My Influences- The Two Christina's

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Christina Hendricks-

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Christina Hendricks is well known for her most famous role to date, in Mad Men. Seen as the mature softly sexual lead secretary, Hendricks has never failed to surprise us with her curves. She uses her curves to her character's advantage within the series, and displays the type of fullness that women back in that era had. Not only is she what men want, but she is what woman want too. No other woman can do the bust like she does, she has a beautiful complexion and features, and she’s ginger (power to the gingers). She rocks every style, and was totally made to play a character from the era of the Mad Men series. She is just one of those amazing women who you think how does she do it with those curves.

Also starring in a few episodes of 'Firefly' which is a American space western drama, Hendricks has not been afraid to work what she has. Of course its not all about her body when it comes to acting, it's talent, however it does get her noticed and dam she can work the carpet! 

Christina Aguilera- 

After seeing her arrive in 1999 with her number one hit 'Genie in a Bottle' this lady has never been afraid to let it be known of her full-on confidence with her body, sexuality, and her artistic side. We know that she has THE voice, and makes it good, and sometimes bad, that she knows it too. She has done extremely well career wise, up until recently. Her last two albums 'Bionic' and 'Lotus' haven't done as well as she'd liked, but her personal life has been more in the limelight than her talented music. After a short marriage and sudden shock divorce from her previous husband Jordon Bratman, she has been more known for her voluptuous weight gain since then. Looking back at her career, I thought Christina looked good when she did her Stripped tour, but it was only until she has gained all this weight recently, that I feel she looks better now than in her early career days. 

Her record label has even said to her that she needs to lose weight, as it is not fair on all the people that work for her including backing dancers for her tours and music videos. They were basicly saying that no one will see her in tour because of her weight, so if no one will see her, that means no work for everyone else. That is insulting! Thank goodness she has the balls to tell them to f*** off, because it is HER body, and seeing as everything else she does is controlled by her record label and her busy work schedule, her body and her weight is probably the only thing she has for herself. As well as looking after her young son (from first husband), she has always had her head screwed on. I love the fact that she is so full of confidence, but sometimes it verges on arrogance. 

Christina has always looked gorgeous, and has never hidden behind anything to hid her body. When people ask her about her weight, she answers honestly, but also with a slight attitude. Like Claire Richards, Christina isn't afraid to be bigger and curvier, as I think that's how she's suppose to be naturally. I have paid more attention to her because of her attitude towards weight and eating, rather than her music, however her music will always have attitude in it. 

Both these women are an influence for me because of their bigger hourglass figures. Aguilera is the same height as me, so I can see from her that more weight still looks hot on a small women, and so encourages me to gain more weight, and Hendricks gives me fashion confidence, as I find it hard to find clothes to fit my curvy figure. 

Both incredibly head-strong women. 

THE REAL WOMEN CAMPAIGN- TRUE OR LIE? Blog 2

Last time, I talked about Dove’s real women campaign, but now for celebrate about the recent famous real women campaign of Ann Summers in 2011 that got women’s focus. 

There was a competition where normal young women entered in order to become the face of Ann Summer’s new Valentine’s Day Campaign for 2012. The winner was Lucy Moore, a size 16, won the competition, showing that not only do beautiful and amazing lingerie look great on bigger women, but the fact that she won through the vote of the general public, shows that the general public want to see bigger and curvier women in the advertisements. 

Looking at the girls, it is wonderful to see young women who look average being shown in their full beauty. As well as this, different sizes and shapes too which is a big difference to the simple straight and size 6 we see from Ann Summers and other lingerie companies. Agreeably that not all the women who model for lingerie companies are stick thin, but we are so use to seeing them not against the average sized person that their size becomes the norm on ads- we don't see them as a small size 6.  

