Frankie Goes to Hollywood

My mini-book review. It's riveting.

When I go to the gym, I usually like to do a 20 minute warm-up on a cycle so that I can read. Today I had the pleasure of finishing a book, which is something that doesn't happen as often as I'd like. The book is titled Looks: Why They Matter More Than You Ever Imagined by Gordon L. Patzer, Ph.D. It's one of the rare books that I actually grabbed off of the library shelf instead of carefully planning ahead and ordering the book from a different library branch. It came out this year, so I assumed it was current, and the topic intrigued me, as I am what I will call an 'enhancement studies' junkie (i.e. I like to study lookism, cosmetic surgery, and its relationship to the advertising industry/media. Somehow I managed to tie that into film studies when I was in school.) Anyway, back to the book. It was pretty standard, in that there's not a lot of new stuff to say unless you've conducted some sort of new, elaborate study, which Patzer had not. He was very biased (I should've known when he was saying that Ross Perot was the most qualified candidate to run for president in the past, well, pretty much, ever, that he wasn't going to give fair and balanced analysis. Whether or not it's a true statement is unimportant, but that's some pretty heavy editorializing.) I learned nothing new, since we already knew that pretty people get treated better in life and that advertising preys on our fears about our own levels of physical attractiveness. And don't make up fake people as 'case studies' - readers can see right through that. Yadda, yadda, etc, etc. There were two passages in the concluding chapter, though, that really caught my attention. The book was even due back today, but it's worth a ten cent late fee to post these paragraphs.

And I quote, "But we live in a media age, where every sort of dream is manufactured and sold as reality. All too often, Americans do not stop to realize that there is a vast gulf between what is presented on a flickering screen and the real world. Yet everything, every single item that appears in a picture, every word spoken, every sound heard, is a creation of the production and has some specific purpose in being put before the audience. To forget this is to forget that a movie or TV show is merely entertainment. And while one may sometimes learn valid life lessons from art, it is art, it is artifice, it is not reality - it is a construct from beginning to end."

And if that wasn't enough to get me reeling (film is 'merely' entertainment and that's it's only purpose? You just de-legitimized everything that I do! ), I turned the page to this...

"So we are awash in an image tsunami, swimming on a tide of beautiful illusions. It becomes harder and harder to distinguish the reel from the real, to remember that in the end the purpose of all this beauty and glamour, always, is to help somebody make money. Always."

Ummm...a little reductive, don't you think? While there's some validity, hello, I have a huge problem with your unsupported, blanket assessments! Biased jerk.

Discuss. And for worthwhile reads on the topic, just ask. I think I'll go watch some TV now and let my brain rot.