May showers
May 9th, 2006The weather has changed again. Two nights ago it dramatically shifted from a late Spring balminess into a very early Spring mode – windy, rainy, chilly. On the upside, I’ve had a run of great hair days 
Last night was the Spee’s annual pajama party at Rumour in Boston. Having gone last year, I decided at the last minute to go again. This year’s verdict: not as good. The Dj’s music selections were less than inspired (although each clip was mercilessly short so we didn’t actually suffer through any obscure pieces of music in their entirety), the crowd was mostly people I didn’t know (thank goodness Ming and Ray were there), and the overall atmosphere was a little awkward and restrained.
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Needled along by Brandon’s relentless skepticism and cynicism, I’ve had a little think about the objectivity/subjectivity of beauty in the realm of ANTM, FTV, advertising and magazines. Is there a growing rift between the fashion/advertising industry and the rest of society in terms of what is considered attractive or photogenic? To me, it seems strange that even as the beauty industry has been continually increasing its repertoire of what can be considered “beautiful” (Karolina Kurkova’s nose, Gemma Ward’s eyes, Doutzen Kroes’ teeth, Lily Donaldson’s shoulders), society–as represented by my (American) peers–has grown ever more vehement in its rejection of these images. “Too skinny!” is the most frequent complaint, and applies to everyone from Uma Thurman to Evandro Soldati (skinny?!). So aside from the obvious puzzle of why this ideal/reality gap seems to widening (and whether there is an untapped market for the closing of this gap), I’m also wondering about the possibility of a sort of universal objectivity that would allow for at least a social-scientific recognition of attractiveness* (or at least the prediction of such recognition) perhaps using BMI, WHR or symmetry as a starting point.
*I recall the fascinating study that seemed to indicate that even chickens can judge human attractiveness in a fashion that matches human judgements :)
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And now back to Rushdie, who shocked me with Saleem’s mutilated digit this afternoon.