My Body Was Tea. But He Wanted Matcha.
I am sure many of you have seen this ridiculous headline meme on your feed this week, and while the title seems absurd, it still registers as an actual New York Times Modern Love article header. But, I was shocked to learn that this is not a real article. After discovering this, I realized how ridiculous it was that the rest of the comment section and I actually thought this was a real article. Looking more into this farcical headline: the idea of a relationship not working out due to a matter of body type seemed like viable journalism that necessitated reporting through an institution like NYT. Obviously, bodies are excessively reported on lately, and I am not alone in thinking that this is at best vapid and fatiguing and at worst degrading and destructive. As humans, bodies are inescapable. They are our vessels of life. But, this said, the amount of importance on bodies, and specifically the look of a body, at current, is totally overkill.
But, why is it that we seem to have reached new heights of bodily emphasis? It feels like humans have never cared so much about the appearance of their bodies? What is it about right now that makes bodies feel so important? I believe that the reason for our collective bodily obsession is simple: bodies are political.
It has been observed countless times that fashion is political, and, at the end of the day, fashion is an extension of the body. So, why shouldn’t bodies be political, too? Since the beginning of western culture, bodies have been idealized into forms reflective of the politics and values of the time. Maybe a perusal of the west’s past fashionable forms will be helpful in analyzing what our current attitudes towards our flesh and bones can be insightful into our own zeitgeist.
Western culture as we know it started in classical antiquity. In these civilizations that blossomed around the Mediterranean body ideals were clearly defined. Within Ancient Egypt, Greece and Roman societies, beauty was very reflective of their religious beliefs. These three cultures strived to resemble their gods. The beauty of the gods was aspirational. In Egypt, the desirable cannon of proportions was a lean and long figure for both men and women. This is the way they depict figures in their art, religious and secular, so it is undoubtedly their ideal. They viewed beauty as a sign of holiness. Grooming and cosmetics were extremely important. Maybe this long and elegant physique was inspired by their adoration of felines. For the Greeks the ideal was all about proportion and symmetry. The Greeks believed that men should have an athletic and almost buff body, while women should have a fuller and softer figure to reflect their images of their deities. The importance of these standards held so much weight because they believed in the idea of “Kalos Kagathos” which means beautiful and virtuous. This was the idea that if someone had a beautiful body then they were by default a good and virtuous person. Famously, the Romans loved to take inspiration from the Greeks, so they did the same for bodies, only making slight adaptations to better align with their social hierarchy. In Rome’s hedonistic bathing culture, a well toned and leisurely body was the rage. Due to their ability to rely on slave labor for physical labor, Roman citizens wanted to flaunt the amount of down time they had by going to the gym and baths, being careful not to get as buff as the slave class, however.
By the Middle Ages, body ideals had shifted from a quasi-religious reflection to being all about their God-given purposes on earth. For the most part male body ideals were shaped by asceticism. The entire point was constant suffering to reflect the suffering of Jesus Christ, to only rely on essentials for survival. However, for practical reasons this practice fell out of fashion when men needed to go on crusades. They pivoted from suffering for God to fighting for God, and their bodies had to change to accommodate this. Women interpreted their divine purpose as being procreative, so a body that emphasized fertility was what was popular. The overall shape of this body was pear-like with a soft and round stomach and small globular breasts. This fertile look was doubled down after the wake of the bubonic plague when populations were decimated and procreation was a massive priority.
During the Renaissance era, attitudes to what a beautiful body should look like had once again shifted. They were inspired by the artistic traditions of the Greco-Roman civilizations in every facet. The return to a “classical” cannon of proportions can be seen in artworks, literature, architecture, and most relevant to this article, the physical form. For men this was a youthful, well-maintained, strong and athletic physique. For women it was ideal to look like a Greek statue. This look was defined by a full and supple body. The shift in the view of women in the renaissance is also quite remarkable. Women changed from vessels of fertility into being depicted as sexy and desirable in art. A woman was also seen as a reflection of her husband’s status, so a woman that looked like she was dressing good and eating better was perfection materialized. This plump ideal is a declaration of their flex culture. In this era we see that body standards had become a matter of aesthetics and projection of wealth, God was dismissed and decadence was indulged.
I am fascinated by a shift in body preferences that occurs around revolutionary France. I think that this is when we really see both bodies and fashion become fully and overtly reflective of the political and economic contexts that they exist within. Prior to the revolutionary sentiment in France, the fashionable silhouette for women was flattened breasts and a tapered waist. As the century progressed and food became more scarce the ideal body type shifted to a fleshier, bustier, figure. It was a part of this flex culture that still remains today. Historically, when food is scarce it is desirable to look well fed.
