Body Shots

Emily Fox-Kales

Description

How do movie star bodies and celebrity culture influence the way real girls and women feel about their own size and shape? What effect can popular films have on everyday eating behavior and exercise rituals? Body Shots shows how Hollywood films, movie stars, and celebrity media help propagate the values of an "eating disordered culture" that promotes constant self-scrutiny and vigilance, denial of appetite and overcontrol of weight in the compulsive pursuit of an eternally elusive body ideal of slenderness and fitness. In a unique approach that merges the disciplines of film analysis, gender studies, and psychology, clinical psychologist and cinema studies scholar Emily Fox-Kales demonstrates how the body narratives of such Hollywood celebrities as Lindsay Lohan, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Oprah Winfrey and their battles with bulimia, post-maternal weight gain, and yo-yo dieting not only serve as public enactments of the same eating and weight struggles their fans endure, but create a "new normal" which naturalizes and even valorizes the chronic body dissatisfaction and weight obsession that are established risk factors for eating disorders in women and girls. Written for students of cultural and gender studies, parents, media literacy educators, as well as film buffs everywhere, this book aims to provide the moviegoer with the critical tools necessary to develop a resistant gaze at Hollywood productions and make healthier choices among the many viewing screens of our super-mediated world.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Screen Bodies and Eating Disorders

1. Body Identifications: The Movie Screen and the Mirror

2. Celebrity Bodies

3. Body Mastery and the Ideology of Fitness

4. Body Transformation: Ugly Ducklings, Swans, and Movie Makeovers

5. Body Stigmatization: Fat Suits and Big Mamas

6. Teen Bodies: Valley Girls and Middle School Vamps

7. Alternative Visions


Glossary of Terms
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Película fotográfica
• Visual culture
• Media studies
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438435305
• Langue: English

Extrait

“ Body Shots is a wake-up call to girls and women everywhere. Fox-Kales' savvy analysis of filmic and other media representations of the female body in contemporary culture is riveting and utterly persuasive. Every woman, whether suffering from a disordered body image or not, will be compelled to reexamine the way she views her own body and her satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it in the light of this powerful and life-changing book.”
— Madelon Sprengnether, author of Crying at the Movies: A Film Memoir
“In this essential book, Emily Fox-Kales takes on our ‘diet culture run amok’ and the way movies both reflect and reinforce America's unhealthy and unethical ideas about weight. She shows how, in film after film, teenage girls, her patients for many years, fall under the spell of pencil-thin celebrities and makeover movies. The consequences are disastrous. Fox-Kales' book spans psychology, cinema theory, and cultural studies. She has written a must read for anyone concerned with teenagers; psychologists, parents, or just concerned citizens.”
— Norman N. Holland, author of Meeting Movies
“ Body Shots is an engaging and fascinating exploration of the connection between Hollywood's dream-factory and our eating disordered culture that is derived from Emily Fox-Kales' vast experience and expertise in the treatment of eating disorders.”
— James Hudson, MD, ScD, McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School
“Emily Fox-Kales' Body Shots puts into perspective the impact of the film industry on how society defines the concept of beauty. It is a great resource to help people understand how screen and media images impact our drive for the ‘perfect body’.”
— Beth Mayer, CEO, Multi-service Eating Disorders Association
“With rising rates of obesity, we tend to overlook an equally important weight crisis—the fear of fat that can lead to anorexia, bulimia, bingeing, and other eating disorders. Fox-Kales applies her expertise as a clinical psychologist specializing in disordered eating to diagnose the celebrity culture's influence on normalizing an unhealthy ideal body standard. Her analysis is a must-read—well-researched, insightful, and engaging, filled with teachable moments to help deconstruct messages that encourage us to diet and exercise, even undergo plastic surgery, to attain the distorted body image reflected in Hollywood movies.”
— Bobbie Eisenstock, Co-Director, The Body Media Image (BMI) Project, California State University, Northridge
“ Body Shots offers a penetrating look at ways Hollywood films and related TV and advertising products perpetuate a profoundly destructive culture of eating disorders in the United States and beyond. Informed by her many years experience as a scholar, professor, and therapist, Fox-Kales zeros in on this meeting place of fantasy and actuality, where life-threatening ideals masquerade as desirable goals within the reach of women, teens, and tweens. The sweep of materials covered, supported by analysis and experiential testimony, yields a compelling, informative, dismaying, but also empathetic and highly readable book of significance to both professionals and the general public.”
— Linda Dittmar, coauthor of Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism
“Psychologist Emily Fox-Kales' Body Shots is a compelling and uniquely interdisciplinary analysis of the impact of popular media on the lives of girls and women. Weaving vivid personal accounts from her clinical practice with insightful readings of contemporary films, television, and interactive media, Fox-Kales demonstrates the ways girls and women struggle to define themselves and their bodies against the damaging ideals fostered by popular culture. Wide-ranging and immensely readable, Body Shots brings feminist theory to life.”
— Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, University of Oregon

