So, I watched a marathon of Girls
season three this weekend. Previously I
saw a bit of season two, but this was my first real encounter with this much-discussed
show. It was also my first encounter with
the most talked about topic of the show: Lena Dunham’s liberal exposure of her
naked, very normal, “non-Hollywood” physique.
I put the terms Lena Dunham’s
nudity in quotation marks on Google and got 76,000 results. And if you take out the quotations, boy are
you left with a lot of people jabbering about her naked body. I did find it interesting how she throws her
character into toplessness at times when it isn’t needed for the events of the
scene. Yet I read somewhere that she
does it because in life, people are just naked sometimes and she wants her show
to be a slice of life. Ok, I guess I buy
that.
This got me thinking. Maybe the general discomfort that many feel
towards Lena Dunham’s “normal” body reflects a discomfort that we as a nation
have towards our own “real” bodies. I
watched the Chilean film Gloria some months ago and it portrayed scenes of an
older couple falling in love. Their
love story included scenes of them having sex and nudity. I’ll be honest; I was a bit shocked to see a
sex scene that included flabby skin and a little extra huffing and
puffing. That isn’t anything I’ve ever
seen in a Hollywood film. Don’t other countries say that Americans are
uptight about nudity?
In the United
States a sex scene includes two ripped,
glistening bodies contorted as the couple mutually climaxes to a screaming,
exemplary orgasm. In this country, when
we see a naked body we see it airbrushed, in perfect lighting from the perfect
angle and after the actor or actress has paid a personal trainer thousands of
dollars to whip them into the shape they need to be in to go naked. No, famous people don’t let the world see
them in their “regular shape” (which quite frankly, for most of us would seem
pretty awesome). Our celebrities have to
get themselves to a place of molded perfection.
The body is supposed to have
curves, right? I mean, even if a person
is a healthy weight, isn’t there still some curve in the natural body? Lena Dunham’s physique would have been
considered ideal some generations ago.
Take a trip to your local museum and you are likely to find a painting
of a beautiful voluptuous woman.
Throughout much of history, people would have judged her curves as a
sign of fertility and wealth.
What percentage of us has
difficulty looking at ourselves naked in the mirror? Show of hands? Do you see my hand in the air? Because that isn’t my favorite pastime. So maybe Lena Dunham’s body represents
something much deeper in the general population. Because, quite frankly, Lena Dunham looks
much more like the rest of us than any glistening celebrity body shot from the
perfect angle. Maybe people have trouble
looking at her, because people feel uncomfortable with themselves.
Lena Dunham’s naked body taught me
that, as a country, we need to start to embrace the way we look naked. I mean, the way we really look when we are
naked. If we can’t look at a reflection
of a real body on television, how will we ever be able to make peace with ourselves? As a
food and weight loss coach, I haven’t forgotten the importance of being
healthy. And the healthy body for most
people includes at least some curve. Yet
we can’t be healthy, no matter what size we are, if we can’t make peace with
what we are at our core.
So I guess watching a marathon of Girls
wasn’t such a mindless experience. And
I’m sure as long as there is lots of nudity in the show, people will keep
talking. Society’s view of the ideal
body changes as generations change. We
can blame Hollywood , but at the end
of the day, we are the ones buying the tickets.
As individuals, we get to decide for ourselves what is normal and what
is beautiful.
So what do you choose as your model
of beauty?
You may learn more about Erica at http://www.ericamesirov.com
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