Yes all women no matter what there size or shape will look good in lingerie, because, lets face it we wear this stuff to look more attractive to our partners and to make them want us more. But it is so much nicer to see someone with confidence, happiness and personality showing us what looks great, rather than a straight-faced miserable girl just standing there with her hand on her boney hip. Even the one’s who do have a seductive look about them, their bust has been pushed up and the panties have been stuck to their hips, for they should really be falling off them. 

It is a breath of fresh air to see a woman who is one of us real women, showing us what men want and showing men what we want to give them. I for one have never found the models of Ann Summers attractive, and has not been influenced to buy a product. I have bought from Ann Summers after seeing what would suit my own body, rather than looking at the models for inspiration.

The lingerie company Ann Summers have done a lot of adverts in the past in order to promote and sell a new brand or line, but this is the first time which we actually pay attention to what the lingerie will do for our bodies and make us feel when we wear it. Having a true and real women modelling the Valentine’s Day collection in 2012 was not only a step forward for plus size models and lingerie companies, but about the attitudes. I definitely would want to see more ‘real’ women advertising lingerie in the future. 

Raquel

Technology with Body Modification

Body modification is accepted because we all know we don’t love everything about our body, and we want to look young and youthful for as long as possible. so now we find it accepting to change ourselves because we don’t like something. Plastic surgery is one of the options to change one’s body; nose jobs, facelifts, Botox and even tummy tucks and the like are ways to enhance and improve the body.

The TV series nip tuck, are focused on two plastic surgeons and their practice in Miami Florida. On a daily basis they carry out operations and do surgery on people to make them happier about their lives and their bodies.  In reality we are putting things in and taking things out of our bodies when we undergo surgery to satisfy our thoughts on what looks perfect. Putting in butt and bust implants, and taking out fat and other disgusting things that our bodies need. 

  Looking at celebrities who get surgery done, in particular Heidi montag from the hills, she was already a gorgeous looking young women, and then went down the fake route. Question is- why?  

There is an increase in plastic surgery over the years, the last decade or so, and it is sad to think that there is that many people who don’t like what they see in the mirror. Yes we may have the technology now and obviously the money to change what we don’t like, but that isn’t a good enough reason to take drastic action. Any surgery whether its plastic or normal surgery has a high risk factor, and quite possibly always has a follow up and more surgery later on to update the previous surgery. 

Despite plastic surgery being an increasingly safe yet still problematic procedure to have done, there are other options for changing one’s body. Robotic limbs are starting to become accepted into society. We have already seen Paralympic runners with carbon fibre limbs, as well as this, we can see this type of technology now made to help disabled people, amputees and soldiers. This is a good thing, as an increase in a.i., helps those get their lives back. those who have lost their limbs, by using this type of body modification, puts body modification in a good light. 

Our technology is getting to a point now, where we can put things into the human body to help us. Pacemakers already help the heart beat, but how far will we go in order to make our bodies, and to go as far as the human race, better? 

Looking at the technology side to this, the film ‘repo men’ starring Jude law and  Forest Whitaker, concentrates on the technology that helps humans. It is a sci-fi action thriller film where artificial organs and body parts are put on credit. If you are in need of a new organ, but can't afford it, you have the operation done and then have to pay back the money accordingly, a bit like a mortgage payment.  

Now realistically speaking, if someone needs a new organ, you have to go on a waiting list, and have your dying organ replaced by someone else’s in a operation. So far we have only been able to replace organs with new ones or use technology to aid an existing organ. So this film that plays on the possibility of technology going that far that we are able to replace organs with a technological organ, is pure genius. 

The film’s story however is interesting, as of course no one can really pay off the amount of money they owe the company for giving them a new organ. Heart, kidney, liver, and eyes are just a few of the body parts advertised within the film’s story, however all sorts of body parts are able to get replaced by technological ones such as knees, voice boxes and more. 