As you may have noticed in my examination of the historical record, a skinny look has not been fashionable until recently. The first time that looking thin was trendy was the 1920s, but this was done with the intent of subverting traditional notions of femininity. Women wanted to be viewed as equals to men, so they decided that they could make this desire more obvious by looking more boyish. Remember, nothing happens within a vacuum. This moment was massive for Women’s liberation: Women had just secured the right to vote. This change was not about beauty, but it was an embrace and celebration of the new realities of womanhood at the time. As soon as the “Roaring 20s” ended, the standard of a curveless body was completely rejected. The 1930s are all about a very “womanly” sensual glamour. Then we see an hourglass figure stay the popular ideal until the end of the century. A skinny, boyish, figure was only ever coveted in more fringe and alternative aesthetics and subcultures, like the Mods, on behalf of Twiggy. But, the success of Twiggy as a model didn’t really create a massive cultural desire for a body like hers. Twiggy was singular. She existed within a small set of other models that shared a similarly slight physique. But what is most important in understanding why she doesn’t receive critiques for perpetuating unhealthy beauty ideals is because she was a novelty. Twiggy only worked as a model for four years between the ages of 16 and 20. She was legitimately a teen, not a fully grown woman, and her body wasn’t seen as glamorous, but instead as a bit awkward and childish. At the time being referred to as “Twiggy” was certainly not ideal.
Then, the 90s changed everything. As the 20th century drew to a close we see the “waif” enter the scene, introducing the world to the heroin chic aesthetic. The fashion industry essentially became obsessed with reheating Twiggy’s nachos. A clear fixation on a curveless, bony, and angular body. And this preference still exists with as much prevalence today, nearly four decades later. I do not think it is fair, or even accurate, to blame this destructive standard on a single model. The issue is much more nuanced than Kate Moss. The pervasiveness of this underweight body is incomparable to Twiggy being seen as a symbol of the swinging 60s. The waif was seen as cool, adult, glamourous, and sexy. Every model had this body. It was, and is still, inescapable.
In the 2010s, it seemed for a bit that we were making a return to the hourglass ideal when the Kardashians became ubiquitous in our global culture. There were, admittedly, half-baked body positivity movements and campaigns to “embrace curves”. Even if these were not super successful, they do display a genuine cultural interest in straying from an underfed ideal of beauty. In this pre-covid era there was a visually apparent range of bodies and body types gracing red carpets and acting on screens. And, while this might not have been the most diverse and inclusive range in bodies, it was definitely a step or two in the right direction. And then the masses discovered ozempic.
The destruction ozempic has done to our understanding of and relationship with our bodies is unfathomably diabolical. It has genuinely never been easier to obtain an unobtainable and ravaged looking body. It is only a matter of prescription or payment. We were seemingly on the cusp of eradicating the notion of a singular beauty or bodily ideal just prior to ozempic misuse. Does this just confirm that humanity is vehemently opposed to embracing individuality? Why can’t we shake the desire to conform, follow, and replicate? I think that this starving physique being trendy at this particular moment in human history is particularly paradoxical and fascinating. It goes against the entire anthropological trend of humans wanting to show off that they can afford what is scarce. As we can see in the historical record, when the general population is struggling to afford food —or genuinely starving— the beauty standard reflects a fleshy, plump, and luscious figure. It indicates health and wealth in a context where prosperity is hard to come by. But right now costs of living are famously high. We have witnessed groceries being categorized as luxuries, but, still, the emaciated look seems unflinching. I just wonder, if we start to feel a widespread effect of trade-wars and tariffs affecting accessibility to food, how will our societal beauty standards be impacted? Will the privileged cave to their inane hunger to showboat and embrace the appearance of indulgence and decadence, or is skinny here to stay?
I think that this disruption of historical patterns of bodies reflecting economics and political stability makes perfect sense in a time as absurd, complicated, and unpredictable as now. In this time of unprecedented political uncertainty where almost every event is baffling and exhausting to any party involved, of course it would be reflected in our visual representation and self expression. Bodies have always been treated by humans as objects to control, and when humans feel a lack of control on external issues, they will inevitably turn their need to dominate and control internally. It makes sense that the desire to overcome the physical requirement to have stores of body fat and sufficient nutrients to sustain homeostasis would make itself apparent. This new societal ideal of an unnaturally controlled body can be seen further than just BMI percentiles. We have obviously all felt the rise of an intensified gym culture where it is normalized that laypeople have the physique of a working model or a body builder. We have never been more uniformly resistant to the reality of aging, either. There is the ridiculous and nonsensical myth of “preventative botox”. A complete oversaturation of TikTok’s taking the viewer alongside the creator to undergo a slew of dodgy treatments and procedures in a foreign country. And, most stupefyingly, the emerging trend of getting your first deep plane facelift in your 30s just screams “the only thing I can channel my need to control into right now is the look of my body”.
Whether your body is tea, matcha, or boba; ultimately, embracing either of the two normative body standards is equally telling of our societal sickness. The motivations for starving or being satiated equally display our corrupted value system as a collective society. At heart, they both still adhere to the toxic reliance and invention of an ideal —which is always impossible— and they are shallow and vapid, totally disconnected from the actual needs of humanity and rooted in the most vile values imposed by late capitalism. In all this discussion of weight, food, and hunger, the taste left in my mouth is unsavory and I’m left wondering if humanity is cooked…
Words by Benjamin Pulka
Graphic by Aubrey Lauer