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S2: My body · National Museums Liverpool Podcast

0:00
Yeah,
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this is the National museums Liverpool podcast where we thread together stories from our collections with people's experiences in Liverpool today exploring connections between the past and present.
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In this episode,
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we're talking about the body from a young age,
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we come to realize that our bodies are far from neutral from pressure to conform to physical ideals to laws that restrict and governors,
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social,
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societal and political pressures have made marks on our form through the ages.
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I'm meghan India McGurk and this week we're exploring how art and creative expression from classical sculpture to social media has often dictated,
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inspired and liberated us from the idea of the perfect body.
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We begin with Nina who,
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while reflecting on her own relationship with beauty,
0:55
turns to ancient Greece to understand where our ideals stem from.
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Hi,
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I'm Nina franklin,
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a local broadcaster and DJ under the stage name Rupini.
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I'm off on on stage or captured in photos.
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So like many of us,
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I've got a couple full of potions and goodies,
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always lathering on creams or mixing up oils to try and look my best Beauty is no small business.
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In 2021,
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the global beauty industry,
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from Skincare to cosmetics to surgery was estimated to be worth $603 billion.
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And it seems like we're all on a quest to be endlessly beautiful in october 2019 using an ancient greek mathematical ratio called the golden ratio one Harley Street Doctor de silva declared that supermodel Bella Hadid was the most beautiful woman in the world with Beyonce.
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Following a close second using this ancient method of mathematically measuring symmetry.
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The headlines declared that science had found the most attractive woman ever.
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But throughout history,
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beauty standards have always changed with the fashions of the times in order to unravel a little more about our obsession with beauty standards and how this obsession might have sprung from an ancient viewpoint.
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I sat down with Christy polyphony,
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the curator of Classical antiquities at the World Museum.
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First of all,
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I asked her so what was the ideal classical body?
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Yeah,
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the ideal classical body.
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I suppose the epitome of that is in the works like the rainforest by political status from the fifth century BC.
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Where,
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you know,
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you have the symmetrical refined body where each of the part is sort of balanced through the hole.
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And and people believed that even he wrote a cannon a treaty on the symmetry and the harmony of the body.
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So it's very much about,
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you know,
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looking natural looking,
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symmetrical looking toned up and exercise.
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And obviously the masked muscles of male statues as well sort of allude to that kind of refined beauty and they evoke desire and Nero's.
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So for a man being sporty and muscular was the order of the day.
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If you wanted to be a catch in ancient Greece,
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perhaps spending plenty of time at the gymnasium might help the word gymnasium comes from the greek term jim knows meaning naked from archaic Greece all the way through to hellenistic times,
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ideal nudity was a motif that signaled timeless beauty,
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heroism and virtue in art?
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Yeah,
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of course we ought to say that nudity was not accepted in by incessant greek people as an everyday thing,
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so no one was going around naked unless there were athletes and exercising and sort of taking part in boxing games or festivals.
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But the same accounted for roman times.
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And even more so nudity that you see in statues was not the norm in everyday life,
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but it was something that,
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and was I suppose given in statues,
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particularly when they had represented an ideal form and they sort of varied into the divine form.
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So nudity was not for normal mortals.
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Um,
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the same accounts for women.
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So when you have statues of female goddesses like um like Aphrodite,
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then she appears completely naked.
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And even the draperies he has is around her hips and centralizing her body.
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Um,
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but we have to realize that when we see statues of goddesses,
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you know,
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they're not just a material form,
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they are the goddess themselves.
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So that's what it really meant for.
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Um Ensign people looking at the statue was not some kind of evoking sexual desire only,
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but it was also a way of connecting to the gods and the goddesses and seeing the God in front of them.
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So it's it's how people connected with the divine sphere,
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if you like.
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Um and how they also adorned the statue because they believed that the being of the gods goddesses,
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was there the analogy of the God.
