Friday, October 27, 2006

The appeal of fakeness


It is true that making or selling something which is fake is not a big crime, if you don't misrepresent it as the real thing.

There is nothing to stop people from liking Elvis impersonators. Or silicone breasts. Or plastic "wood" paneling on their walls. Or women with big hair, inch-thick make-up, lots of plastic surgery, corset, etc.

But it still rubs me the wrong way. There is a tendency amongst some types of people to even seemingly *prefer* fake things. They drown themselves in fake guilding, fake jewelry, and fake people.

I think that what is really bothering me is that it seems these people (and to a lesser degree, most people) can't tell the difference! To them, a silver-colored plastic mobile phone is as good as a metal phone. A sincere sounding politician is as good as an actually sincere politician. And plastic tits are as good as real ones.

Either they really can't tell the difference, or they really don't care. And I am not sure which is worse.

Pascal comments:
Late porn actress Lolo Ferrari was French, and as such I knew a bit about her. She held the world record for chest size... a record that was the cause of her death. She ultimately had 3.5 kilograms of silicone in each breast. That's 14 pounds in all! (The Wiki articles states otherwise, but I heard it from official sources.) Hello, back pains.
Once, in a debate about plastic surgery, she stated she had had about... 18 operations maybe, on her face alone. Of which seven just for her nose. She stated she had two fantasies :
1 - Look like a Barbie doll.
2 - Michael Jackson. Why? Because "he looks so un-natural now, it's like he's made of plastic, I find him just gorgeous!"
She already looked faker than Jessica Rabbit. Poor girl...

On Danish TV in the late nineties, a small TV channel made a big name for themselves by making a documentary on a stripping service, following the girls and the owner around, and of course having a bit of nudity. (Nobody would even have noticed Janet Jackson's nipple in Scandinavia.) One of the girls, Simone, was nearing the end of her career, she already had implants which were giving her back problems... and she still wanted bigger implants! Unbe-friggin-lievable. Fortunately the doctor talked her out of it.

Also, the really, really lovely Jenny/Marketa (link has nudity), when I was photographing her in the Czech Repuclic, told me that she wished she had bigger breasts. I swiftly told how crazy that was, and recruited everybody around me to support me in this.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I also doubt I'd give one iota about wood paneling in a house.

Me either. Paneling is paneling. If you don't like it replace it with drywall or something you like. It's not really an important issue. It's about a persons taste.
Home improvement is an individule thing, nothing really grassroots.

Anonymous said...

Well, I think a lot of this is really just issues of personal tastes and what people perceive as "fake". I'm against fake breasts also, but not necessarily because they're fake. To me, it's just that it throws the proportions out of whack, and I'm generally against women having to do radical stuff like to make themselves seem beautiful anyway.

To use one of your examples of big hair, to me it's just a style. I look back at 80s music videos and stuff and wonder how anyone ever thought that looked cool. But I don't see anything ethically wrong with it. It was just a style, nothing more, nothing less. That's all a lot of this really amounts to for me.

And Elvis impersonators are just funny. Personally, I'd rather impersonate Angus Young, but that's a different topic altogether.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

They're just examples, folks.

Anonymous said...

"You won't find many people that are consciously fake."
Forgetting politicians, are we? ;-)
Why do you think it's so easy for a former actor to get elected?...

Please allow me one comment in defense of fake breasts : cancer surgery. I say repairing a life-saving mutilation is perfectly okay.
Strangely, it would seem that many of these women don't undertake reconstructive surgery?

Lucid,
If a woman gets implants, in itself it IS a part of her behavior. :-(

Late porn actress Lolo Ferrari was French, and as such I knew a bit about her. She held the world record for chest size... a record that was the cause of her death. She ultimately had 3.5 kilograms of silicone in each breast. That's 14 pounds in all! (The Wiki articles states otherwise, but I heard it from official sources.) Hello, back pains.
Once, in a debate about plastic surgery, she stated she had had about... 18 operations maybe, on her face alone. Of which seven just for her nose. She stated she had two fantasies :
1 - Look like a Barbie doll.
2 - Michael Jackson. Why? Because "he looks so un-natural now, it's like he's made of plastic, I find him just gorgeous!"
She already looked faker than Jessica Rabbit. Poor girl...

"And Elvis impersonators are just funny."
I think with the face I have I could decently impersonate Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. But don't expect me to. I said "decently", not "reasonably"! Wouldn't be reasonable at all. Last time someone did it (VERY mildly) in Lebanon a few months ago, there were riots. I like to BE a riot, not to cause one...
<:-o

Anonymous said...

Most of people don't care about the substance,only about the appearence of the shapes and color ,they are seeing what they want to see and hear what they want to see , otherwise they will complicate their life , they want to live an easy and cheap life , in fact that is the essence of the consumer's society,the substitute for a real and intense one , this shall change only when the people will start to live in communion sharing real emotions and feelings , when they shall finally realize we all are human beings and not robos , a lot of Science-Fiction books and movies are talking about the fear of the men for the robos that can take control over the world , but the entire human society becomes one of robos , the people have to become again self-conscious listening they own hearts and minds and not the fallacious illusions of some crooks.
Paul Alexandru Cazacliu artmanro@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

Why? Because "he looks so un-natural now, it's like he's made of plastic, I find him just gorgeous!"
She already looked faker than Jessica Rabbit. Poor girl...

Reminds me of Mary Tyler Moore also. She looks fake to me: almost robotic. Spooky. People just can't deal with aging can they?

Anonymous said...

I agree with you, Eolake. That panther in your photo is SO CLEARLY wearing fake woman!

Anonymous said...