Understandably if this was real, and we really did have the technology to make improved organs and body parts, this would be a brilliant way to replace the parts which have been damaged by disease or no longer work due to an accident for example. But this film shows a darker side to this, with people getting new body parts for the sake of it. one of the main characters Beth played by Alice Braga has so many parts of her body replaced by technology, its practically half robot half human. But some of her technological body parts she had done just because she didn’t like what she naturally already had. By changing her eye colour and the sound of her voice, is just an example similar to those who have plastic surgery done to change what they don’t like. 
 

A medium that takes this technology even further, is the game ‘Deus Ex- Human revolution’. This is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing video game, with it set in 2027, the central topic is the ethics of advancing humans with artificial replacements for body parts. 

Looking at the live-action trailer on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcsd6mJ3R08 ), it really hit home. Taking away the fact that this is a trailer for a game, and put it in the context of a possible one-day reality of our world. Watching the trailer while putting yourself into the world of it, really makes you think.

It is said that if one doesn’t change, then one would feel less than everyone else, less strong and less intelligent. Also the phrase “if you don’t take the drugs you die”. The back-story to the game is that if a person gets a technological body part, they have to keep taking this special drug in order for their body to not reject the technological aspects of it. But getting the drug costs money, and if you don’t have the money to buy the drug, the body part will turn against your body.  

This ‘changing to become better’ stigma is similar to getting anything changed to fit in. if everyone looks a certain way or even dresses a certain way, one doesn’t want to be the odd one out. We as humans can’t help it; we are wired to be part of a group, and in doing that we need to fit in. The end slogan of the trailer is

‘be human, remain human”.

Maybe the underlined, hidden more deeper meaning behind this slogan as well as maybe changing the body generally is to remain human, remain true to yourself. Don’t change your image; love yourself for who you are. Of course the message of the trailer and the slogan for the contents of the game is completely different, but if one looks at it from a body image, confidence, love you point of view, it totally makes sense.

Looking at the trailer from a realistic point of view, one can so see this type of trailer not only for a film, but the issues that it addresses, not surreal at all.

It wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere down the line, like beauty products say they help get rid of wrinkles for instance, that companies take advantage of people wanting to change themselves, and some sort of world develops like in the back story of dues ex game or in repo men film. I have do hope that some sort of technology does help those who need it, such as accident victims, and those who have lots limbs etc, because that’s what I feel technology like this should be used for. As for those who want to use the technology just to improve on their already perfect bodies, like what plastic surgery does.

Like I said earlier, I feel sad that it is clear that so many people are upset and don’t like their bodies. Agreeably we all have something we don’t like, but that’s the beauty of the human body and the differences between us all- we are all different, and the imperfections of ourselves as people, as well as our bodies, makes us who we are, and it makes us perfect.

If we were all the same, as in if all women were thin with big boobs and blonde hair, where’s the variety and sexiness in that? All men going after the same type of women, not attractive, and the same for men, if all the men were the same, women would become bored of the chase.

We may get fed on a daily basis what is the idealistic view on what perfect is, but it is clear from surveys, data, and the general public’s point of view, that we all are only human, and we are perfect as we are, because if we weren’t, or if we don’t think we ourselves are, then if we don’t love ourselves, who else will? No one likes someone who is always complaining about their bodies, weight, how they look, or at least that’s the reaction I have got from asking some of my friends.

We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to the person in front or behind of us, we should be looking at our own reflection in the mirror. If you don’t like what you see, there will be someone out there, a friend maybe, who envies the part of you that you don’t like, and they wish they had what you have. That’s what make us all unique, no one else has what you have.

So no need for solutions on how to make yourselves better or prettier, or more attractive through body modification, because you already are. 

 

Raquel

 

Moving Image Formats about Food- Blog 3 (음식은 좋은)

Hi everyone, I have reviewed another film to do with food, and gaining weight. Enjoy 

 

Plump Revolution (2012) 

 About the Film-

‘Plump Revolution’ ('통통 혁명') is a Koren film about a model who gains weight, mixed with romance and comedy elements that draws on a new and fresh approach to food, eating, and gaining weight.

