December 21, 2001

LOW-FAT SPREAD: THE ENGLISHWOMAN'S VIEW

LOW-FAT SPREAD: THE ENGLISHWOMAN'S VIEW OF AMERICAN PORN AND THE BEAUTY MYTH

I've been meaning to mention Victoria Coren's column in Wednesday's Evening Standard, "Everything's Bigger in America." Noting that Nigella Lawson's cooking show has been described in the New York Times as looking like "a prelude to an orgy," she writes:

Actually, it doesn't. I've had lunch on a porn film set in California [indeed? ed.], and even their X-rated stars are self-denying. What the prelude to an orgy really looks like is carrot sticks, wheat free bagels and low-fat spread. "Low-fat spread," in fact, describes the American porn industry in a nutshell. Female porn stars make Calista Flockhart look like Roseanne: if you're size 12 or over, you have to work in "fat fetishist" movies.

She adds that "out in the Midwest, men are salivating over... coat-hanger bodies... because their size-30 wives can't get up from the sofa and switch off the video."

Ouch, that's mean. Criticizing Americans for being fat is a faithful standby of the British case for their own cultural superiority-- it's one of the last ones they've still got, to be honest. You hear it all the time, and you sometimes have the feeling they're scrutinizing your midsection a little too closely for comfort, particularly given their traditional (occasionally merciful) "reserve."

But I mention this mainly because the conventional wisdom is that the word "porn" gets you more hits than anything other than "Britney," and I wanted to test the theory. Now that I've used them both in one post: hit me, baby.

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 21, 2001 05:00 AM | TrackBack