Jennifer Aniston wins Men's Health Magazine Poll

[novaderrik]

Though an increasing number of men are developing eating disorders, it seems, believing that they have to be enormously muscular. Even though studies show that most women aren't attracted to that. Moderately muscular, yes, but not hugely so.

i blame the same people that decided to tell women that they needed to weigh no more than 100 pounds to be considered attractive- gay men..

on this topic: there is an ad that plays on the local radio stations for one of those supplements that are guaranteed to make you really super duper muscular.. at the end, it says that a psychotherapy product is recommended to get maximum results.. i have no idea what that means, but it sounds about right..

[starcanuck64]

Cary Grant was once told that everyone wanted to be Cary Grant, and his response was that he did, too.

Which would make sense as his was a largely manufactured personality in the old entertainment style.

[Swift]

i blame the same people that decided to tell women that they needed to weigh no more than 100 pounds to be considered attractive- gay men..

I've know a number of gay men over the last 30 years or so and none of them ever told me how much I needed to weigh (unless one of my physicians is gay and I don't know it - which is fine by me).

If you are referring to members of the fashion and advertising industries, not all of them are gay men.

[R.A.F.]

Which would make sense as his was a largely manufactured personality in the old entertainment style.

Yep...he "played" Cary Grant in each of his movies...but he did it so well.

[R.A.F.]

I've know a number of gay men over the last 30 years or so and none of them ever told me how much I needed to weigh...

Yes, but you are not a woman.

[Gillianren]

If you are referring to members of the fashion and advertising industries, not all of them are gay men.

I've attempted to have that conversation with some people here, and it doesn't work. Nor does telling them that they're saying things which would probably get them infracted if they said them about any other group (except lawyers, which are also fair game around here). The fact that the fashion industry is full of heterosexual men and women? Impossible, because we've already chosen whose fault it is. Evidence, schmevidence.

[Swift]

Originally Posted by Swift
If you are referring to members of the fashion and advertising industries, not all of them are gay men.

I've attempted to have that conversation with some people here, and it doesn't work. Nor does telling them that they're saying things which would probably get them infracted if they said them about any other group (except lawyers, which are also fair game around here). The fact that the fashion industry is full of heterosexual men and women? Impossible, because we've already chosen whose fault it is. Evidence, schmevidence.

I was trying to avoid putting on the moderator hat, but it looks like I am going to...

novaderrik, I'm not going to infract you, but your comments in post # 61 are rather questionable as far as our politeness rules are concerned, as they blame an entire group of people, with no evidence to support such blame, and a group to which it is almost certainly some of our members belong.

[starcanuck64]

Yep...he "played" Cary Grant in each of his movies...but he did it so well.

Method Living I guess, two of my favorites are Bringing up Baby and Operation Petticoat.

[R.A.F.]

Operation Petticoat.

That movie is a classic.

[Gillianren]

Graham calls it "the pink submarine movie," which drives me crazy. He expressed a certain amount of glee when my aunt, unable to remember the name, did the same thing, because she's my favourite relative.

ETA--Actually, one of my most soothing holiday memories involves that movie. I woke up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve once (after midnight mass, I think, but still far too early to consider getting up), and Mom was out in the dining room, wrapping presents with Operation Petticoat playing. I went back to sleep, feeling that everything was as it should be. I was probably eight or so.

[SkepticJ]

I've read, though make no claims as to its accuracy, that fashion models look like they do because what is wanted is living clothes hangers--notice the clothes, not the models.

If true, that's pretty sick.

[HenrikOlsen]

I think it's a example of a memetic feedback loop driving evolution to an absurd extremes.

In the end it's fundamentally driven by the simple fact that fashion magazines with thinner models sell more.
This has nothing to do with gay men and everything to do with straight women.

[redshifter]

Meh, Anniston isn't even in my top 10 (if I had such a list...). Everyone knows that Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island is the hottest ever...well, except maybe for Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield, Bettie Page...or Phoebe Cates...or Raquel Welch...or....Michelle Pfeiffer....or...

[Gillianren]

Jayne Mansfield was also pretty intelligent--and a better actress than Marilyn. Jayne didn't have to have her lines written in a dresser drawer.

[SkepticJ]

I think it's a example of a memetic feedback loop driving evolution to an absurd extremes.

In the end it's fundamentally driven by the simple fact that fashion magazines with thinner models sell more.
This has nothing to do with gay men and everything to do with straight women.

But why do fashion magazines with thinner models sell more?

Why would any woman want to look like a stick figure? The options aren't binary: morbidly obese or concentration camp.

It can't be because mates find such women attractive, because the vast majority don't. They like healthy, and little make-up. Though perhaps it is a cruel irony that women think that's what others want, and torture themselves into insane self-imposed standards while the XYs and lesbians look on in horror.

Snooki would be cute if she weren't so stupid, wearing Jersey-makeup and an orange tan.

[Jim]

Jayne Mansfield was also pretty intelligent--and a better actress than Marilyn. Jayne didn't have to have her lines written in a dresser drawer.

He-e-ey! Give her some credit. At least she could read that dresser drawer.

(Yeah, Marilyn would be on my Top Ten list. Beautiful, sexual, sensual, and very, very vulnerable. A devestating combination.)

[R.A.F.]

Jayne Mansfield was also pretty intelligent...