Fixed on a model’s experience about weight within the Koren fashion industry, the film follows how the determination to find love, drives her to almost give up her career through gaining weight.

The first part of the film shows her modeling, her life, her sized body and what she does to keep at that weight. This involves extreme work out at home (and controlling her brother’s diet), only drinking water or iced tea which has no calories in, and having boring meals with no flavoring or taste.

Once a new fashion photographer comes in to take pictures of her, everything goes tits up. It is clear that he doesn’t enjoy photographing her, which makes her lose focus in her modeling. She begins to like him, but it is soon clear that he doesn’t like her because she is so skinny. After meeting a psychic in a restaurant, who tells her to change her ways, she gets the help of her brother and friends to start eating.

The next stage of the film cuts to the near future that shows a dramatic change in her weight, facially and later shown in her body. The difference in amazing! I won't give too much away, but WOW (eye popping/O...M...G...). The next stage of the film is showing the aftermath and consequences of gaining that weight- very interesting! 

Despite the film been spoken in Koren however, which you can't understand, watching it you can tell what is happening, and can understand what is being said due to body language, facial expressions, tones of the voices, and interactions between characters. 

The Feel of the Film- 

 

In reality, actress Lee So Jung who played the model in the story, had to gain 20 kg (3.14 stone), in two weeks for her new movie role in Plump Revolution. Apparently, she had to eat 10,000 calories a day in order to gain that much weight within the two-week period. It sounds completely insane, but she did do it! realistically speaking, it is dangerous to gain weight THAT fast, but while watching the film, as an audience, you don’t think of the negatives about this film, because on the surface it doesn’t have any.

The main reason why this film works, is because all the weight gained by Lee So Jung is real. In most films to do with weight gaining or modifying parts of the body, its all fake. It is amazing that this actress went the extra mile to do this film. you hear of actors losing weight or gaining for a movie role, but the determination for this role is shown through how much she had to gain throughout so little time. 

Personal Experience from the Film- 

 

I love this film as its totally a new look into gaining weight, and the love of food. I won't give away the ending of the film, but lets just say its very ironic. It made me not only understand my partner's reasons more for liking me with more weight on, but understand more about my own cravings for food, and the psychological side to eating and gaining weight.

To begin with, admittedly I was completely not sure about this film, but after watching it twice (one after another), I was hooked. I would keep watching this film on a weekly basis if i could, but unfortunately it is very hard to get hold of, DVD wise, to watch online or even download. But if you can get hold of it, watch it! It has not only shown me the difference in this area, of food and eating, but it again makes you hungry! Also, she looks better with weight on. 

Due to this, I have started to look into similar films like this, which I will be reviewing in the future too. This Koren film pushes the boundries of what people think about eating and gaining weight- its definitely changed my mind about the whole thing, so check it out!

THE REAL WOMEN CAMPAIGN- TRUE OR LIE? Blog 1

The “real women” campaigns that have suddenly become THE trend in marketing, is it really brands and companies paying attention to what the consumer really wants to see, hear and purchase, or is it just extremely clever advertising?

Having photographs on print based adverts looking natural with no make up, or slightly touched up, seeing women in all of her glory rather than the perfect outline of what the perfect woman should look like in a figure hugging dress. Capturing a woman, or group of women together displaying their true beauty and perfectness of their imperfections is what we want to see.

This can be seen throughout any aspects of beauty whether its advertising clothes, having the clothes modelled on slimmer bodies, and advertising make up. Lingerie, shoes, you name it anything to do with making a woman look good has been tampered with whether its in the preproduction stage, production stage or post-production stage, which usually involves a heavy amount of photoshop. Unfortunately we do not see anything that hasn’t been modified, even an image that looks natural and real has had something done to it.

However, there are some marketing campaigns and adverts that have played on this ‘wanting the real’, and have embarked on a direction to captivate woman audiences.

