According to the article "Muscular Body Image Lures Boys Into Gym, and Obsession", "There has been a striking change in attitudes toward male body image in the last 30 years". The survey also shows that the bodybuilding trend in male teenagers leads to some harmful habits such as taking supplements in dangerous amount and steroids in order to increase muscle mass.
The werewolf from the Twilight movies, and those shirtless scene reoccurring in TV series, music videos, and other feature films can assure us the booming of male muscle appreciation during this decade. Around ten years earlier, I think the six packs and the massive muscled body of men could be found only in those who were athletes but now most of the salary men are willing to pay the high price of fitness membership in order to make their body look good by building some muscles. In my opinion,it is a advantageous trend because it encouraging people to do more excising which is good for their health, comparing to the skinny trend in women which is, on the contrary, damaging those girls' health. However, when thing goes beyond the moderate line, it causes problem. Many of American teenagers take it too serious and turn out to be activity damaging their health.
Apart from the physical perspective, do you know that this trend conveys hidden meaning? This article reminds me about my conversation with my senior who is a film critique. He explains to me that this trend has the same social meaning like "white skin" trend in Europe before the industrial revolution. Both are tools for the upper class people to express their wealth and distinguished their group from the poor. At that time, white skin trend works as symbol of wealth because it show that you are so rich that you don't have to work in farm during daytime among the sun light which would turn your skin darker. Then the twist occurred after the industrial revolution, the poor had to leave farmland to work inside industrial building so their skin turned pale. The wealth's reaction was the new preferable skin tone for them is tan. They enjoyed spend time sun bathing on the garden sipping tea. Like the trend of men figure,the strong, muscled body used to belong to the labor class of the society, while the skinny body reflects middle class citizen who work in office. The wealth tries to distinguished themselves from other lower class by building their body. The muscle which is caused from labor work is different form muscle created by working out in gym.
After I heard his explanation and read this article, I felt sad that human are so eager to show that they are superior to other that they willing to harmfully distort their own natural bodies.
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Reference
An excellent response to an article in The New York Times, Air's blog response is an inspiring example for the move we making from the BBC News to more challenging daily reading material.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I agree with Quenqua that there have been massive changes over the past 30 years, I wonder exactly what attitude it is that has changed. When I started reading, the first thing I thought of was ancient Greek art - all those nude males with beautifully proportioned bodies that were so popular 2,500 years ago at the birth of Western culture. And the gymnasium was an important part of classical Greek culture, open to all male citizens. Interestingly, the etymology of the word fits neatly with your comments about Jacob in Twilight - the Greek roots mean "to train naked", which is what the Greeks did. Competition in the Olympic games was also in the nude. Perhaps Jacob should have been stripping off a bit more than just his shirt.
It's interesting how Western culture, which is increasingly the global culture of all peoples, has come full circle in some ways. There are now no shortage of busy gyms around my home on Silom, and I see plenty of adverts in Thai showing sexy men with the obligatory six-pack. Is this cultural imperialism, or something much simpler? Is it a change for the better or the worse? And what does it really signify? Is Air's film critic friend right to see it as a form of class competition, rich in symbolism?
I also admire six-pack which is not only men’s monopoly, but also women’s whish-to-have things, especially in women’s case it represents as number-eleven-shape’s abdominal muscles. Not knowing when it started, the symbol of sexy of men changed from robust and mass muscular body, like the old movie’s Rambo , to lean and fitted muscular body, nowadays’ most of male movie stars and young idols. Many bulky guys resent this kind of phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteI know an addict to muscles who was my daughter’s swimming coach. He wanted to build and preserve his muscles which were made by long weight training, and he was proud of his body, so he didn't swim. He always taught how to swim in the fringe of a pool, also there was no showing an example because he insisted swimming and weight training make different part of muscles and he didn't give up his weight training muscles. I don’t know he took some supplements for his muscles, but maybe he did. Does he continue his job, a swimming coach, until now?
Honestly, living with man is not easy and sometimes bored. We need freedom to enjoy life. We are sick of drinking or smoking. We need another hobby or delight. We don't want to have pix packs, we just want to feel alive.Let us be free.
ReplyDeleteBut if the teenage werewolves live longer, does that justify the effort to bulk up a bit to look sexy?
ReplyDeleteI thought of both Air's and Cee's recent posts when I read "Early death link to muscle power", although Michelle Roberts emphasises that the correlation is not necessarily causal (2012), I thought the results interesting in the light of the discussion here and on Cee's post.
Reference
Roberts, M. (2012, November 21). Early death link to muscle power. BBC News Health. Retrieved November 21, 2012 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20406742
It's a new trend in Thailand that male actor should have muscles to be more masculine and attractive. I used to see this trend in western films and series only. I agree with Air that it is better than the slim trend of women which deprive their food for that. But if you use a short cut by taking drug like steroids, it's useless for your health.
ReplyDeleteIn next century, maybe we will have a trend like obese is symbol of higher status.