seeming innate fear of
'ugly' creatures - i.e. snakes, spiders, crocodiles, alligators,
sharks, rats and the like - meaning that we find ugly that which is
dangerous and predatory to us - even if the death toll is in fact
pretty low. Well, if we run away from that which we find ugly, look
at how many creatures run from us...! In the grand scheme of things,
we must be a relatively very ugly creature - since so many species run
a mile when they see a human approaching...!]
Peace out.
wb
> 1. Big Mouth
> Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:40:33 EDT
> From: Lori Ponder <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Big Mouth
> Interestingly, a recent crop of actors have appeared with the impossibly
> large upper lip, giving them as well, a rather feminine, labia-looking mouth.
> Look at Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Match Point) and Max Minghella (Art School
> Confidential).
> The issue of the big mouth is altogether different. I've heard some men
> comment that Julia Robert's mouth for example, is downright frightening-- almost
> as though "she could eat you alive."
> Lastly, when I was a kid in the seventies, anyone with "buck" teeth was
> laughed at, and begged their parents to take them to an orthodontist. Nowadays,
> if the occlusionally incorrect overbite makes the mouth look more prominent,
> even in women, it is celebrated. I was surprised when the male characters in
> 2002?'s Around the World in 80 Days were falling over themselves to get to
> Cecile de France's female explorer. She has the biggest set of crooked, splayed
> out, horse-faced buck teeth I've ever seen. They wistfully comment on her
> "dazzling smile." Is this the new "beautiful?"
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