A supposed I.Q. of 163...a classically trained violinist and pianist...spoke 5 languages.

Yep...I'd call that a sure sigh of higher than average intelligence.

[Gillianren]

(Yeah, Marilyn would be on my Top Ten list. Beautiful, sexual, sensual, and very, very vulnerable. A devestating combination.)

I pity her, but that's different. That poor woman.

[Grey]

Was Helen of Troy not on the list? How can she not be the hottest?

I recall an article in the Journal of Irreproducible Results that decided that Helen of Troy should obviously be the standard of beauty, and taking a line from Marlowe ("Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"), we then have a clear scientific measurement for beauty. The author proposed measuring beauty in millihelens (the amount of beauty needed to launch one ship, and burn down a few houses), but most women probably are on the order of a few tens of microhelens, which would seem to be somewhere around the amount of beauty needed to take a canoe out on the lake for a few hours and then curl up with on the couch by a cozy fire in the fireplace.

On a (very slightly) more serious note, I'll second Gillian's suggestion of Audrey Hepburn. Both very lovely, and a delightful actress.

[Swift]

I recall an article in the Journal of Irreproducible Results that decided that Helen of Troy should obviously be the standard of beauty, and taking a line from Marlowe ("Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"), we then have a clear scientific measurement for beauty. The author proposed measuring beauty in millihelens (the amount of beauty needed to launch one ship, and burn down a few houses), but most women probably are on the order of a few tens of microhelens, which would seem to be somewhere around the amount of beauty needed to take a canoe out on the lake for a few hours and then curl up with on the couch by a cozy fire in the fireplace.

[swampyankee]

Since I've decided that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world (it's safer that way ), I try to think that any woman I'm talking with is in second place. This means, of course, that I have to keep my raging hormones in check (it's much easier now than when I was 17. Now, they're more like mildly upset hormones) and remember that all the interesting stuff is happening with their faces, not about 30cm beneath their chin.

[Gillianren]

On a (very slightly) more serious note, I'll second Gillian's suggestion of Audrey Hepburn. Both very lovely, and a delightful actress.

And by all accounts a genuinely good person, too. Sweet, gentle, and loving. Worked for UNICEF. Helped to fight the Nazis.

[starcanuck64]

Graham calls it "the pink submarine movie," which drives me crazy. He expressed a certain amount of glee when my aunt, unable to remember the name, did the same thing, because she's my favourite relative.

ETA--Actually, one of my most soothing holiday memories involves that movie. I woke up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve once (after midnight mass, I think, but still far too early to consider getting up), and Mom was out in the dining room, wrapping presents with Operation Petticoat playing. I went back to sleep, feeling that everything was as it should be. I was probably eight or so.

There's something about that movie, I don't remember when I saw it as a child just that impressions of it stuck with me so that watching it as an adult was like seeing an old friend again.

[SkepticJ]

. . . Helped to fight the Nazis.

Anyone else get the mental picture of Audrey Hepburn walking out of a dark tunnel carrying a dirty baseball bat?

[IsaacKuo]

I find it interesting that this thread is so heavily actress oriented, whereas the question was about women in general.

Anyway, the current "skinny" standard of beauty is hardly limited to fashion magazines. It also applies to action movies and video games, two market segments which skew heavily to male consumers. The prevalence of skinny actresses and characters in action movies and video games indicates that this standard of beauty applies to male consumer preferences as well as female consumers.

Personally, I am attracted to skinny women, and I'll note that Audrey Hepburn was an archetype of this standard of beauty. She would have fit right in alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.

[HenrikOlsen]

The OP was about an actress so it's not strange at all.

[Gillianren]

Hey, I mentioned a long-dead queen of England and a girl I went to high school with. But the reason it's so heavily actress-oriented is that the women most of have common experience of tend to be actresses. Though I'll throw out a vote for Tori Amos as well, just to broaden the discussion.

[SkepticJ]

Anyway, the current "skinny" standard of beauty is hardly limited to fashion magazines. It also applies to action movies and video games, two market segments which skew heavily to male consumers. The prevalence of skinny actresses and characters in action movies and video games indicates that this standard of beauty applies to male consumer preferences as well as female consumers.

Personally, I am attracted to skinny women, and I'll note that Audrey Hepburn was an archetype of this standard of beauty. She would have fit right in alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.

There's a difference between skinny and emaciated. Skinny has always been attractive--note everything from idealized women from Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and African art, to feminine supernatural beings from Hindu art. It was generally men who made all that art, so they made what they liked.

Other than the Venus of Willendorf, I can't think of a single ancient depiction of an overweight woman. And the Venus was likely a fertility figure, not, "This is what I wish women looked like."

[Gillianren]

You haven't seen much art, have you? Try Boticelli's Birth of Venus. Or indeed anything in the Renaissance. Heck, in the fourteenth century, the clothing of Western Europe made women look pregnant, and that was the fashion. And those Greco-Roman women aren't slim.

[SkepticJ]

I knew you'd bring up Renaissance art. Yes, they did make them a little more husky then, but they're still not fat. Renaissance most certainly isn't ancient.

Across thousands of years, across numerous cultures when and where people routinely didn't have enough to eat, they didn't depict their women as overweight. They're all roughly consistent with what most people would call attractive. Some of the shapely figures on Hindu temples are major babes with fantastic hips and . . . this is a family forum.

I think that says something.