Day 330: Disgusting Normality

A free Monday.  After the pressure of the last few weeks, I have no compunction whatsoever in having a double-film day.

'Disgusting

'Tiny Furniture' is the Lena Dunham's low budget 'mumblecore' debut that hooked her an HBO series.  The big fuss around it is that Lena spends much of the film stumping around in her pants being crap and awkward and NORMAL.  While this is celebrated by critics ('ground-breaking), the response from audience* leans predominantly towards the 'Ewww!  Gross - this is one ugly bitch!'  It seems that a less-than-perfect physical specimen (ie 99% of all people) elicits disgust.  Weird.

(* Admittedly, those who are prepared to post comments online - so always going to be troll-heavy.)

But on any beach you will see the 99%.  And people are not shrieking or retching.  Why?  I think it boils down to empathy.  We are not required to empathise with the nameless beach 99%.  The powers-that-be have decided we can cope with 'normal' people on screen, if they are comedy characters or background contrast to the beautiful protagonists.  But a main character who is rawly and unflatteringly naked (ie NORMAL), and who asks us to identify with her NORMAL life?  Too close to home.  We must be protected from our own insecurities. 

When you see footage of naked people in the seventies, with body hair and normal tits, they somehow seem way more naked than any polished, plucked and oven-ready porn star.  Weird that the latter is now becoming a bench mark for 'normal'.  And that 'normal' is 'ground-breaking').  Can we not face ourselves any more? 

Don't get me wrong.  I like watching beautiful people as much as the next person.  I think there is space for artifice and fantasy and escapism.  But if it means that normality is seen as disgusting, then we have gone too far.

More Lena Dunhams, please.