Naomi Wolf presents her definitive treatise on THE BEAUTY MYTH.On a sweeping historical canvas, from the Industrial Revolution to today's multi-billion-dollar diet and cosmetic industries, Wolf exposes the Beauty Myth as a distinct cultural narrative - a fiction that "beauty" exists objectively and universally.
Having set her stage, Wolf next reveals why "beauty" must be understood within the power structures of political and economic systems and how "beauty" is used as a kind of currency, like money itself. She incisively illustrates how beauty is a story about female identity told through a cultural system of images: a potent narrative designed to sell products and support a hierarchical system of social relations with devastating consequences for female well-being, and for our most intimate relationships.
From the first printing press to today's women's magazines, Wolf illuminates how, as women made powerful strides in economic and political spheres, the Beauty Myth took hold as a new set of fictions, and as a new sphere of control. She reveals how "beauty" came to replace domesticity as a core social virtue, with its own injunctions and prescriptions, not unlike religion itself. With wit and clarity, Wolf illustrates why the Beauty Myth has nothing to do with appearances - but, instead, with channeling female identity into an ever-narrowing sphere of consumption, competition, and anxiety.
From workplace equality and sexual harassment, to cosmetic surgery and eating disorders, to the very core of social and romantic relationships, Wolf powerfully illuminates the psychological and physiological ravages of the Beauty Myth.
Naomi Wolf wraps this extraordinary six-part DVD presentation within a stirring vision of how we might transcend the Beauty Myth by shedding light on the cultural and economic systems that perpetuate it.
*Menu for easy reference:
Revolution and Subversion
The Ideal and "Preoccupation"
The Calorie Obsession
Modified Bodies & Sexuality
Aging as Disease
Reclaiming Beauty and Identity
See also NAOMI WOLF: IN DEPTH (#12887) the 23-minute companion program available with purchase of The Beauty Myth!