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So it's fair to say that there's probably a link in the ancient mind between nudity and divinity and therefore beauty in striving to represent the divine.
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There's a push towards aiming for perfection in the representations of the body found in art,
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but it's important to remember that these ancient bodies in are not photographs of the way people really looked,
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their artificial their constructs.
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And in many ways it's a little like the way that we might airbrush ourselves today or change how we look for social media,
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the way young people and all of us in a way to use social media to edit our images today.
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It's sort of verifies our grip or the grip of incipient western incident art and cultural stereotypes about what beauty is,
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you know,
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we all want to do well groomed,
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you know,
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um and balanced and we don't want one i to be out of focus of the other,
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you know?
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So these are kind of things that permeate if you like,
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the influence that these stereotypes,
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you know,
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of any ancient art have on us.
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But what I wanted to say is that,
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you know,
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the the way the idealism of the greek statues and the roman statues was just one side of things,
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you know,
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it was a way as well of connecting to or transcending into summer bigger and ideal,
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you know,
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and maybe the soul.
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So the the beauty,
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the natural beauty was just one side of if you like developing your physique and your psyche,
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you know,
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and protecting your virtue's so,
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you know,
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the words beautiful in greek,
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you know,
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means also um sophistication and virtue and goodness,
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you know,
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in terms of your actions and I suppose the the apotheosis of that is plato and how he talked about,
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you know,
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cultivating not just your natural beauty by cultivating your soul and having a spiritual,
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fulfilling your spiritual needs as well,
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and aspiring to be something good.
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And then of course this was taken over by Christianity as well.
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So,
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you know,
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this this natural beauty maybe just superficial,
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but I'm not quite sure these days,
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you know,
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people give equal emphasis to the development of their personalities and their actions,
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you know,
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and maybe we put too much emphasis on how we look these days and how we protect ourselves to two other people through social media and appearances,
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Christie told me that the ancient greek word for beauty is indistinguishable from the word meaning goodness or fineness.
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The ancient greek phrase,
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Carlos diaz used as a descriptor of handsome people means something roughly translatable as the beautiful and the good and it reflects the idea that inner beauty is matched by outer beauty.
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So if you want to be beautiful by ancient greek standards,
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cultivating inner goodness kindness and warmth and spirit will make you more radiant than any beauty cream Indeed,
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I mean,
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there are extracts even from archaic writers where they talk about,
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you know,
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okay,
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you're looking really pretty and beautiful and you're very virile and your physical beauty is excellent,
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but if you actually do these things and cultivate your soul and look into virtue and your actions,
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then all these things we reflect on you and you will shine even more.
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So there's this fantastic extracts where we can take inspiration from,
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you know,
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how people were talking and thinking about beauty and how ideas about beauty we're developing beyond the physical presence.
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So I think,
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I think,
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you know beauty,
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I mean,
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we're all attracted to beauty um and excellence,
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you know,
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there's no um and we desire,
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you know,
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that's that's the main thing as well about statues,
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you know,
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looking at them you desire and by desiring and and sort of aspiring to that ideal beauty,
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you perhaps transform yourself even if you can never reach it.
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So it's got a kind of symbolic meaning,
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if you like that,
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you're I'm trying to reach out to the divine to the ideal form,
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even if you do never attain it,
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you know,
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then I suppose trying for it's worthwhile this unity between external and internal beauty is inspiring to remember,
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let's face it,
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Christie's claim that social media is more superficial than not.
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It's pretty convincing.
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Have we lost the depth of what beauty is meant to represent.
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Well,
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social media is what you make of it.
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And for our next guest kira it can even be a space for a more accepting and honest view of our bodies.
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But as she explains,
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it was quite the journey to find that contentment.
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It started to affect relationships,
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work,
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colleagues,
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friendships,
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relationships and family and things like that.
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And it wasn't until my manager and my partner both mentioned in the same week,
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something's going on.
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Something isn't right.