The most famous advert campaign is ‘Dove’, with it’s slogan ‘real women’.  Launched in 2004, and aimed to give women confidence about their bodies and how they look, it was celebrated by woman and the fashion and beauty world as THE step forward for proper heart to heart with women and what they want. 

  The beauty product company Dove sells skin, hair and body products, anything from lotions, creams, deodorant and so on. With the pictures used for their campaign ‘real beauty’ was shot by photographer Rankin, this did not only give the campaign true edge to it’s images, but a sense of truth. Rankin is known for his natural beauty look in his work, which made the campaign for Dove even more real. 

With it’s campaign, Dove set out to show women that they can look naturally beautiful without all the mess of using lots of products, if they used their products. By using for instance a face cream, it would make your skin look smooth, youthful and healthy, without using lots of foundation and skin makeup in order to look gorgeous.

I admit that if a product makes you feel fresh, relaxed and it smells nice we tend to just give into the product and tell ourselves that it says what it tells us on the label or the adverts. Whether the products of Dove helps, was not the message of the campaign. It was mainly about confidence in natural beauty, and if women use Dove’s products, they will feel confident too. 

This was the true big step for a lot of industries, and really set the pace for other ‘real women’ campaigns to follow in the coming years. Despite not using Dove products at all, I was impressed by their massive marketing of it, and the diversity of ages, colours and types of beauty they displayed. 

Whether this again was intentional advertising, or really doing a heart to heart with the customers, we will never know. 

Moving Image Formats about Food- Blog 2 (Bon Appetit)

Hey everyone,
Despite planning to review my first film of this blog until next week, I couldn't wait so I've done it early :)

Julie and Julia (2009) 

  About the film-

Julie and Julia film is based on two stories:- a woman who learns to cook to use up her free time, and a woman who goes through all the receipts in her idols cook book.

Looking at food, the desire of food, the passion of food, and hunger to eat is all seen within this movie. 
At the very beginning of the film, it is made very clear that character Julia Childs loves butter, and loves food. This is shown in the first scene of Julia and her husband eating their first meal in a Parisian restaurant, before they move into their new house. As well as this on more than one occasion throughout the film, not only does the older couple have conversations about food, and share one anothers company within the main restrictions of the kitchen, but they share their meals in restaurants, feeding each other and sharing the pleasure of particular courses. Within the film, Julia Childs attends cooking classes for professionals, to learn how to cook due to her admiration for cooking and food. As well as this, the fact that she is always in the kitchen cooking, or out buying ingredients for cooking, and looking at food, displays her passion for it. The fishmongers market, bakery- she is there. 

  

As for the other part of the film, the young woman Julie, and her husband, also enjoys each other’s company over food and conversation after a long day at work. As she says within the film, “cooking is something I do to get away from what I do all day”. This shows that she not only loves cooking but is absorbed by it. the fact that character Julie works in a cubicle answering questions and enquiries on the results of the event of 9/11, in a insurance company, food is what seems to get her through the day and looking forward to being in the kitchen cooking.

The feel of the film-

Both stories are wonderfully linked together, and yes this film definitely makes you want to eat! Steak is one of the things that you crave throughout this film. Some of the speechless moments when Julia Childs character, (played by Meryl Streep), when she eats certain foods, just makes your mouth water. Amy Adam’s character Julie Powell, also makes you want to start cooking some of the things within the story, such as baguette bread with tomato mixture on top, and beef bourguignon (I will be trying these out at some point). Despite the baguette bread with tomato mixture on top meal, not being in Julia Child’s cook book, it still looks tasty.

 

I feel that butter is completely promoted within this film, its brought up several times, used in more than one recipe and the tone and way the characters speak about food within this movie is beautiful. You can tell that there is a real love for not only cooking, but home cooking, proper cooking. Making things from scratch tastes a lot better. This is the sort of film you want to be watching while scoffing down your most favorite meal of all time. Trust me- it works! 

