It's time for another Katie movie recommendation! Every year, Chicago hosts it's International Film Festival usually around the first two weeks of October. Since I had found out about it back in the day ('back in the day' being when I was working at Borders bookstore around 2003 or 2004), I try to make at least one film fest movie each year. Usually I see short films since it's not something you can generally find in a mainstream movie theater. But this time I wanted to watch something different. This documentary, "America the Beautiful" caught my eye. My friends Rajiv and Eddie were up for seeing it as well, so we got tickets and checked it out on Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure if or when this movie could become mainstream, but if you can find it, be sure to watch this film. It is somewhat serious, comical, and slightly disturbing (even borderline fucked up!) at times. All in all, I was impressed with the overall content and quality of the film. It was better than I even expected it to be. Definitely raises some thought provoking questions and is a great conversation starter with friends and peers on society's twisted and unhealthy obsession with physical appearance. For a little extra background, I'm including a brief article about the movie written by someone associated with the Chicago International Film Fest: October 3, 2007
CIFF: "America the Beautiful"
A sobering statistic from Chicago filmmaker Darryl Robert's new documentary America the Beautiful: Although the U.S. makes up only 5% of the world's population, its residents are exposed to 40% of its advertising. Roberts argues that one major effect of that hypersaturation is an obsession with a certain kind of "perfect beauty," an unrealistic ideal that leaves many women feeling unhappy with how they look and guilty about what they eat. His movie is a saddening but almost jaunty exploration of how this modern notion of perfect beauty took hold, who's being taken advantage of, and who's making money from it (as it turns out, an awful lot of people). He selects as his case study Gerren Taylor, a model who started on the catwalks at the age of 12 only to find that within a few years designers were already dismissing her for having "hips that were too big" and an unsuitable waist size.
CIFF: "America the Beautiful"
A sobering statistic from Chicago filmmaker Darryl Robert's new documentary America the Beautiful: Although the U.S. makes up only 5% of the world's population, its residents are exposed to 40% of its advertising. Roberts argues that one major effect of that hypersaturation is an obsession with a certain kind of "perfect beauty," an unrealistic ideal that leaves many women feeling unhappy with how they look and guilty about what they eat. His movie is a saddening but almost jaunty exploration of how this modern notion of perfect beauty took hold, who's being taken advantage of, and who's making money from it (as it turns out, an awful lot of people). He selects as his case study Gerren Taylor, a model who started on the catwalks at the age of 12 only to find that within a few years designers were already dismissing her for having "hips that were too big" and an unsuitable waist size.
Wisely, Roberts uses a low-key approach and lets his interview subjects do most of the talking. And as you can imagine, especially among people in the industry, there's a lot rationalization to go around. A woman at ad agency Leo Burnett explains with a straight face that there are two types of female consumers: "moderately beauty-involved" and "heavily beauty-involved." A designer reveals that the reason models with tiny figures are preferable is because dressing them uses less fabric, which is expensive. And, in an especially wicked jibe, Roberts points out that despite the fact that many Revlon cosmetics contain suspected carcinogens (which are are banned in the E.U.) twice a year the company sponsors breast cancer walk-a-thons.
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