BODY SHOTS
Hollywood and the Culture of Eating Disorders
EMILY FOX-KALES

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2011 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University of New York Press
Production by Eileen Meehan Marketing by Fran Keneston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fox-Kales, Emily
Body shots : Hollywood and the culture of eating disorders / Emily Fox-Kales.
         p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3529-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-3528-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Human body in motion pictures. 2. Body image in motion pictures. 3. Motion pictures—Influence. 4. Motion pictures and women. 5. Women in motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1995.9.B62F69 2011
791.43'6561—dc2 2010031821
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
List of Illustrations Figure 1.1. Borrowing an identity in Mulholland Drive Figure 1.2. A bevy of Veronica Lakes wait to dance in The Major and the Minor Figure 1.3. LAPD detectives mistake the “real” Lana Turner for a call girl in L.A. Confidential Figure 1.4. Call girl masquerading as Veronica Lake foregrounded against screen image of the “real” Veronica Lake in This Gun for Hire (1942) Figure 2.1. Oprah's triumph over fat (Courtesy Paul Natkin) Figure 3.1. Fashionable assassin Elle Driver waits for her victim to die in Kill Bill 2 Figure 3.2. Beatrix Kiddo battles her enemies in Tokyo Figure 3.3. Beatrix checks for signs of pregnancy Figure 3.4. Maggie in the ring as her trainer watches from the ropes in Million Dollar Baby Figure 3.5. Maggie takes a blow to the face Figure 4.1. Hotel maid Marisa and her new admirer in Central Park in Maid in Manhattan Figure 4.2. Preparing for the ball Figure 4.3. The transformation completed Figure 4.4. Agent Gracie Hart has one more for the road in Miss Congenialty Figure 4.5. Miss New Jersey takes center stage Figure 5.1. The bride carries her groom over the threshold in Shallow Hal Figure 5.2. Hal rushes to the aid of his date Figure 5.3. Together at last in the same frame Figure 5.4./5.5. The mystery of the giant underpants Figure 5.6. Fiona defends her man in Shrek 2 Figure 5.7. Death struggle with a pig in Misery Figure 6.1. A trio of Barbie dolls in Never Been Kissed Figure 6.2. Cher as the object of the male gaze in Clueless Figure 6.3. Regina struggles with her Prom dress in Mean Girls Figure 6.4. Lunchtime at the Plastics' table Figure 6.5. The anorexic Miss Teen takes a bow in Drop Dead Gorgeous Figure 6.6. Courtney's clique makes their entrance in Jawbreaker Figure 6.7. Courtney seduces her high school boyfriend in her bedroom Figure 6.8. Jim and Nadia “live” in his bedroom in American Pie … Figure 6.9. … and online Figure 6.10. Happy hour with Mean Girls' cool mom Figure 7.1. Elizabeth stands for her body assessment in Lovely and Amazing Figure 7.2. Annie contemplates her image Figure 7.3. Ana and her mother battle over dessert in Real Women Have Curves Figure 7.4. Letting it all hang out at the dress factory
Acknowledgments
I wish to express my gratitude to the many individuals who helped bring Body Shots into being. Given the nature of the project, I was fortunate to receive the collective wisdom of colleagues across a wide range of disciplines. They include faculty members of the Cinema Studies program at Northeastern University, especially Inez Hedges and the late Kathy Howlett, whose friendship and support helped me build the bridge from psychology to film studies, as well as many other colleagues at the Northeastern Women's Studies Program and the Graduate Women's Studies Consortium who have provided lively conversations in cultural and gender studies. I am also grateful for the support of the Department of Psychology and Gerald Herman of The Center for Interdisciplinary Studies who generously allowed me not only the opportunity to create the courses and research from which the idea for this book emerged but also the precious gift of time to move the project along during the academic year. I am equally indebted to the Society for Cinema and Media Studies as well as the Institute for Psychological Study of the Arts whose conferences provided an engaging forum in which to present my work on many of the themes that made their way into Body Shots. I am particularly grateful to the individuals who so generously took time to read earlier drafts of specific chapters in the book, including Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, Suzanne Leonard, Kim Michelson, and Kim Rice Whittemore, all of whose comments were consistently sharp and insightful. I also greatly appreciated the input from peer reviewers who remain anonymous to me but whose careful readings of the manuscript proved truly helpful in formulating its central arguments. Above all, I wish to thank the wonderful staff at SUNY Press, most especially my editor Larin McLaughlin, who from the very start was an abiding source of support and guidance and the individual most central to the “birthing” of the book.
It is impossible to imagine the possibility of Body Shots without all those individuals wit