Body Type

On the latest episode of Desperate Housewives, the writers skillfully tackled the issue of body type and prejudice. An ex-girlfriend of Carlos is called in to bring his company out of a slump and Gaby who reveals herself to be Gaby, is surprised when she finds that she is shaped differently than what she would have expected. What type is that, he asks. You know, she says , the skinny model runway type. Gaby then assumes that she must have not looked like that when they went out and Carlos replies unphased, that yes she did. " Do you think I'm that shallow?" he asks. No. But Gaby obviously is. I still manage to like her.

Other films and episodes of TV have not always been so successful at it. Others have. The women's movement brought us many books about body image: The Beauty Myth, The Revolution from Within, The Good Body, all describing in painstaking details the struggles of women coming to terms with the way they look. Be it, weight, breast size, skin, hair, height... I'd like to think that we are moving forward and that someday all women (and men) will feel good about themselves and that certain groups of people will stop being picked on for how they look. The message of acceptance and celebration is one we have the women's movement and civil rights to thank for.

But you can't blame us if we want to find ourselves a good beauty "how to" article.

I raad an interview in Glamour with the actor America Ferrera in which the interviewer asked her if she had any body image insecurities and she replied, sure, but mostly she felt regular. That is, in my understanding, her body type was not an issue for her.

Yellow teeth as a sight gag is not that funny even if some of us do go and have our teeth whitened. ( I do like my Adam Sandler when he is singing his "Love Stinks" and "I want to grow old with you", not so much when he is making fun of yellow teeth. He made up for it in Spanglish.

Am I too sensitive?

The sarcastic answer - "I think it's a fungus" - to the question of whether Jennifer Garner's character in Daredevil is pretty, was also not that funny. Perhaps, I have misinterpreted. If so, let me know. These are good actors delivering suspect lines.

Zoolander is a good example of a film that was really good at making fun of an industry that has been (and I'm being kind) a little rigid when it comes to the definition of beautiful.

A new trend might be that making fun of people's physical attributes when they are bad people will be acceptable, but I'm still not sure that will be very funny.

Time to rethink funny. Time to rethink beauty.

I have more to say but it shall be for another post.

Revenge is sweet

This chocolate chip cookie is giving me a toothache.

Dusty forced by Conservatives and radicals alike to enroll in grammar class

Dusty, having angered many a conservative and radical alike is forced via peaceful means to enroll in a grammar and spelling class because according to them, revenge is the best policy.