Body Dysmorphia And Other Things in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

I’ve been working on something in my head recently. I don’t want to follow the path of everyone else and keep talking about the Virus and the Virus’ effect on things. Largely because (in my state) we’re doing things stupid as fuck and it pisses me off because everyone would rather listen to the political bullshit as opposed to the scientific facts. EVIDENCE OF THAT:
(1) People are still complaining that “The US handled this the best they could considering that this came from China.” Which… no, we didn’t and still aren’t. We don’t even have enough COVID testing kits for our Federal Senate as of Friday… do you think we have enough testing kits to test 20% of the United States?! And why are we still trying to focus on WHERE IT CAME FROM?! What, the fact that the US government didn’t do a damned thing during February, continued to say this was just “a flu” in March, and are opening things back up in May against Medical Recommendations.... that’s less important than making sure we blame China?
(2) My brother needed to go to a Lawn and Garden store on Saturday in a different county. He called to ask them about their Mask/Curb Side Pick Up policies. The dude laughed at him, called him a conspiracy nut, and hung up on him. MY BROTHER GOT A MASTER’S DEGREE FROM THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF GEORGIA and the dude running the Lawn and Garden store laughed at his concern for PPE policy in the middle of a pandemic.
(3) My father, during my birthday phone call, could barely restrain his anger at me being upset about things opening back up. He was railing about “Sure, just let the economy die! People starving and dying because the economy is destroyed is a much better way for people to die, right?!” Well… father of mine who has voted GOP in every election since 1972… let’s look at European Countries who have been facing COVID restrictions for longer and in many places more heavily? Oh, many of their economies haven’t tanked as hard as the US. Oh, many of their people aren’t laid off/starving/being hung out to dry. Why is that? Because the anti-government ‘gut social safety nets’ profit-over-people bullshit didn’t succeed in a stranglehold on the governments there. SO… maybe… pretending that Privatizing everything and worshiping Profit, even over people’s ability to consume, is the problem and not the response to trying to keep people from catching a virus we still know very little about.

TANGENT: This whole thing is actually why I agree that the fictional Ferengi are ethically and morally superior to modern day humans. The Ferengi are seen as greedy, money worshiping monsters in many ways. And… they are, a bit. They’d prefer to turn a profit than “do the right thing.” BUT AT LEAST THEY UNDERSTAND THAT COMMERCE IS MORE THAN JUST THE MONEY you EARN! This is the part of American Capitalism that I have never understood. When the country has a financial problem… the government gives the money to the rich. WHY?! If they already have money… giving them more doesn’t stimulate the economy or protect jobs. It just means that companies “won’t worry as much about quarterly profits maybe.” The smartest idea would be to give money to the bottom rung. The people having trouble paying rent, paying bills, buying groceries. Because if you give them the money? The rich will get it within 24 hours… but at least that money will have entered into “the stream of commerce” before being shuffled into a tax-shelter bank account! That is why Ferengi never had slaves. They might not pay their workers much but they always found the idea of “people in your community that can’t purchase anything” to be nonsense. How are you going to have a society based on profit when you have a large amount of people that can’t participate in that? It doesn’t make sense! Welcome to the United States. Half of the GOP think “anti government is good” and the other half think Corporations and the Rich deserve more money because they are smarter, better… like Elon Musk who tanked 15 BILLION dollars of his own stock by tweeting “TESLA stock is too high.” Yup. Those are the people in charge right now. Anti-Government Pro-Corporation assholes telling people that they have to go back to work despite it not being safe because “The government shouldn’t support people through this” and “Corporations need their expendables to keep producing so that the Corporations remain profitable!”

SORRY! Clearly, I have… a bit of passion about all of this. As I should as someone who can’t chose whether I go to work and interact with people or not. And as someone who still values things like intelligence, research, experts, and thought. Because… damn am I sick of politics being more important than actual fucking facts.

BUT to get to what I wanted to talk about as referenced in the title!

As part of my COVID Shelter Entertainment; I have been binging a show I always wanted to watch buy saw zero episodes of when it was running. COMMUNITY. Yeah, I missed that show entirely! Though, to my defense, the show ran from 2009 to 2015 so… right while I was at peak struggle in marriage and law school. Pretty much anything in the Pop Culture world that took place in or around 2011 to 2015 missed me! So, I have been thoroughly enjoying watching the show and am now 4 episodes from completing the entire series.