My personal experience/influence from the film-

I have never been into cooking, not proper cooking for that matter; I have always been the sort of person to cook because I need to eat to get me through the day. However recently through out the last year or so, I have developed my taste buds, expanded my interests, and have started to eat for passion and pleasure, enjoying my meals with the various flavors rather than eating because its just lunchtime.

Due to this factor, and now haven watched the film more than 10 times within a monthly period when i first got it, it has got me really into not only wanting to try new meals and recipes, but wanting to learn to cook more than just pasta, a roast dinners, and different types of red meat all the time. Not that I will always be cooking from scratch everything that I produce from the oven or hob for every evening meal, but its nice to start to know that if you do fancy more than just the usual meal of meat and veg and wanting a bit more enjoyment out of a meal, then I know I can do it.

I have yet to try some of the recipes from the book, or even buy Julia Childs massive thick cook book, but the film has persuaded me to at least start to look into it. I have, of course, got the movie that came with a smaller version of the cookbook. I have looked over that, and despite a few things not to my taste (for instance I don’t like parsnips); I can at least adapt some meals to my liking. 

  So I suppose what I am trying to say is that my experience from watching the movie, not only makes you really hungry and craving steak, butter and fancy restaurant meals, but it does encourage one to take some sort of an interest in cooking, and learning more advanced stuff. Of course I just watch it to make me hungry so I have the excuse to eat (hehe), but it has definitely been one of those films which for me, if you want to watch a food film, it’s the first one that comes to mind.

I now because of this film, I want to learn how to cook more sophisticated meals, I have begun to enjoy food more, I want to expand my palate and it's not just because of this movie, but because of Julia Childs herself for writing the cookbook over nearly a decade, and to Julie Powell for cooking from the cookbook and blogging about, because if it weren't for them, this film wouldn't have got made, and inspired another generation to cook. 

Check out this film! There are so many aspects to it, that the food part is only the beginning. Meryl Streep's performance and interpretation of Julia Childs is excellent, and Amy Adams looks great, and.....just watch it.

Raquel

Moving Image Formats about Food- Blog 1

Hey all,
I have been watching a lot of documentaries, films and programmes about food throughout the months, and I have thought to maybe do reviews on what I thought of certain ones.

Dinners, Drive-ins and Dives (Nov 2006- present)

 Guy Fieri presents a food TV series, which features a road trip concept, where he goes to all the best diners, drive-in restaurants, and dive bars in Northern America. The majority of the places he goes to has comfort food written all over it, with burgers, pizzas, barbequed and deep fried menus. 

Whether its American traditional meals, receipt twists, or completely different ideas on cooking, Fieri is there to investigate. Not only is he shown the food and different meals, but is shown how they cook them (almost a behind the scenes in the kitchen), what they put in the receipts (very interesting!), and talks to the customers about how good the food is. 

Personally no matter which state in America his is in, what cafe or restaurant he is in, and whatever food he is looking into, it makes you WANT TO EAT! The steak and burger dishes really get me. More than a few times of watching them making and grilling burgers with all the mayo, lettuce etc, I have ordered in a burger meal hehe. Your mouth waters, you get hungry even though you have already eaten, and you just want to keep putting food inside you.

 

There has been a few other programmes with this similar concept, but Fieri does it a lot better. The cooks just make the food sound so mouthwatering and delicious, and as for Fieri's reactions, it is sometimes so brilliant. He's such an epic guy, cool and amazingly addicted to food.

You almost want to just go to America for their food lol. Not that British food isn't nice in its own way, sometimes you have to get a taste of other food cultures of other countries. If you were thinking of going over to America for a trip, or to live there, or just to try American food, this will totally convince you! It may be all grease, oiled and fatty comfort food on this programme, but it definately makes you want to gobble down the naughty food. 

Check out the program on the food network channel. Fieri also has his own cooking program- definitely planning to check that out.

Raquel