Saturday, January 19, 2008

Gay Men

are God's gift to women. I love me some Carson. This is my thought after watching Love Yourself Naked. I've been feeling sorry for myself lately because I have gained some weight back. I'm not brave enough at this moment to post numbers, but it's enough to bother me on a daily basis. I've been working on it. To be honest, I'm tired. I feel like I've been dieting for decades.

This morning I happened to come upon this show, and it is simply amazing how distorted some of our body images can be. Watching this show made me feel better about myself. This article can say it better than I can (swipe!) :

New Fitness Instruction: Sing the Body Eclectic

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

Published: January 4, 2008

“How to Look Good Naked,” a new series on Lifetime, bears a title provocative not for its suggestion of sex but rather for its intimation of futility. To a great many people older than 26, “How to Look Good Naked” sounds an awful lot like “How to Build a Global Brand Just Like Steve Jobs, Before the Next Rose Bowl.”

The series, a remake of one that originated in Britain, arrives, however, as the greatest triumph of cognitive therapy that reality television has ever produced. In it Carson Kressley advances beyond his role as stylist and wit to serve as something like a mental-health professional determined to get one new woman a week not merely to stop hating her body but to regard it as if it belonged to Maud Adams in “Octopussy.” Talleyrand negotiating at the Congress of Vienna surely faced less resistance.

An antidote to makeover programs that tell us flesh is what must be made over, the series dresses up old-school feminist arguments, without any concession to obesity paranoia. Mr. Kressley in his coral cashmere cable-knit is like a cheerful, menschy, cartoon character that might have sprung from the pages of “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” had it been willing to have a good time. The world of “How to Look Good Naked” is a happy and optimistic place where no one is overweight, but everyone suffers from a curable form of body dysmorphia.

Mr. Kressley does not direct anyone toward steamed broccoli or a spin class, even when they appear, quite objectively, to be needed. He refuses to advocate weight loss by any means, pushing instead for a total defeat of body-image disorder by providing women with tangible evidence of their flawed perceptions. He functions as counselor both in the psychological and lawyerly sense, offering canny new thought patterns to replace downer feelings: proving to women, for instance, how they are, inch for inch, actually trimmer than those with whom, for reasons of poor self-esteem, they might compare themselves.

The show places predictable blame on the news media for causing women to dislike their physical appearance even as it offers further indication that such an argument is harder to make. Tabloids demonize celebrity anorexics now, photographing them as if they belonged to the ranks of the criminally insane, while reveling in beach portraits of stars looking flabbily just like us. Who doesn’t go to the supermarket half-expecting to see that Us magazine will have produced a spinoff called Cellulite Weekly?

The bright gimmick of “How to Look Good Naked” is that it also uses objectifying images to work its positive-thinking mind games. Layla, the subject of tonight’s premiere episode, is a 32-year-old human resources associate who, to anyone who is a fitness elitist or French, seems to be fat. But the episode will certainly leave you feeling guilty for thinking so.

Mr. Kressley, in addition to getting Layla to buy a new bra that flattens the rolls on the sides of her chest, puts a photograph of her up as a billboard in Santa Monica, Calif. When passers-by are filmed saying nice things about her, Layla begins to feel better. And with some new clothes, Layla really starts appreciating Layla. Mr. Kressley never pretends that there is a woman alive who can learn to love herself without at least a handful of people telling her she looks half-way decent. “How to Look Good Naked” isn’t just fun. It’s honest.

HOW TO LOOK GOOD NAKED

Lifetime, Friday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.
Riaz Patel, Chris Coelen, Greg Goldman, Alex Fraser, Jim Sayer and Jo Rosenfelder, executive producers; Carson Kressley and Diane DeStefano, co-executive producers. Produced by RDF Media and Maverick TV for Lifetime Television. Carson Kressley, host.
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