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That's Kira Jackson,
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owner of the body acceptance instagram channel binged bo po describing her difficulties with body image and eating behavior Back in 2016 there were moments where I'd come in from work and I would eat so much that I couldn't remember what I'd eaten until I looked in the bin.
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I did go to that thought process of you are just lazy,
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you are disgusting and you start tearing yourself down unnecessarily so and you can only tear yourself down so far until you need help.
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After the concern of those close to her kira sought medical advice.
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It's a brave step.
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While many of us know the feeling of measuring our self worth on whether or not we ate that kit kat.
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I for one would turn to self blame and yes,
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another diet before accepting.
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There might be a bigger mechanism at play.
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People can have lazy moments in their lives where they don't want to exercise and they do want to binge eat.
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Um you know,
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there are many people out there that open a packet of biscuits and we'll eat an entire packet of biscuits,
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that's fine because you know,
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it's just a one off,
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it's every now and then it's when you notice that it's occurring more often and it's becoming a pattern and there are triggers when you do it,
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you don't know why you do it.
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That was when I knew I needed help,
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went to the GP had like a psychological analysis and they said,
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you have binge eating disorder,
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eating disorders are a mental health condition and that was one thing that I needed to educate myself on before I could fully understand what I was going through myself,
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64% of adults are classified as overweight or obese in the UK.
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Meanwhile,
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the simplistic understanding that fat people are just undisciplined and the stigma that goes with that persists in our society for those who don't struggle with their weight.
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The problem seems easy to solve some diet advice,
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a new exercise program,
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but when eating is triggered by a mental health condition,
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it can seem almost impossible to control your drives without seeking to understand the underlying issue kira jump through various hoops from dietitians and physios before a counselor from work finally advised her to start a journal.
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This is when things started to turn around,
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it felt really silly for me to write thoughts and feelings onto a piece of paper that no one would ever read.
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So my partner came up with the idea of putting it on a social media platform so then I can share it with others.
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And at the same time,
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a girl that I met online actually,
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she was saying how since gaining a lot of weight in a short amount of time,
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she struggled with the fashion,
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finding fashionable clothing in larger sizes.
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So I decided to combine the two.
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So we'd combine a fashion image with a caption underneath Around thoughts and feelings.
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And that's how my journal started and that's how Binge Tebow Paul began in 2016.
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The page itself enabled me to not only connect with like minded people,
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but also connect with therapists,
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psychologists activists who post content that's so relevant that then I can share it.
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Kira's content is helping those around her and the body positivity movement is massive on social media,
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but where did it all start?
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500 people congregate in New York's Central Park,
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holding signs that read fat power and Buddha was fat.
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They burned diet books and even a photograph of twiggy,
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the icon of beauty at the time with a teenage body of just size four or 6.
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They offer each other fattening books celebrate obesity and call out weight discrimination.
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This is the pinnacle fatten of 1967.
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It inspired a saturday evening post guest piece called More People should be fat,
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which spurred the formation of what is now known as the National Association to advance fat acceptance to this day.
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They fight against weight discrimination in healthcare,
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employment and education Over the decades,
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fat acceptance has largely turned to body positivity and the idea of accepting all bodies has flooded into the mainstream.
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Long gone are the days when we passively absorbed body ideals from the big screen or even the glossies,
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the painfully narrow view of beauty has shattered open,
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leaving a kaleidoscope of different figures to celebrate.
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If you curate your social media consciously,
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it can be a real source of inspiration and empowerment.
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The way I like to look at social media is to Marie condor who you are following.
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So if a page does not bring you joy unfollowed it,
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whether it's a friend,
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whether it's a business or a brand or a therapist or an influencer,
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I decided to only follow pages that bring me joy pages of people from all over the world from all walks of life who are different ethnicities,
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different sizes,
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different work backgrounds,
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different abilities,
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and that then broadens my perspective of the human body.