You see, Paul? "The robots" have already won! (Eek!)

Anonymous said...

"Nobody would even have noticed Janet Jackson's nipple in Scandinavia."
I only saw it after I had heard about all the commotion. What I could make out (by looking very carefully, in order not to miss it altogether) was essentially a sun-shaped white metal jewel. I say she could have pleaded artistic creativity, because it WAS a creative style. I think it looked way better than her awful leather outfit! :-P
It's true that in Scandinavia, there is sauna, a public place where everybody is steam-bathing naked and nobody is out of control. These northern show-offs are so unbearable, being sensible and civilized and all! Ruins all the fun in being a bigot...
"Ooh, these earthlings make me so angry!" -- (Marvin the Martian)

"and she still wanted bigger implants! Fortunately the doctor talked her out of it."
She should have gone to Lolo's "doctors". ):-P

"the really, really lovely Jenny/Marketa [...] wished she had bigger breasts."
In Afghanistan, women are told they MUST wear the Burqa. In regions of Africa where Elephantiasis is endemic, women are told they need hugely thick legs to be beautiful (***google the word at your own risk!***). In other countries, a woman "has" to be fat, to prove she's rich. In the West, they are "gently" brainwashed in aiming to be skeleton-like twigs with a lamprey's mouth, a nose curved inwards à la Michael Jackson, walk perched on the tip of their bruised and crushed toes, have skin suntanned to a nice brown cancerous crisp, hugely inflated breasts, and a head similarly full of air, because "smart is ugly".
You all know I'm barely exagerating. It's a worldwide plot against normal, healthy, smart and confident women. And if you're not against it, you're with it.
I've almost given up hope of finding such an authentic woman in Lebanon. In this country, if you know how to "correctly" apply make-up, you're qualified to be a mason.
Hey, it's also an advantage. If you manage to find such a natural woman and marry her, chances are that most casanovas will never hit on her, in spite of how beautiful she is! :-/

Anonymous said...

As Pascal alludes to, beauty has much to do with proportionality. Fake might be okay, but there is often a temptation to take fake beyond proportionality.
To most Western eyes, a woman's breast should first not have a sweaty crease just below it. Second, it should extend as far forward as possible. Third, as I said, all should be in proportion.
Speaking of it, the hip to waist one ranks up there with the face. Eolake is to be commended for highlighting the hip to waist ratio often, simply by photographing the model standing gracefully.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I know. Same with Lindsay Lohan. She used to be a beautiful redhead, now she is a ghastly blonde.

Anonymous said...

What instantly struck me about Lindsay, as a pre-teen in The Parent Trap, was how pretty this young freckled redhead was. Today, it's all ruined. It seems like even her inner spark of confidence and purity has burned out under the hollywoodian high voltage. Poor little rich girl.
:-(

While channel-surfing, I happened to stumble recently on an "erotic" movie on satellite. The girl had so horribly fake boobs, that even a child who doesn't know about their existence would have instantly guessed. I promptly switched channels, because it was a traumatizing sight. Oh, my! That sight would ruin ANY horny mood, I swear. Profile view : imagine a big sphere, with a quarter of its height cut off, and stuck straight onto the woman's chest. Fake, inflated, and very recent! In three months, these will be disgustingly sagging under their grotesque weight.
):-P

In that debate I saw after Lolo Ferrari's death, the question was brought up, whether somebody shouldn't get deservingly sued for advising/installing such monstrosities to a woman. But it seems only God will ever dispense justice in this sad case.

I wouldn't be relieved about it though, were I one of those responsible. The most just and loving Father also knows how to pick the most opportune punishment to make a point and educate a rowdy child. And the baddest the misbehaving (and its consequences!), the more educational an unpleasant lesson you can expect. Like, for instance, being reincarnated as a lost, insecure poor girl who will in turn get butchered and exploited by other opportunists. There's never any shortage of opportunists...

I remember a fiction about reincarnation, where it was "revealed" how such a lost soul as Adolf Hitler's was getting cleansed by subsequent suffering. First, he needed to forget the long habit of his own evil, so he "came back", not even as an animal, but as a plant, a being with barely any living consciousness. Major karmic setback, dude! And then, the plant he became, was a BONSAI. For those who are not familiar with the technique, a bonsai is the tree eqivalent of creating a midget by starving a baby since birth, barely letting them survive, so they will morph into adults while never managing to grow. Daily torture for life, no appeals.
And nobody said it was to be Adolf's ONLY "cleansing" period. Maybe such a lack of humility requires much more pain to get the point.

P.S.: The book's theory stated that we are made to forget all our previous lives each time we return. Therefore, only sincere learning and maturation of the soul can occur, no way to cheat by making interested calculations and false gestures. And it would explain how there can be successive existences without any proof to be found. "That's the whole point of the System!" Only the records "Beyond" hold these proofs, kept for each Judgement Day.

Granted, this is only gratuitous theory, but I like to believe in it. Rather convincing... and comforting!
It doesn't bother my christian beliefs, either. These say that we must assume the actions of our lives, but the Books never actually explain HOW exactly, nor do they claim we only get ONE chance at spiritually evolving. (Hey, these things take time!) I see a loving God as someone who would give each of us another fair chance (as he deserved it), and another, and another... Infinite mercy, right? Nothing's forgotten, but all can be forgiven. You just have to earn this forgiveness, which is quite normal.
I'm not even sure there IS an eternal Hell. I think we can all earn forgiveness, it'll just be more or less easily earned.

Did this sound appealing, or fake? ;-)

TC [Girl] said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TC [Girl] said...

An article re: what it would take to look like Barbie.