There is no conspiracy.

[daphnep]

Okay, after a fair amount of interest in my "Improving Aphrodite" post from the other day, I made it public, and I'm happy to see so many people as piqued by the injustice to art and anatomy as I was

Comments

[evilegg]

So they are marketing with their wallets and not recreating with their eyes?

[daphnep]

Would there be any other reason to be in the plastic model-making business?

[evilegg]

You'd think they would asking themselves what makes it worthy of modeling in the first plac, and then stay stay true to how it really looks.

[daphnep]

That's what happens with the very best companies. Those are the ones I order from, and what my own organization strives for. Every industry has its bottom-feeders, though, and art is no exception.

[ellixis]

Hear, hear.

[ernunnos]

Sorry, I don't buy it. In either sense.

First, if those artists were making art for themselves, I'd believe that it was an accident, just the result of all the other things they've seen. But they're not doing that. They're making a reproduction. They have source material. Probably photographs sitting right there in front of them. If the result is so shocking to casual, non-artistic observers like me, then there's no way someone with an artist's eye should be able to look at these sculptures next to the source and say, "Yeah, I did a good job." They have to know what they're doing, and that means it has to be deliberate.

Second, I've been thinking about body image a lot lately, because I've been playing Saint's Row 2, a video game with body and face creator. I've created myself. Other people I play with have done the same. One of them created Samuel L. Jackson in the game, and he's instantly recognizable. If a bunch of geeks with a video game sculpting tool can get likenesses so right from photos, then a professional sculptor should

[low_delta]

I don't think that was her point. She said, the sculptors are not deliberately trying to persecute women or harm anyone's body-image.

In other words, they're doing it on purpose, but that purpose is not to be harmful, but to make money.

[daphnep]

Precisely.

[daphnep]

But here's the thing: we change art all the time in reproductions, for GOOD reasons. Take Michelangelo's "David", for example. If one makes an exact-scale smaller model of David, he looks TERRIBLE, because on a smaller scale, one notices what one doesn't see, looking up at him from 13 feet below: his head is enormous in proportion to his body. Michelangelo did that deliberately (and it is part of his "genius") because he knew that people would be looking up at him from 13 feet below

[fizzyland]

So the debate over stick-thin models in fashion is now over - it's our fault?

[daphnep]

I'm not laying "fault"...but we're late enough into the debate that enough people in the industry have tried the alternatives.

A toy company made a "Happy to be me" doll...sales were crap. "Bratz" dolls sales, meanwhile, skyrocketed, and took over, with their bobble-heads and deformed faces.

A magazine company made a "Celebrate Real Women!" magazine (called Mode) and it didn't sell, went out of business after a couple of years.

Fashion designers put on "plus size" fashion shows, even (the latest was in Italy) and you know what? They did it once. Why? Because it didn't move clothing like the shows with skinny models did.

So I ask you, if there's such a cultural consumer demand for "real women", beyond mere lip service, then why are none of these industries able to capitalize on it?

[fizzyland]

And I would agree there is no conspiracy - but our perceptions have been shaped. Super-tall and bony models are part of a very conservative tradition and attempts to change that within the industry are met with all sorts of resistance.

But we humans idealize ourselves, so I have to agree with you - that the marketing of fantasy doesn't lend itself to a big consumer demand for "real women".

[daphnep]

Yes. That's why I think it's important enough to post those comparison images, just so we can all examine our own perceptions, and hold them up and say "look! How silly we are that we might not even notice them, when we're not paying attention, when it's all so obvious!"

[chaeri]

well put!

slightly tangential question: i thought Oprah's ratings on TV went up when she was curvier than otherwise? of course, the fact that ratings and sales are tied to her weight says something very scary about the culture...

[daphnep]

Oh, Oprah....poor Oprah. I don't know. We could write a whole book on that woman and her body issues, just between a small handful of us here on lj.

I hope that's true, about the ratings. I hope one day she manages to find a little bit of real body-love, somewhere in among all her other discoveries.

[agentotter]

I have nothing of substance to contribute to this conversation, except that it's very interesting and you have deeply excellent points. Also, I've never done 3-D art or been employed in its manufacture, but I have noticed in some of the catalogs I've gotten with sculpture reproductions that the smaller the piece gets, the skinnier it seems to get... like I've seen sculptures of horses that if you buy the 12" sculpture it looks like a pretty nice horse, but if you're a cheapskate and you go for the 6" reproduction, of the exact same sculpture, the horse looks anemic. I always assumed it was something about the processes used for cheap reproductions. Y/N?

Also, apparently Oprah Winfrey is the Anti-Christ? So I guess she has bigger problems than her weight. "Run, children. Ruuuun, children. Tell everyone you know." It's the flat delivery that does it. I love that guy. ;D

[daphnep]

Ha ha! What a video. Even funnier because I myself often refer to "the Church of Oprah". I mean it differently, though, but I get his point.

I don't know about the process for making cheap reproductions, I would find it odd if the distortion always went in the same direction. And I don't really have a source for looking at game pieces, horses, etc., but it's an interesting proposition. Hmm.