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Social media can be wonderfully democratic and it's fantastic to see so much more representation in the media and even mainstream advertising.
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In 2000 and four,
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the Dove campaign for quote unquote real women turn the beauty industry on its head By 2022,
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Lizzo is celebrating her weight gain and has been crowned queen of body positivity,
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but with commercialization comes problems.
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What was rooted in fat acceptance with the aims to specifically improve the rights of fat people has become a slogan for companies to profit off.
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Is this just another fashion?
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With all the associated pressure under a different guise,
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Kyra's followers began to feel the conflict between the culture of striving for the perfect body and now the counterculture of body positivity they were finding it and me included,
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really difficult to love every inch.
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We are told to love our bodies.
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And it's really difficult when you're told by society you should hate your body and we're always told you need to change.
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You need to be better.
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You need to look better.
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You need to be fitter.
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You need to eat this.
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You need to not eat that.
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Perhaps it's time to step off the treadmill metaphorically speaking and broaden our appreciation of our bodies and ourselves.
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If you look at the term body neutrality instead of self love.
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Body love or body positivity neutrality to me means that I can accept and appreciate my body.
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So it takes that emphasis and the stress off of loving every inch so I can look at an area and appreciate my legs because my legs enable me to dance and walk and run.
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But I might not like my stomach or I might not love my stomach,
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but I can appreciate it and I can accept it.
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Body neutrality breaks us free from judging ourselves and others on how we all look.
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We are all far more than meets the eye and embracing this sets us free to do what feels good and actually makes us happy.
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Yeah,
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People don't know that.
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I go to the gym 34 times a week,
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but it's because I go to the gym for a different reason than you.
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A lot of people will go to the gym to count calories to lose inches,
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to lose pounds and stones.
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My relationship with the gym is a mental rather than physical relationship.
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It's a place for me to get away from all the stresses of the normal day to day life.
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It's a way for me to appreciate my body.
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I can leave the gym after a workout and go,
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wow,
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my body just did that and look at the size and the shape of my body.
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I'm not the same as the person on the poster for the gym.
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I'm not a size six with abs and muscles,
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but I can still go in and doing amazing work out and feel amazing about my body regardless of my size and shape.
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By curating her own community on instagram kira liberated herself to enjoy her body,
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her interests and her life,
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creative expression and indeed art has the power to not only free us from social pressure and personal struggles with our bodies,
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but political power to when it comes to women's bodies,
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it's a power desperately needed around the world.
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We could,
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we could say that it was like a year of glory.
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This is Anna Bella Almeida lecture of Portuguese at the University of Liverpool,
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describing the Portuguese expo 98 All Portuguese,
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All people my age know about the expo 98 which was this world fair that completely changed the landscape of Lisbon.
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We are at the maximum uh culmination of progress in Portugal of political historic progress.
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Portugal had a long journey to get to this point.
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It suffered 40 years of dictatorship before revolution brought democracy in 1974.
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But by 1998,
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while the celebrations rang out in the street for a new progressive society,
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there were some who were hidden from view.
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This is the same ear.
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The exact same year when we have a failed referendum to legalize abortion.
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So who was truly liberated and to what degree women may have been allowed to vote.
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But what about the expectation upon their personal lives,
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their relationship with sexuality,
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their bodies to get married and have Children.
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Young was still the status quo,
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which possibly explains why when the referendum was held to legalize abortion,
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not enough women turned up to vote.
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That's one of the reasons I think my mother was so angry why that at women for not having voted in the referendum.
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This is nick willing son of the renowned Portuguese british visual artist Paula Rego commenting on the ironic result of the first referendum to legalize abortion in Portugal In 1998 Paula Rego known for the Magical Realism in her paintings and dark fairytale prints created an impressive body of etchings and pastels.
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The abortion series.
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He wasn't counting on the men to do it because they have for millennia.
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Uh you know,
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treated women with some often some disdain or controlling manipulative um patronizing way.
