okay, here's a pet peeve. when i watch movies, i like to find stories set in older times (big surprise, right?). i really enjoy any chance to be immersed in older cultures and environments that fulfill their needs more directly and less synthetically than we do today. sure, i can read all sorts of dry material about it in textbooks and dense books found in the college libraries, but a movie or novel is more engaging.
so lately i've watched a movie set during pioneer times and one set during the early middle ages. in both movies the main female characters had very carefully shaped eyebrows. i thought that would be rather inaccurate, but as it turns out - after a bit of research - i see reports that women as early as the 1700s and even the first century bce in rome were plucking their eyebrows.
alright, so the pioneer lady could have plucked her eyebrows. i guess then it's just my personality that finds that practice ridiculous, alongside the care of livestock, gardens, home, and family she also tended.
i find it silly when movies set in medieval times show women with shaved armpits as well, but i've just read that islam has strong rules around body hair (armpit and otherwise, for men and women) and developed chemical depilatories for women since the 9th century. i don't know about medieval europe, but i still wish that it was more common for historically appropriate aesthetics and cultural norms to be followed in movie production. i suppose as long as movies are marketed toward mainstream american men and thoroughly brainwashed women, we're stuck with actresses who are plucked, shaved, thinned in some places and plumped in others rather than just left how they are.
so lately i've watched a movie set during pioneer times and one set during the early middle ages. in both movies the main female characters had very carefully shaped eyebrows. i thought that would be rather inaccurate, but as it turns out - after a bit of research - i see reports that women as early as the 1700s and even the first century bce in rome were plucking their eyebrows.
alright, so the pioneer lady could have plucked her eyebrows. i guess then it's just my personality that finds that practice ridiculous, alongside the care of livestock, gardens, home, and family she also tended.
i find it silly when movies set in medieval times show women with shaved armpits as well, but i've just read that islam has strong rules around body hair (armpit and otherwise, for men and women) and developed chemical depilatories for women since the 9th century. i don't know about medieval europe, but i still wish that it was more common for historically appropriate aesthetics and cultural norms to be followed in movie production. i suppose as long as movies are marketed toward mainstream american men and thoroughly brainwashed women, we're stuck with actresses who are plucked, shaved, thinned in some places and plumped in others rather than just left how they are.
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