The depiction of beauty ideals and beauty standards in Robert Iscove's "She's all that"

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Contents

Contents 2

1.  Content of the movie  3

2.  Introduction  3

3.  The depiction of beauty ideals and beauty  

  standards in She s all that  3

3.1.  Laney s original self  3

3.2.  Reactions to Laney s original self  4

3.2.1.  Female reactions  4

3.2.2.  Male reactions  4

3.3.  Laney s transformation  5

3.4.  Reactions to Laney s transformation  5

3.4.1.  Female reactions  5

3.4.2.  Male reactions  6

3.4.3.  Laney s reaction  7

4.  Conclusions  7

  Works Cited  9

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1. Content of the movie

Zack Siler (Freddie Prince Jr.) is the most popular student on his high school, but he is left by his girlfriend Taylor, the most popular girl on his high school. He decides to ruin her chances of becoming prom queen and bets with his friend Dean that he is able to make every girl win against Taylor. His friend picks Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook), an outsider who is regarded as a freak by almost everybody, because she is more interested in art and the miseries in the world than in parties. After Laney has changed her outward appearance they fall in love.

2. Introduction

In Robert Iscove’s She’s all that beauty ideals and beauty standards play a major role and the submission of Laney to these standards and ideals is the reason why Zack falls in love with her.

That is why I am going to argue that in Robert Iscove’s movie ideals of white, middle-class, male society are taken as a basis to prove that submission to these standards is the only way for women to be accepted by men.

3. The depiction of beauty ideals and beauty standards in She’s all that

3.1. Laney’s original self

In the first scenes of She’s all that the viewer is introduced to the original Laney Boggs. She wears old clothes, glasses and no makeup and is working on a picture on a riot in Mogadishu. The viewer also gets to know that Laney is a very caring person as she prepares the breakfast for her younger brother. Furthermore she seems to be very informed about the miseries in the world: „There are children in Mexico who have already been up for three hours making clothes for corporate America” (She’s all that, scene1). A couple of scenes later we find out that she is interested in other forms of art as well when she takes part in performance art.

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All in all Laney’s beauty is based on her character rather than on her outward appearance.

3.2. Reactions to Laney’s original self

3.2.1. Female reactions

Female reactions towards Laney are very rude. In one of the first scenes Laney is confronted with two girls in her art class who have a rather drastic advice for her: “We thought it might be a good idea for you if you killed yourself” (Ibid, scene 2). Zack’s female friends also do not seem to like her: “Is your name Laney? – No. Thank God!” (Ibid, scene 5).

By acting so these women want to make themselves feel better by humiliating Laney or like Susan Bordo puts it these “women shore[d] up belief in the robustness of their own self-respect, self-confidence and ‘purity’”(9). Their attitude shows that they have already been indoctrinated by male thinking and have accepted their view of the world and their standards and ideals. In other words they adapted to these norms so well that they think of them as their own norms. This can also be seen in a statement given in order to criticise Laney for not being sporty: “You run like a girl” (She’s all that, scene 5) which shows that these women are willing to use sexist expressions against their own gender just to humiliate somebody that does not fit into the norms they are living by.

3.2.2. Male reactions

Zack’s first reaction towards Laney is representative of the way male high school students see Laney. He characterizes her as “scary and inaccessible” (She’s all that, scene 2). He even goes as far as to objectify her: “I would not say somebody, but there is a sort of project” (Ibid, scene 3).

Zack’s and Dean’s attitude towards Laney is highly sexist as she is not more than part of a bet in order to prove their manhood without taking into account her feelings. They create what Bordo calls “mind/body dualism” (13) as they assign the role of the body to Laney (e.g. in scene 5 they focus entirely on her body) and the role of the