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And and so here was a referendum where they had an opportunity women finally to make their voices heard and they didn't go and vote.
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So that was in the first reverend and she would that's really the most her the strongest motivating.
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She had to remind them of the because of course all women in Portugal had experienced somebody who'd had a Backstreet abortion,
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mother,
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cousin,
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a daughter,
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grandmother,
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you know,
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you name it.
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The suffering was unbelievable.
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Each work in the abortion series depicts women in the aftermath of a clandestine abortion in desperate surroundings.
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The women are depicted in taught positions curled in pain,
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legs held starkly apart,
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Squatting over a bucket or with one looming ominously beside a thin mattress.
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A far cry from the gentile and passive creatures.
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We often see throughout art history,
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they reminded women of what they already knew,
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depicting women's experiences truthfully dispelled tight conventions of femininity and liberated women liberated them in a way the first referendum could not with her art Paula Hago gave women an empowered image of themselves and the truer mirror than the one they had before with with with her work,
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Paula Hago brings in what has been invisible.
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What hasn't been invisible,
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certainly two men,
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but but also what women themselves concealed from themselves.
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Uh Paula Hago also famously in an interview,
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says that Portuguese woman when she was run over by a car,
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her first thought is not about the accident,
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it's oh I have to hide my underwear and this is very interesting.
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So this is about precisely the idea of shame which comes from um I mean,
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it can be easily explained by nearly 40 years of severe dictatorship allied with the repression from the catholic church as well.
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Um all of all of these,
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it's still pretty much there.
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So this shame about being in public alone,
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um speaking out um moving freely and also deciding upon one self's destiny and sexuality.
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But yes,
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the idea of shame is always there.
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And what Paula rego does in her work is that she she pictures that that is shameful by doing this.
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The shame disappears because these female protagonists,
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they become protagonists,
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They become powerful and they are telling their story finally,
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what is perhaps even more effective in radio series,
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is though though it lifts the curtain on women's experiences more than it has been before.
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It is still not the full picture,
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like all great works of art,
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it works upon the viewers.
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Um not in an obvious um straightforward way,
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but through her power to depict images which are not necessarily obvious,
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like the violence for the abortion series is a very violent a series of works.
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Um it's very shocking,
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but it's not shocking in an obvious way,
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Paula rego certainly that is not showing you the violence of the of the act in itself,
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there is no blood let's say.
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However often Paula Hago has many elements going on at the same time,
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not in the abortion series,
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they only have a few elements.
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For instance,
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the symbolic importance of the bucket.
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There is always a bucket there that in that context has an impact.
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No,
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it really makes,
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it hits us,
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it really hits us.
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So all this mhm elements that are perfectly um conjugated the position of the bodies of these women and particularly their gaze upon us.
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So that is what Paula rego did they brought to life which were just words words abortion legalized,
26:48
can understand the right to life all of those,
26:51
these are only words,
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but looking at this case,
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it does unsettle us in a different manner with the help of Paula Riesgos abortion series.
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In 2000 and seven,
27:03
a second referendum to legalize abortion was upheld,
27:07
abortion was legalized in Portugal Annabella took her students to walker art gallery for a clear review on the power of radios abortion series.
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The experience of seeing them live was profoundly moving for myself,
27:24
but also for my students,
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some of them were visibly upset.
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I can say when looking at these etchings.
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We could actually see how they were forced on the canvas.
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And that brought to mind the strength of this cutting object or of this forcing object.
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They really showed the violence and the intrusion.
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uh,
27:52
and and it's like if the canvas and the woman's body are one and there is a parallel here with the intrusion on the women's body.
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But also there is a parallel with the way politics are intruding on women's lives and experiences and ultimately on women's bodies with the Portuguese dictatorship.
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And the catholic church sought to hide rago sought to reveal she untied the binds of misogyny from the inside out.
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Expelling it from women's bodies and widening the sphere of responsibility for this issue.
