Posts tagged beauty

My minor in college was Rhetoric & Film Studies, which is the hippie liberal arts school equivalent to communications… but way more fun.

As someone who grew up reading People and could name every primetime television show that aired on major networks since 1989, you could say that pop culture is part of my diet.  So when I got the opportunity to take a class called “Hollywood Stars” my senior year to finish up my minor, you bet I soaked up every bit of it!

We had a lesson one day that discussed characters of stars.  Essentially, you’ll personalities like the cowboy, the girl next door, the macho man, the villain, and many others.  My personal favorite: the pinup.

To define pinup would be like trying to define a common piece of every woman you’ve ever seen on the big screen… and every woman you’ve probably met.

We think of pinups as women who channel an era of yesteryear, who also play with the cheeky-ness of a sexual revolution over the horizon.  The style transcends decades, reflecting the cutting edge of what it means to be a lady. Miss Manners expects us to be prim and proper, not a curl out of place… but there’s something about the pinup culture that encourages women to draw outside the lines. You know, be real.

Do you know of any woman who has ever stayed inside the lines? Besides nuns? We’re not perfect, but that is precisely what is so attractive about the woman, the pinup. In an imperfect way, the pinup can very well be the ideal woman in some eyes.

The pinup has been a mom, a wife, a single girl, a working woman, even a source of encouragement during tough times! If you ask me, the pinups won WWII. Enter the likes of Betty Grable.  You’d fight like hell too if you could imagine coming home to a girl like her.

Lines don’t have curves and that’s why pinups don’t adhere to any particular body standard.  Marilyn Monroe was a size 12, and still manages to reign supreme as one of the most beautiful women of all time. You’ll see me write more and more about this figure in pop culture history because I find it to be so important to see how skewed American body standards and modern-day feminism can be today.  I can’t tell you how many women I know (myself included) talk themselves down, but find a whole new light of encouragement when embracing the vintage and voluptuous style of the pinup. I’ve met pinups twice my size, age and height that have totally rocked with self-confidence and remained to stay outside any line.

It’s definitely something to admire.

Disclaimer: This post is about as shallow as I get. My apologies. Damn you, degrading American culture! I’ve fallen victim to your regressive ways! I must refrain from my feminist behavior to impart the following thoughts.

As if I don’t already blab about this enough, my boyfriend comes home from Iraq soon. Like SOON soon. So, I’ve come to a point where it’s crunch time to look like a knockout. What. a. stretch.

Although he’s been surrounded by grunty Army guys 24/7 and wouldn’t care how I looked, as long as I’m a woman (how primitive is that?), I’d like to kick it up a notch and even wow myself.

My journey for the next month or so will include:

• Slighlty & subtly coloring the pelo. I vowed after high school that I would keep it black for the rest of my life due to some poor judgment calls on my part about how cool it would be to have blond highlights. I learned that if you’re Filipino, blond is not your color. Keep it natural! Slight twists to a look doesn’t involve looking like you’re a love child of Carrot Top and Imelda Marcos.
• Tone up. 8 minute abs 2xday + 30 min of cardio and weights
  .
• Whiten the chompers. I get pretty particular about my teeth, because after finding out how much my parents paid for braces, I feel like I have a mouth that costs as much as a BMW. So like a nice 
• Waxing. Enough said.

Read more …