Behold the Burqini (tm)!

This is pretty cool. While marketed towards conservative Muslim women, it has growing appeal with other groups, such as conservative Christians, people with various ailments that make them sensitive to sunlight, as well as women who are just plain uncomfortable in a more modern 1 or 2 piece swimsuit.

Some of the reactions have been interesting as well. One in particular that caught my eye was this comment from Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of Equality Now, the international women's-rights watchdog:

"Clearly you're not considered a full human being if you're mandated to cover yourself head to toe in this tent"

That got me thinking, and I came to two conclusions: First, I think it's pretty clear that you're not considered a full human being if you're mandated to expose as much flesh as possible without actually violating obscenity laws. Now, it's true that women's dress isn't mandated in our secular Western society in the same manner certain Muslim countries , but I'm sure that all women will agree with me that the societal pressure to be a size 00 (yes, size 4 or even size 2 is too big these days) is inescapable. Just look through.... well look through just about anything: magazines, billboards, network TV ads, cable ads, banners on the internet. Everywhere you turn it is made abundantly clear that the standard of beauty in America is a slim woman with perky boobs, small waist and a tight butt. Fat people who get skinny are applauded, skinny people who get fat are ridiculed. So, while I would not say it's mandated, everyone, Taina Bien-Aimé included, would say there is unbelievable social pressure to bare it all on the beach.

Second, why do we choose to cover those small parts of the female form? I mean, very, very little is left to the imagination on certain beaches in this country; some bikini designs have less fabric than bras and panties, so why bother? Why not just let people go to the beach nude?

It must be because there's something different, something special about these areas. These body parts, the breasts, the butt and pelvic area must be more private, more intimate then the rest of the body put together. These most sensual things must never be seen in public; they are only to be shared within the confines of loving relationship. I know that that is not remotely the case in reality; (you can see enough nipples to last a lifetime, for free, in five minutes, on the net) what I'm trying to get at here is the Cultural Ideal. If that's the reason we keep certain areas of the body sacred, might not Muslim standards of decency be for the same reason? To keep certain sensuous, intimate, even erotic parts of the body out of the public arena? If that's so, then a Burqini is a significant upgrade to the worth and value of the feminine form, far above and beyond the value we generally place on it.

Some Thoughts on Cinematic Portrayals of Christianity

Wow, that's a pompous title.

Anyway, just got back from seeing 300 (it rocks, highly recommended) and there were two references to Catholicism in the previews (300 itself predates Catholicism by a fair bit). First, there was a Catholic priest, recognizable by his collar in a trailer for The Reaping and, evidently, Eddie Brock in Spiderman 3 is a Catholic too (he was shown crossing himself with holy water as he entered a cathedral to ask God to kill Peter Parker.

I'm Catholic, too, and these two things got me thinking about how movies portray Christianity. These are just a few things that came to mind; they're not particularly well thought out.

When a character in a movie needs to be established as "religious", they are portrayed almost always as Catholic. I wondered why that was, and came up with a few ideas. First, it is usually considered to be the largest single Christian denomination, with something around 1 billion baptized members, so it's easily accessible to many people. More than that, I think, the Catholic Church has number symbols like the collar, the rosary, confession (reconciliation), and the Vatican that make it easy to characterize someone as being "Catholic." It's an economy of narration; You paint a few broad strokes and let the audience fill in the rest. Most other Christian faiths lack such readily identifiable symbols, or may lack denomination-specific symbols entirely.

The one major exception to this (in movies, mind you) is black people, who are usually portrayed as belonging to some indeterminant protestant sect, understood by the audience to be baptist. This is especially true is the character is a minister or preacher; you never see black priests in the movies.

Catholics are urban/suburban, and protestants, when portrayed, are rural or southern.

The Catholic faithful seem to come in two flavors: the fairly devout (going to Confession, receiving Communion) or just-making-the-motions type, a la Bethany in the beginning of Dogma.

Protestant faithful (bear in mind, I'm using protestant in a very broad sense; in Hollywood, protestant is essentially defined as "non-Catholic") either have a very down home, simple faith, or are seen to be crazy bible-thumpers.

When deviance is portrayed in a Catholic community in the movies, it always seems to be priestly deviance. The members of the church are fairly average people, but the priest (deacon, bishop) is a lech or actually worshiping Satan or involved in some super-secret but uber-powerful cabal within the church.

When deviance is portrayed in protestant communities, usually the whole community is in on the weirdness; everybody thinks it's perfectly normal to share your wife with your brother and sacrifice a live lamb every full moon to the evil spirits that live in the woods. This may be because there is less of a hard distinction between clergy and laity in many protestant faiths.

Just some thoughts. Maybe more later.