Happiness, + segue

Last Friday's VSL email was another gem. It turns out that Sundance has a virtual movie festival this year. And best of all, it's free. I've seen about 5 so far, and they were more weird than interesting or good. And I actively tried to pick the normal ones! VSL knows their stuff though: the recommended short was an 11-minute film called Happiness. After watching it, I found out that the "star" is Polish actress Elżbieta Czyżewska, ex-patriate. It doesn't mean anything for the movie, but what can I say - I like seeing Polish people around. Also, watch it. It's beautifully done, and all women should be able to identify with its message.

[Spoiler!] So the short is about this old woman (probably a spinster, lives alone) named Iwona, who works in a condom factory and visibly leads a pretty dreary existence. In the condom factory, she sees her supervisor, who superficially seems to be very confident, because she wears white stilettos at work. She also wears band-aids on her heels, the typical symbol of the pain required for beauty or style. One day, Iwona buys an expensive box labeled "happiness" from a Russian store. Eventually, she returns it... I suppose she knows how she will get happiness herself. She buys white stilettos, wears them to work, and goes through all the pain of wearing ridiculous shoes. She puts band-aids on her heels. In the last shot, we see her feet, and her supervisor's feet - this time wearing red stilettos.[done]

This is where the segue comes in.

I was reading about why women desperately want to be skinnier than what men find attractive. A few observations:
* women are more comfortable being naked in front of men than women, because women are critical.
* on an evolutionary layer, attractive=fertile looking, BUT
* on an environmental layer, what is hard to attain = attractive, because people admire this. So if food is scarce, well-fed women are beautiful, while in plentiful America, thin is the thing to be, AND
* on a cultural layer, thinness is prized because it is a sign of independence, strength and achievement.

I completely agree with the last point (the second point is not one I've thought about before). Every time I look at a thin girl, I always see her achievements first: she's so driven because she's skinny; she's so hardworking because she's skinny; she's so disciplined that she can keep her body skinny. She's in control. It always comes back to issues of control - I wish I didn't understand the anorexics quite so well, especially when I'm cursed with this complete lack of self-control that, luckily, sets me apart from them.