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Rating:  Summary: not just academic...extremely entertaining Review: Ford and Mitchell sure do know their stuff. This book is as enjoyable as it is insightful. Anyone who is interested in the undeniably huge fad that is the "MAKEOVER" (be it "interested" as in "love it" or "interested" as in "people have lost their minds")will find Ford & Mitchell digging into the past to help explain the current phenomena. Finding the history behind the trend, Ford & Mitchell shine a new light on this obsession we have with trying to make everything "better". The deeper questions they pose are important ones for society. Buy this book, sit back and enjoy their wit and intellect (as they have both in spades). And by the way...glasses really aren't unattractive...so don't believe everything you see on the silver screen.
Rating:  Summary: not just academic...extremely entertaining Review: Ford and Mitchell sure do know their stuff. This book is as enjoyable as it is insightful. Anyone who is interested in the undeniably huge fad that is the "MAKEOVER" (be it "interested" as in "love it" or "interested" as in "people have lost their minds")will find Ford & Mitchell digging into the past to help explain the current phenomena. Finding the history behind the trend, Ford & Mitchell shine a new light on this obsession we have with trying to make everything "better". The deeper questions they pose are important ones for society. Buy this book, sit back and enjoy their wit and intellect (as they have both in spades). And by the way...glasses really aren't unattractive...so don't believe everything you see on the silver screen.
Rating:  Summary: Raised Eyebrows Review: The Makeover in Movies: Before and After in Hollywood Films, 1941-2002, by Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell, is an interesting study of what might be called "eyebrow movies." In several of the films that Ford and Mitchell examine (Now, Voyager, The Princess Diaries, and Miss Congeniality, for instance) thick eyebrows are one of Cinderella's attributes before she gets made over, finds Prince Charming, and finally achieves self-fulfillment (usually in that order). Thick or dark eyebrows = ugly. I don't get it. As Ford and Mitchell ask, don't movie-makers realize how attractive audiences find actresses like Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz?The book is incisive and witty, but one problem with this film genre is that just by identifying it and outlining its characteristics it's hard to avoid making negative judgments about most examples. Ford and Mitchell do point out movies with positive messages and happy endings (Amy Heckerling's Clueless, writer Nia Vardalos's My Big Fat Greek Wedding), as well as films with unhappy endings but worthwhile warnings (director Brian Forbes's 1975 version of Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives). However most makeover movies give would-be Cinderellas bad messages, especially about beauty, individuality, and women's reliance on each other. As My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Stepford Wives show, there's a thin line between romance and horror, and in the movies it's usually Prince Charming who crosses it. Either WASP Ian sees the beauty inside Greek-American Toula and they live happily ever after, or Walter murders his feminist, career-absorbed wife Joanna and replaces her with a perky-breasted, servile robot. There isn't much middle ground. Sometimes books about a particular type of movie make you understand the films in a way you didn't before. This book helps you understand better why you're rooting for Cinderella to change, and makes you think a little more about whether she should.
Rating:  Summary: Raised Eyebrows Review: The Makeover in Movies: Before and After in Hollywood Films, 1941-2002, by Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell, is an interesting study of what might be called "eyebrow movies." In several of the films that Ford and Mitchell examine (Now, Voyager, The Princess Diaries, and Miss Congeniality, for instance) thick eyebrows are one of Cinderella's attributes before she gets made over, finds Prince Charming, and finally achieves self-fulfillment (usually in that order). Thick or dark eyebrows = ugly. I don't get it. As Ford and Mitchell ask, don't movie-makers realize how attractive audiences find actresses like Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz? The book is incisive and witty, but one problem with this film genre is that just by identifying it and outlining its characteristics it's hard to avoid making negative judgments about most examples. Ford and Mitchell do point out movies with positive messages and happy endings (Amy Heckerling's Clueless, writer Nia Vardalos's My Big Fat Greek Wedding), as well as films with unhappy endings but worthwhile warnings (director Brian Forbes's 1975 version of Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives). However most makeover movies give would-be Cinderellas bad messages, especially about beauty, individuality, and women's reliance on each other. As My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Stepford Wives show, there's a thin line between romance and horror, and in the movies it's usually Prince Charming who crosses it. Either WASP Ian sees the beauty inside Greek-American Toula and they live happily ever after, or Walter murders his feminist, career-absorbed wife Joanna and replaces her with a perky-breasted, servile robot. There isn't much middle ground. Sometimes books about a particular type of movie make you understand the films in a way you didn't before. This book helps you understand better why you're rooting for Cinderella to change, and makes you think a little more about whether she should.
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