Tyr s Day, November 27: The Beauty Myth

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Tyr s Day, November 27: The Beauty Myth"

Aubrey Moody
5 years ago
Views:

1 Tyr s Day, November 27: The Beauty Myth EQ: What is Beauty, and how have thinkers defined it? Welcome! Gather pen/pencil, paper, wits! Aesthetic, Beatific Reading and Writing: Girls and Cars and Stuff Lecture/Presentation: The Beauty Myth o John Keats: Beauty Is Truth Endymion, 1818 Grecian Urn, 1819 o Aesthetic Theories: Models, Monsters, Morph Technology Closing Freewrite: A Personal Aesthetic ELACC12RL-RI2: Analyze two or more themes or central ideas of text ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop ELACC12RL4-RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text ELACC12RL6: Distinguish what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant ELACC12RI6: Determine an author s point of view or purpose in a text ELACC12RI7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources to address a question or solve a problem ELACC12RL-RI9: Analyze for theme, purpose rhetoric, and how texts treat similar themes or topics ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently. ELACC12W1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions ELACC12L1: Demonstrate standard English grammar and usage in speaking and writing. ELACC12L2: Use standard English capitalization, punctuation, spelling in writing. ELACC12L3: Demonstrate understanding of how language functions in different contexts ELACC12L4: Determine/clarify meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

2 aesthetic having to do with beauty in a theoretical or philosophical sense

3 beauty beatific having qualities of blessedness; a condition of close contact with God

Opening Freewrite: Girls and Cars and Stuff Film director and fashion designer Tom Ford, interviewed on the National Public Radio program Fresh Air, December 14, 2009. 2009 National Public Radio.

They look engorged. Lips pumped up, breasts pumped up, everything pumped up. And it's kind of off-putting. It's sexual but in such a hard way that it's not sexual at all.

4 Opening Freewrite: Girls and Cars and Stuff Film director and fashion designer Tom Ford, interviewed on the National Public Radio program Fresh Air, December 14, National Public Radio. The female form mirrors where we are culturally, aesthetically, at a period in history. Right now everything is pumped up. Cars look like someone took an air pump and pumped them up. They look engorged. Lips pumped up, breasts pumped up, everything pumped up. And it's kind of off-putting. It's sexual but in such a hard way that it's not sexual at all. I think that right now we're in a very hard moment and off-putting. Look at shoes today. Women's shoes couldn't possibly get any higher and meaner and sharper. In the 1970s, breasts were smaller. People were not wearing bras. Farrah Fawcett's beauty was a very touchable beauty. She was kissable. She was friendly. But breasts right now don't look like breasts. They look like someone's taken a grapefruit half and inserted it under your skin. It doesn't bear any resemblance to what a natural breast looks like. But we're starting to think that this is what women should look like. And young girls are looking at these breasts and thinking, oh, I need to go have my breasts done because they've lost touch with what a real breast actually looks like. I find that fascinating; I find that disturbing. We're becoming post-human. We are starting to manipulate our bodies, because we can, into a shape. We are becoming our own art. But it desexualizes everything. You start to look more and more polished, more and more lacquered, and you look like a beautiful car. Does anyone want to sleep with you? Does anyone want to touch you? Does anyone want to kiss you? Maybe not, because you're too scary. You're beautiful, you're glossy, you're shiny, but you're not human. If you look at the 1950s, quite fascinating, tailfins, sharp, going to Mars, going to the moon, breasts pointed in a way that, when we look at them today, so bizarre. Women's lips, the beauty standard then was thin, pointy, long lines of lip, eyes the same thing. So, culturally, graphically where we were in the 1950s was reflected in the female form. Where we are in 2009 is reflected in the female form.

5 In a 100 word freewrite, respond to a passage (quote) from this that you find interesting. In your reflection, correctly use the word aesthetic. In 1817, at age 19, unwed mother Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Who was she hanging out with at the time, and what did they talk about?

John Keats (1795-1821) Philosopher-Poet of Beauty A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a

6 John Keats ( ) Philosopher-Poet of Beauty A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. from Endymion, 1818 When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. from Ode on a Grecian Urn, words: Agree?

7 The Beauty Myth I m a juxtaposition of flaws from head to toe. You can't change that. You have to make your flaws work for you. Iman, supermodel, 1990 In Wit, as Nature, what affects our Hearts Is not Exactness of peculiar Parts; 'Tis not a Lip, or Eye, we Beauty call, But the joint Force and full Result of all No single Parts unequally surprise; All comes united to admiring Eyes; No monstrous Height, or Breadth, or Length appear; The Whole at once is Bold, and Regular. Alexander Pope, Essay On Criticism, 1719 In 1990, Judith Langlois and Lori Roggman of the University of Texas assembled photos of beautiful faces, then generated computer-composite images by averaging the intensity of pixels. Viewers judged the composite images to be better-looking than the original faces. In the words of Langlois and Roggman, attractive faces are, literally, average. New Scientist, 22 February 1992 His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful great God! Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1819

Closing Freewrite (150 words) Formulate your own aesthetic philosophy by addressing one or more of the following, quoting from TWO DIFFERENT AUTHORS read and discussed today.

8 Closing Freewrite (150 words) Formulate your own aesthetic philosophy by addressing one or more of the following, quoting from TWO DIFFERENT AUTHORS read and discussed today. Somewhere, use the word aesthetic correctly. 1. Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty, wrote Keats. True or False? 2. Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, runs the cliché. Do we really believe this, or do we just say it? 3. Why and how does Beauty influence us so powerfully? 4. What ratio of Normal and Abnormal creates Beauty? 5. Discuss some other idea about Beauty. Submit all 3 Freewrites Opening, 50 wd, Closing

Moon s Day, March 16: True Lies, Head To Head

Moon s Day, March 16: True Lies, Head To Head EQ: How can we use both Aristotle and Kafka to describe the truth of fiction? Welcome! Gather ESSAY RUBRIC, pen/cil, paper, wits! Discussion: Kafka, Aristotle,