From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: A question of plenty
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 03:58:28 GMT


In article <1992Nov13.003139.21432@panix.com> mara@panix.com
(Mara Chibnik) writes:

>anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:

>>But looking out into the real world of acting, one certainly
>>sees plenty of "effeminate" men and plenty of "overweight"
>>women, all employed and doing fine jobs in their profession.

>Does one, really?  

>Not "plenty" by my standards.  Certainly not "plenty" of
>"overweight" women.  

Well, I used quotes because neither word means a whole lot
to me personally.  They're such loaded terms, without much
of what I'd call objective meaning.  I probably should not
have used them at all, except those were the terms the
earlier discussion supplied, with the implication that
people to whom they applied were not employable as
professional actors.

As to plenty, I misspoke there by not having much of a
notion as to what plenty would mean.  What I was thinking
of, for what it's worth (maybe not much) is men who are not
Stallone kind of butch and women who are not mannekin kind
of thin.  

Either of those terms probably leaves the great middle on
the as it were wrong side of the line; a man is not
effeminate just because he's not as butch as Evander
Holyfield, a woman is not overweight just because she weighs
more than Vogue models.  Obviously, the whole point suffers
from the flaw that neither term is particularly descriptive;
rather they are mostly judgmental terms.

>And although it is possible for a certain kind of very
>pretty young man to find happiness on stage or before the
>cameras, these are not men I'd describe as "effeminate"
>myself.  (Of course, that's not an adjective I use much
>unless I'm discussing what it means.)

I guess that's worth doing.  But I might use androgynous,
rather than effeminate, to refer to that extremely pretty
type of young man; since he was just mentioned here recently,
Leonard Whiting comes to mind.

>I am particularly surprised at Jess's contention that there
>are plenty of overweight women in the profession.  Of course
>it's easy to name (say) a dozen of them.

I doubt I could name a dozen.  When I said that, I was
thinking of women in their mature years who were certainly
not thin but who were great actors: Colleen Dewhurst, Gena
Rowlands.

>But they constitute a very much smaller percentage of the
>world that actors present to us than they do of the world in
>which we spend our lives.

This is a key point, one I should not have overlooked.

>I consider this discrepancy largely responsible (directly
>and indirectly) for the unrealistic body images that lead
>women (especially) to anorexia and bulemia.  I'm not
>prepared to have the problem dismissed quite so cavalierly.

Eating disorders and compulsions like anorexia and bulimia
are no joke; neither are heart problems, diabetes, and
chronic joint pain.  Seen as health hazards (another mine
field), I wonder if the people (of both genders) troubled by
problems of too much weight don't significantly outnumber
those troubled by too little.  I have no idea what the facts
are, however, apart from an occasional tv comment that
obesity is a major health problem in the US.

>I'd be interested to hear analogous arguments with regard to
>effeminate men.

Apart from the possibility of getting one bashed, I guess at
least it would be less likely to involve one's health.

<> The most common of all follies is to believe passionately
<> in the palpably not true.  It is the chief occupation of
<> mankind. -- H.L. Mencken
-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
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