This was a documentary that came out not to long ago, and I really wanted to see it. There are few docs that I would pay money to see in the theatre, it just doesn't make much sense when I can just wait for it on Dvd. I didn't get a chance to see it in the theatre, which as it turns out was okay, it was better that I waited.
They tackle a very broad issue in this film, and its America's obsession with image and beauty. The thing is, is that it's not an American problem, its world wide. So to try and just focus on America, for the most part in it seemed a little bit to much of a tunnel vision view on the subject. Personally I think if they had looked at it as a human need or want to have a beautiful partner I think it would have been stronger.
That all said it was still a very interesting doc. Even a little unnerving. We are introduced at the beginning of the movie to a runway model named Gerren Taylor, she is tall and very pretty. We see her doing photo shoots and hanging out at parties with industry people that are drinking and mostly naked, and that's when we are told that she is only 12 years old. It stopped me dead, and made me a little sick, I certainly thought she was a pretty girl, but not really my type, even so finding out she was a baby made me feel somehow dirty.
Some of the movie focuses on her, and how she rises to be a very popular model in the community and her ultimate downfall. She is very cocky and a little bit of a bitch, but the thing is I cant and wouldn't blame her for that, she is not even a teenager yet. I blame and look down on her pariah of a mother and the industry leeches that cling onto her like she was made of gold. This poor girl is made into a woman, barley wearing anything in these fashion shows and she isn't even a teenager yet, truly disgusting.
Her story is probably the craziest one that we see within the movie. They delve into cosmetic surgery and its horrors but not nearly enough as they should have, or showing any of the ways it goes to far. People getting nose jobs and boob jobs I get, I think they are unnecessary, but I understand them. When you see a woman drop a Playboy onto a doctors desk and says "Give me her vagina" I become a little confused.
They go into the damage that can be done with magazines showing "perfection" that girls buy, and buy into. They also go into air brushing a little. It was a good documentary, but I wish they would have focused more on the biology of why we want more out of our partners, why we demand such high expectations that almost no one can recreate. This shows how as we pursue beauty we show how ugly we can be. 7/10 stars.
Director: Darryl Roberts
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