Superstar

Had a Banned Movies Night this evening (and an aborted attempt to see A New World because I don't own a car and Chris didn't want to change his flat tire). Went over to Rentz's and Miss Edwards's apartment to watch Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. This is a movie from about 1985 or so which depicts the life of Karen Carpenter using Barbies as the actors. It's a banned movie because Todd Haynes never got permission to use the Carpenters songs. The evening started out lighthearted. We made a strawberry Barbie cake complete with plastic women thinking that we were in for 40 minutes of delicious kitsch. Unfortunately, the movie was about the horror of one of America's sweethearts wasting away before millions of adoring fans.

Appetites quite supressed, we watched with our hearts in our throats at the grotesque Barbie Karen taking Ex-Lax and eventually o.d.-ing on ipecac. Poor girl. My reaction was weird and didn't really hit me until later. I'm kind of pissed right now because I keep thinking of the media circus around Lindsay Lohan

and Mary-Kate Olsen

and Nicole Richie.

Quick! Put them in a great big spotlight so that we can Save Them from Themselves! Bring sandwiches! And self-esteem! And a new social concept of beauty! Such a crappy cycle. The alleged point behind using the Barbie dolls in the Karen Carpenter movie was to show how ironic it is that we vilify and/or judge women who go through things like anorexia and less lethal body image issues but we raise them on things like Barbie. Where do we women get these silly ideas that we should weigh three pounds and have enormous breasts!? The bitch of it is that I can know all this on an objective level. And I can know that the normal guys that I want to date really don't give a crap if I don't look like a Barbie doll. But damned if that helps when I'm trying on a swimsuit. Such a crappy cycle.