Saturday, October 16, 2021

The Fuckability Quotient

I am at a slight disadvantage here, because I did not see the Amy Schumer sketch in question. A reporter from the Guardian asks filmmaker Nicole Holofcener whether she thinks that Hollywood has changed its attitude toward women.

The question goes thusly:


I absolutely loved the Amy Schumer sketch [Last Fuckable Day, which Holofcener directed]. Do you think Hollywood has changed in its attitudes to women in the five years since it came out, especially after #MeToo? If not, what do you think ought to change immediately? 


For all I know the Schumer pic involved the question of Botox, especially the number of women of a certain age whose faces no longer move. Or better, whose faces express no emotion and have no character lines.


In any case, Holofcener does not respond to the #MeToo question, but pivots to what women have been doing to their faces. Again, the answer is not overly clear, but she seems to be suggesting that women indulge their Botox obsession because they want to be more fuckable. 


I think it’s almost getting worse, because anybody over 50 has distorted their own face so badly. I can’t even find a list of actors that haven’t done anything to their faces, because we’re deemed not fuckable. It’s still absolutely prevalent in Hollywood and elsewhere.


Actually, it’s prevalent everywhere. I hesitate before blaming it on the male gaze, because do you really believe that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a woman whose face has not moved in a decade, does it because she wants to be more fuckable? After all, she is a politician and she must believe that the numb face look projects well on television. In truth, it's hideous, but no one seems to be aware.


Might it be that the women who adopt this mask are really saying that they do not want to be fuckable? Put that one in your pipe and puff on it.


5 comments:

autothreads said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Walt said...

Yes, I think they think so.And I don’t think they see themselves clearly and know how awful they really look. A pretty friend in her forties had a business lunch with a woman who’d apparently had her upper eyelids lifted—so high, my friend said, that when she looked down at the menu, the lids didn’t lower and you literally saw only the whites of her eyes which was pretty damn ghoulish. This woman then told my very pretty friend that if she ever wanted work done, she’d give her the name of “my marvelous plastic surgeon.” That, for example.

Sam L. said...

Well, I don't know. I watch no new movies; only old or older ones, on TV or on DVD.

ErisGuy said...

Our age attempts to prove in so many ways that the claim of feminists, “the fetus is just a blob of protoplasm” applies to adults and children as well. As if we, like the butterfly, have the power to make of our bodies a chrysalis and then to become whatever we desire.

Linda Fox said...

I'm 70. My face shows some lines, wear and tear, and, no, I no longer look "fortyish".
I don't care. I have family, friends, and an interesting life. I don't take 'selfies' obsessively (most of the time, I'm having too good a time at events that I forget to take even ONE picture).
When I see a face such as Gretchen's, I am moved to a profound pity for that inability to imagine the richness of life after middle age. You can fight aging, but it will always win.