>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>1. The bourgeoisie propagated a moral ideal of Self-Control that
>>legitimated their existence as distinct from & superior to
>>aristocrats, proletarians, & pre-capitalist "primitives," all of
>>whom were portrayed as "lazy, dissolute, & improvident." The
>>bodily expression of this bourgeois moral ideal is thinness --
>>hence the emergence of thinness as a standard of beauty.
>
>Hmm, but the image of the capitalist has also changed, from the fat
>capitalist of Soviet iconography and the Monopoly board, or 300-lb
>J.P. Morgan breakfasting on steak and a dozen oysters to, say,
>Robert Rubin, the almost-emaciated long-distance runner. I heard
>once that there's not a single fat Fortune 500 CEO, and while I
>haven't fact-checked that, it seems to be true.
>
>Correspondingly, in Secrets of the Temple, Greider noted the
>transformation of the bank building from the squat solid temples of
>yore to the thrusting spires of today (e.g. the slant-roofed
>Citibank HQ).
>
>Doug
Bourgeois males used to be able to merely possess slender beauties;
now they must also aspire to become slender beauties as well if they
can (reflecting _changes in ideological emphasis_ from possession to
performance, from vertical integration to lean & mean subcontracting
& suburban mini-mills, from investment in physical capital to
investment in financial instruments?). This heightened consciousness
of male physical beauty for men of all classes (and if not beauty at
least fitness) is a new thing under capitalism (though the ideal of
male beauty did exist -- especially for the male leisure classes --
of pre-capitalist societies as well), to which gay male aesthetics as
well as feminism may have contributed in part. The good old days
when straight guys could get away with looking bald, flabby, hairy, &
smelly without any penalty is over! Beginning in the 1980s or
thereabout, Japanese men's magazines began to recommend not only
workout but also facials, excess hair removal (like shaving legs),
etc. Now, the ideological dichotomy of male subject and female
object has become blurred. Is this another reason why some straight
guys express extra animus against feminists & gay men?
(With his fondness for basketball, I'd imagine our dear moderator
should look pretty good!)
It's also about class. The rich can afford to spend money & time
working on their bodies, whereas the poor of both genders have more
difficulty staying fit.
It's about national culture as well. Americans, on average, seem to
have the best teeth in the world (this despite the fact that many
people go without dental insurance, and dental insurance seldom
covers orthodontic & prosthodontic treatments); they must spend
fortune straightening out their teeth.
Yoshie
