I've been reading a lot of interesting things lately, but because the school year is coming to an end, I don't have much time to blog. So I created this handy list for our wonderful readers to look through.
A few pieces from Racialicious:
Seal and Heidi Klum have a vow renewal ceremony. The theme? White trash. Is it racist?
Confession: I watched all of the first season of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Now Paramount Pictures and director M. Night Shyamalan are working on movie based on the series, and they don't seem to like the idea of having Asian leading characters (more from Racialicious and Racebending).
The Princess and the Frog and the Critical Gaze [Essay]: Great gathering of thoughts about Disney's upcoming film featuring the first (and possibly only) black princess.
From elle, phd:
Nativism 2.0: A woman on a student visa is accused trying to cheat the system so she can have her baby in America.
From Shakesville:
Possibly the oldest known sculpture of the human form is that of a full-figured female, carved from 35,000-year-old mammorth ivory. BBC headline called it a "grotesque vision of the female form" until they later changed the heading.
From Oddee (via Feministing):
Sexist vintage advertisements. This is a new fascination of mine. I am starting a collection to show how advertising has evolved (or not) over the years.
How about you, readers? Been writing anything interesting?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
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14 comments:
That statue IS grotesque. How is it not? It's disgustingly exaggerated in every way, and is not a realistic or even physically possible portrayal of anything even remotely human.
Anonymous:
I don't really agree. The human body can take on many, many forms, so to say that it can not possibly portray a human body, I think, is narrow-minded. But it is important to remember that this is a very old find, which means that the human hands that carved it did not have the same technical capabilities present in humans today.
The genitalia is massive, if it existed, it would be able to accommodate an object the size of perhaps two human legs.
It is not narrow-minded to claim that something physically impossible is, in fact, physically impossible.
You should look a bit closer at it's details.
It is an old find, and honestly not much more than a curiosity of early humanity. I wouldn't place a lot of value on such an object, at least not from an educational standpoint.
Anonymous: It's art. No one claimed for it to be a tool to teach human anatomy.
Also, I must not be seeing what you are because nothing seems disproportionate to me. If we keep in mind that it is art, and that the whole figure is full, then...what's the problem?
Maybe it's art. Who knows what it is? One can't really ask the sculptor.
Everything on it is disproportionate.
The breasts point in opposite directions whilst defying gravity, also having a size more than quadruple the figure's head.
The shoulders are broader than an NFL linebacker, the hips are placed somewhere above and behind where they'd actually be on a human, appearing to be above the navel region, and what appears to be the vagina starts at around the knees, and proceeds upwards into the stomach.
It's fairly disturbing to look at, frankly. Creeps me out.
Grotesque depends on one's opinion... what you find grotesque could be vastly different from what I find grotesque. Besides, it's 35k thousand years old and perhaps they had a different standard of beauty than we do now. I'd hope so, actually because modern western standards of beauty are virtually unattainable.
Not to mention, being thin by the modern Western standards would mean that humans at that time would probably not live long...
Besides, it's 35k thousand years old and perhaps they had a different standard of beauty than we do now.That's a little disingenuous. They wouldn't have had a "standard of beauty" for something completely physically impossible.
That, and early humans probably were spending more time getting killed by nature than they were sitting around and eating. I don't figure too many of them were morbidly obese. Obesity didn't really enter the picture until we stopped being nomadic, and settled into cities.
I'd hope so, actually because modern western standards of beauty are virtually unattainable.How so? Do you mean "not being obese"?
Not to mention, being thin by the modern Western standards would mean that humans at that time would probably not live long...I can assure you, they weren't obese. Like I said, I highly doubt they had access to enough food to become obese, let alone the safety, time, and comfort to do so.
If anything, they probably varied from scrawny and malnourished (for the unsuccessful hunters) to lean-ish and muscular for the more successful.
Focus, focus.
Beauty standards and their relation to this 35m year old carving...umm. If we can agree that it is a carving of a human, that is enough. And the fact that it can be interpreted as being similar to what would be considered in modern Western societies a "full-figured" woman, is enough.
My point is, such a thing would not have existed. There would be no fat women back then. Nor fat men. Nor fat anyone.
FYI, I don't consider what would be (if that figure is accurate) morbid obesity to be "full figured". That would be a 450+ pound person if they existed. Which is beyond simply being overweight or "full figured". It's completely morbidly obese.
Even still, my point was there can't be a "beauty standard" for something that wouldn't have existed. As I said, humans didn't start becoming fat until we were afforded the luxury to not have to fight for our survival on a daily basis.
Anon: I think you have made your point, because you keep saying the same things over and over.
And it doesn't really matter if an "obese" person could not have existed on the diet available/in the lifestyles at that time because, as I have said before, it is art. Artists have created images of unicorns. Does that mean they are prancing around our parks, in a full, splendid reality? Not necessarily.
Also, it's great how you seem to be able to decide the dimensions that this carving would have taken if it were a real person...umm...what? Again, it is art.
Now come off it. You've made your same statements repeatedly. This isn't getting anywhere.
Also, I would like to state that I am deeply disturbed when people say that because the human figure (whether it would have been possible at the time the carving or not) depicted is large, it is grotesque. And that somehow because this figure isn't very very slim, with "normal" (aka thin) features, it is somehow physically impossible.
So much fat hate. It's kind of disgusting.
Anonymous has succeeded in making it clear that they want this conversation to be about morbid obesity and how it is "OMG BAAAAD", and trying to decipher exactly how a body would look if it were transformed from this piece of ART (lolwhat?) instead of keeping the conversation of the carving in one of the links...so their comments are now being rejected, per our updated comment policy regarding anonymous comments.
Just a note, because I have a feeling that this commenter is going to go on a "STOP SILENCING MEEEEE!" rant because I will not post their last comment.
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