printIn response to my fangs fandango, BAB Reader Pam Maltzman reminded me of something I’ve been trying hard to forget: Angelina wants to play Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged. Some Objectivists, who can’t be thinking with their (unclothed) heads, favor the idea. My article, “Angelina’s Color-Coded Kids,” pretty much exposed the woman’s pretensions. In response to that piece, the colorful Michael Musto of The Village Voice wrote this to me: “I now realize she’s even more of a bimbo than I thought!” I don’t think Musto’s an Objectivist, yet he had no problem making the call. Perhaps it’s because he’s gay. (If I could have my own gays as Kathy Griffin does, he’d be the one. I’m a fan.) One or two readers wanted to know what I think of the monster mouth fashion and why men like it. Without being too indelicate, men are responding not to aesthetics but to the basest of instincts. These instincts are now celebrated and affirmed in imagery, rather than transcended. A porn sensibility didn’t always shape ideas of beauty. The sublime 1350 B.C. bust of Queen Nefertiti attests to that. As does the bust of Marianne which embodied the French’s ideal of female beauty: Catherine Deneuve.
Full sensual lips? I’ll say one thing for you Mercer, you cover just about any subject. To go from that obnoxious female megaphone Sandra Bernhard to a major babe like Catherine Deneuve is a journey from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Denevue is devine. But my favorite – my one time teenager *love* – was Romy Schneider. How adorable she was on Tavernier’s “Death Watch” (Le Mort en Direct)! [She was a big fav of mine too.]
And since we’re on the subject, when did he national taste switch from slim brunettes with cheekbones to die for, to hyperpneumatic blondes?
Gene Tierney, Loretta Young, Linda Darnell where are you? And dammit why did Law and Order go and kill off Annie Parisse?
Fake lips, fake boobs, fake personality.
Shallow, superficial men might find them appaealing, and that’s why you see them in the press and on TV and movies. But the rest of us see them as twisted caricatures, accidentally revealing a need to belong, seeking approval from the lowest of human life forms.
The only problem I have with those shallow, superficial people putting other shallow, superficial people in the limelight is that these images leak out to the rest of the world, and our society is judged by it. And rightfully so, maybe.
–John Danforth–
Catherine Deneuve… wow, she’s one of the most beautiful women ever–especially when she was young, but last I heard, she was still going strong in middle age.
Well, if a guy likes kissing-gourami lips to the exclusion of everything else, let him knock himself out. I may not like it, but I have no reason to try to prevent him from responding to that particular feature.
And if a guy is into women who look like porn princesses, well, maybe he’ll get tired of it some day. In the meantime, I don’t have to knock myself out wondering why he and I would never get together.
As a woman (and former art major in college), obviously I am not looking at (or for) the same things in a woman. I like a certain balance among the facial features.
In real life, I have dated a couple of handsome men and enjoyed their looks, but if they’re all looks and no brains, my interest doesn’t last for
very long.
And while I enjoy going to movies and looking at good-looking men and women, if I read or hear that so-and-so actor/actress sounds like a real bimbo if he/she doesn’t have a script, then my interest in them lessens, and possibly I would refrain from spending my hard-earned money on their next movie (or else wait until it’s out in video or in the clearance bin).
The Baldwin brothers come to mind. Also Martin Sheen, Streisand, and other brainless but braying bimbos of both sexes.
Ilana, I just thought of something… IF Angelina Jolie gets to play Dagny Taggart, it would be an *extreme* example of casting against type. I just hope I don’t barf when I go to see the movie!! 😉
Ilana,
If Angelina Jolie plays Dagny, the movie may not be worth watching–but then again, she might do well; that’s why they call it acting. Talking about acting, anytime I’ve seen Sandra Bernhard, I couldn’t believe anyone could be that crude and obnoxious in real life, and I used to work in a jail!
And as to the subject of lips, all you have to do to see perfection is look in the mirror.
Fooey on all of you! I think big fat lips look great!