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Her work galvanized women into action.
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But what effect did it have on men?
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Manors as as often has moved and impressed by her pictures as women are.
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I don't think there's a kind of gender gap.
28:49
Um,
28:51
but It is true that in the 50s,
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I think that there was a kind of ignorance amongst men about the effect that they were having the callous and often cruel,
29:08
unknowing effect that they would have on women.
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Um,
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and I think that that that that understanding better the how the effects of what they do can,
29:25
you know,
29:25
changed them.
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Riesgos art did a great deal to raise awareness of women's suffering and restore their agency,
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but we still have a long way to go with women continuing to suffer without power over their own bodies.
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And that's what happens everywhere in the world.
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If you criminalize abortion,
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it will happen in texas.
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And we've just seen a horrific case in Poland of a young woman that died because she was refused an abortion.
29:53
Um and that is the patronage of men often responsible for that.
30:00
Even in some of the most liberal societies today,
30:03
to challenge the relevance of feminism is to not see half the story on the surface.
30:09
Women may be able to vote to work to be independent.
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But what about the more personal struggles to what it means to live in a female body with all its capabilities regarding reproduction?
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What I often think about is also I often think I'll go back to that sentence of Paula Hago.
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I go back when she says,
30:30
did things really change in Portugal after 74 for women,
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did they completely change?
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And this is what we have to think about these things completely change.
30:41
Paula rego considers herself to be a feminist.
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And is feminism still is feminism still worthwhile?
30:48
Is it still,
30:50
is it still important to be a feminist?
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Her answer is an absolute yes,
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of course.
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Look around you,
30:57
how about us,
30:58
are we freed ourselves,
31:00
are we free from the conventions of femininity or are we wearing high heels?
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Are we are we putting makeup?
31:07
Are we doing the household work in our houses.
31:12
I always ask this to my students,
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There's a bit of discomfort when I ask this because we all know that it's still us doing the it's still as cleaning up cleaning up the house.
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We still laugh off much.
31:26
That is unfair in society,
31:28
especially when our grievances a trivial in comparison to the suffering of women around the globe.
31:35
But for me it feels like riesgos women are watching Paula Hago gives women their revenge.
31:43
Here they are the ones taking power.
31:46
This is their final word by staring at us.
31:51
These women are challenging us.
31:54
They're defying us and they're,
31:56
in a sense they are not placed as victims only and in a passive role only.
32:05
This time they are the ones challenging us.
32:08
They are the ones making us uncomfortable as we society made them.
32:12
Certainly.
32:13
So this time it's them coming back their revenge the first time as well.
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So this is the abortion series is not only about 1998 it is not only about Portugal,
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it's about us now.
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They are looking at us and saying,
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where is this happening in the world?
32:33
And where is this happening to a certain extent?
32:35
Where is this intrusion of your body happening in your life as a woman Paula Rego Untangled.
32:49
Many of the complexities surrounding women's bodies.
32:52
But what about the male form?
32:54
Our final guest artist.
32:56
David log questions.
32:58
The idea of the perfect male body as Olive discovers.
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Hello,
33:02
my name is Olive and I am a spoken word artist and journalist based in Liverpool as a queer artist myself.
33:09
I'm always fascinated by the work of other queer artists around me.
33:13
One thing that's really caught my attention recently is the work by painter David Locke and his peace Elman Era,
33:20
Selected for the John was painting prize back in 2018.
33:23
It was acquired by the Walker Art Gallery for its permanent collection.
33:27
The artwork features two shirtless men as its subject.
33:30
The figures appear learning through tropical plants in an imagined space inspired by the famous hotel Elman era in tangier Morocco,
33:38
which gives this piece.
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It's title,
33:40
David wanted to bring to mind the history of this hotel and what became known as queer tanja.
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Yes,
33:47
so the painting Bellman era.
