School
Western UniversityDepartment
EnglishCourse Code
English 2017Professor
Nigel JosephStudy Guide
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English Summary Notes
Anorexia and Attractiveness
•North American obsession with physical attractiveness
•Women are more targeted by the ideology of beauty then men
•Two general categories to judging physical attractiveness
oYouth – want to capture the period of youth, covers a huge area of
what we think of as physically attractive
Teens are slim, older people losing weight want to look
young
Naomi Klein says the aspiration age is 17
oBody weight – supermodels are dangerously skinny, fashion
slimness has nothing to do with health
•We are constantly inundated with advertisements of beautiful people
•We are told physical attractiveness is associated with success
oStudy’s show a correlation between looks and justice in court of law
Different sentences for average looking people
Typically an older male judge may come down more lightly
on young attractive female plaintiff
•Hiring workmen in your house – in North America there’s a tendency to
choose taller more presentable plumbers
•Pop culture is blamed for people becomes overly concerned with their
appearance
•School girls 12-13 were asked what they would change to make them
happier, 46% said losing weight
•In almost all popular film narratives and TV program’s there’s a tendency
for the attractive person to get the attractive partner, money and live
longer
oMessage that life is better for attractive people
•Attractive people are considered more intelligent, more interesting and
have more social influence
oThis is contradicted by the blonde bimbo idea
oIn pop culture the lead character is often not as attractive but has a
blonde bimbo friend that is funny and bubbly
•We may not believe it but we act like it by making ourselves more
attractive
• 9% of average working men made 9% less in hourly earnings than those
considered attractive
o32% of men classified as above average had wages 5% higher
oSame stats for women, but they are higher for men
•What was considered a pathological focus on appearance is now taking
over the male population
oCosmetic procedures – father giving daughter boob job for
graduation
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oBody dysmorphia – very common in women but getting more
common in men
oTraditionally men in the west were unconsumed with their
appearance
Traditionally they weren’t looked at, this is changing they are
now becoming the focus of movies
Eg. In Twilight everyone’s looking at the male roles not the
female, she is focusing on them. They are taking their
clothes off not her (eg. Magic mike)
Things are changing and women are getting worked up
about men on screen
Men are getting accustomed to being the focus and taking
more care of their appearance
•Eg. Metrosexual men wearing make up
•Obsession with appearance – obesity is highly stigmatized in north
America
oChildren have anti fat attitudes
oChildren are being conditioned and coerced at a young age to
avoid certain kinds of appearances
oDownward economic mobility of fat people, especially women
•Paintings depicted appearance
oRenoir’s painting show fleshy bodies and child bearing hips
oAny famous painters of the past 200-300 years very rarely do you
see women like the ones admired today
•Kate Moss – in 20-30 years we have moved from full figured Marilyn
Monroe to stick thin Kate Moss
•Different cultures have different ideals
oIn Brazil you can buy appetite suppressant drugs across the
country – why anorexia is such a problem there
oIn some countries the idea is to eat and be fat so people wont laugh
at your figure, skinny means the family doesn’t have money
because they cant afford to feed you
•Machine civilization
oOur relationship with cards, cellphones and computers
oAdmiration leads to aspiration at some point
oWe want our bodies to have the same efficiency as our machines
oStripped down, sleek, performance and look
oWe start seeing our body the same way – why isn’t it performing
like my car?
oMachines are beautiful because of status and money
oThe human body without an ounce of fat is beautiful in the same
way as a machine
•Guns
oBeautiful in America not Canada
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oPrecision tooling
oGloss, look of barrels
oDeadly but beautiful killing machine
•Feminists – women who pursue slimness to fend off erotic interest
oThis group wants to be thin to distance themselves from male
interest
oDistance themselves from reproductive functions
oSays I am not a baby making machine, I am a professional
oLook more like a man than a women capable of reproduction
oWant to get rid of secondary characteristics associated with
maternalness
Wide hips etc.
Large breasts are the exception to the rule
New trend is slim waist and large breasts
•May want to be desirable but not have physical
contact with them
•Men are becoming the focus of these problems that used to be the
monopoly of women
oThey want to be more muscular
oThought they were below average because of their believed inflated
average
oThought women want them to be more muscular – not true
•Killing us softly
oWhat she says about advertising is true
oIf they don’t want to make that point they are blatant
oShe doesn’t consider that advertising wouldn’t be successful if it
didn’t piggy back on existing methods
oAdvertising works because of existing ideologies
Susan Bordo
•It’s not enough to make advertisers responsible for this, you have to look
at deeper ideology of how western philosophy feeds into this sense of
control
oControl your eating to have control over yourself
•People who come from other areas to the west get surgery to have a more
western look (ie. Asians getting wider eyes)
•She says female university students are controlling their weight through
vomiting
oPresumably they are more at risk because they are more
susceptible t pressure from various sources
oThey are determined to be in control of their lives, have pressure
from their parents
•Suggests that anorexia is embedded in the way we think in the west
•The body is an alien, confinement and the enemy
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