While I am intelligent and mature enough to know that Actors are different from Characters; how a character looks in a show like Community is often not that different from how the actor looks. This isn’t your make up heavy, monster effects series turning Lusia Strus into Alexa or anything. For the most part, how Joel McHale looks is Jeff Winger and vice versa. So we go to the study group in Community. The first season is largely about Jeff Winger trying to get with Britta Perry (more or less). There are three women in the Study Group. Shirley Bennet (played by Yvette Nicole Brown.... YNB was 38 when the show started and was playing someone “around that age”). Britta Perry (played by Gillian Jacobs… who was 27 when the show started and was playing someone in her late twenties). Annie Edison (played by Alison Brie who was 27 when the show started and was playing a 19 year old).

Now, there are many very attractive women in the show outside of the study group (Brie Larson, Irene Choi, Lauren Stamile to name a few) but I always found the most attractive woman of the entire series to be Annie Edison. True… I mean that in many ways. Primarily, as we all do when discussing casting and actors… I mean the genuine physical representation and appearance. Alison Brie is an incredibly beautiful woman who, as Annie Edison, strongly reminded me of the appearance of most of the beautiful women I went to school with and crushed hard on. Further, the damaged and high strung character of Annie Edison really keyed into that place of “This is 100% the kind of woman I would have been pinning for in all of my past academic environments.” SO… Annie Edison… Alison Brie… is a woman I find incredibly attractive. And subjectively… there are a lot of people in the world who would likely agree. After all, her official “description” is listed as: Five Foot Three Inches Tall; 110 pounds; 35-24-36; dress size US 4, shoe size US 7, bra size 32C.

There are many in this world who would appreciate those measurements. Frankly, I find her face to be captivating. The right mix of dark and light with dark hair and eyebrows and bright blue eyes.

So… I’ve spent some time explaining (maybe over explaining) that I think this actress is very beautiful. In a recent interview, she revealed her struggle with body dysmorphia.

• In an honest interview with Women’s Health, Brie, 37, shared that body dysmorphia and depression are things she will “be working through my whole life.”

“I go back to red carpet photos where I thought I looked so horrible, and there are some where I now think, God, I looked beautiful. And I’ll remember: An hour before that I was in tears; I thought I was so disgusting. I think it’s something I’ll probably be working through my whole life. And depression too.”*

Many of you don’t need a definition (and what Brie is discussing is an acceptable bottle summary) but.................. Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental health disorder in which you can’t stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance — a flaw that appears minor or can’t be seen by others. But you may feel so embarrassed, ashamed and anxious that you may avoid many social situations.

Body Dysmorphia is an extreme mental health issue and is more than just “not feeling particularly attractive because…” but I’ll tell you… I know FAR too many people that honestly fall into this category. People that will describe how hideous and unattractive they are… all the while looking like a million bucks. AND HERE IS WHERE THINGS GET DIFFICULT… when someone is experiencing a mental health disorder… the question can arise… whose responsibility is it? That can be a dark question and difficult to deal with. Because the people that love someone experiencing a mental health disorder DO need to be sensitive and aware. But this particular disorder is something that can uniquely impact relationships… like a detonator!

Go look at Alison Brie’s red carpet appearances. The appearances that she was in tears about because she thought she looked so damned hideous. What do you think? Is that a woman who looks terrible? Hideous? Fucking awful? But she thought she did. And it pains me deeply to know that this is something far too many deal with. Some of the people reading this right now deal with it. Some of the people I care deeply about deal with it. And it is tough. Because (and this is true)… even if I am not going to be attracted to every woman on the planet (and I reserve the right to not be attracted to every woman on the planet; I would hope that people would see the dignity in that).... even if I am not going to be attracted to every woman on the planet, I can still see beauty or good in almost every woman on the planet. You might not be my cup of tea in any way… but I can still think “You have lovely eyes” or “Your smile lights up the whole room” or something of that nature. Everyone has something about them that is beautiful. And not just to think but to know that there are beautiful women in this world who can’t see any beauty in themselves? That really makes me sad. And someone like Alison Brie being one of them? REALLY (I hope) shows what body dysmorphia does to a person. You may be a Hollywood Level Gorgeous Knockout that gets to be cast in movies and TV and is married to Dave Franco… and still be disgusted by your own appearance.