33:49
Originally I conceived it for an exhibition in 2017 which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the death of the playwright Joe Orton,
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joe Orton was my uncle.
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So I had this kind of personal relationship to him,
34:05
but I never met him because he died before I was born and it was the first time I've actually kind of made work About him from sort of 15 years of being an artist.
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I made three paintings and Elman era was one of the paintings In the late 40s and early 50s,
34:25
many gay artists including Joe Orton along with William S.
34:29
Burroughs.
34:30
Allen Ginsberg and Jean Genet flocked to tangier because of its liberal approach to sexuality.
34:36
David's painting depicts male bodies with provocative undertones and queer influence,
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challenging the ideal male form.
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So,
34:43
I was interested in kind of like,
34:45
the way masculinity is get kind of represented in mass media,
34:49
and it's always in terms of the ideal,
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you know,
34:53
and obviously I'm I'm a disabled man myself,
34:58
so,
34:59
you know,
35:00
it's like,
35:00
how does this speak to me?
35:02
And for me,
35:03
David is always looking for ways to submit the ideal male body,
35:07
something he explores in his collages,
35:10
you can see this in his collection entitled Misfits.
35:14
So,
35:14
I worked from collage and so I take each piece apart and I don't I don't actually kind of show the collages collages just like a kind of a working vessel.
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So in that sense that when I'm painting,
35:28
I'm feeling like I'm kind of trying to undo,
35:33
suppose that's about that kind of the way of,
35:35
you know,
35:35
so,
35:36
the physical process for me feels like I'm kind of have this kind of boxing away and I'm sort of taking it apart and then kind of reconstructing,
35:46
I don't know,
35:47
I suppose I got it like it's almost like kind of Frankenstein's monster,
35:51
kind of made of these kind of like body parts.
35:54
And so for me,
35:56
and that was quite interesting.
35:57
And so there is that kind of energy,
36:00
like,
36:01
like,
36:01
like a flow through of different kind of body parts and putting them together because in the way they're kind of constructed anywhere,
36:08
especially when they're taken from fashion magazines,
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they're not just they're not real people,
36:13
they're just sort of,
36:14
you know,
36:14
obviously selling something which is brand or concept and it's usually,
36:20
you know,
36:21
based around kind of lack,
36:23
because,
36:23
you know,
36:24
you open a fashion magazine because you kind of desire that thing.
36:28
So,
36:29
and,
36:29
and,
36:30
and,
36:30
and they have all their awkward and they have awkward shapes and so I suppose in that sense that I'm trying to kind of make something where they're kind of vulnerable.
36:39
So it kind of looks like it could kind of fall apart any minute or it's been kind of like loosely constructed.
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And I suppose for me in that way,
36:49
the vulnerability as a strength and power about it,
36:53
and suppose that's why it kind of sustains me and men just need to be like,
36:59
allow themselves to open up and be more vulnerable,
37:03
you know,
37:04
you know,
37:04
that seems to be really key.
37:07
It's like people would say,
37:08
oh man up and you know,
37:10
it's really unhelpful.
37:11
I read an excellent book recently Mask Mask off by JJ bowler and um he was like a sportsman and he was really talking about how like,
37:21
you know,
37:22
men really allow themselves only allow themselves to be openly emotional on the football field or when there's camaraderie between men,
37:31
you know,
37:32
that this society has such rigid expectations of what it means to be a man through his collages.
37:38
David is able to question our idealization of the male form,
37:42
emphasizing the vulnerability of his figures.
37:45
He spoke to me about the vulnerabilities within his own identity and how this influences both his work and life.
37:52
And I don't know if it's not necessary.
37:54
I'm not saying that being disabled gives me kind of open access to different ways to to to feel.
38:03
But,
38:03
you know,
38:04
I do I have felt kind of vulnerable through through that and also finally being gay.
38:11
And I just thought,
38:12
well,
38:12
I suppose it's,
38:13
you know,
38:14
I make some notes and I wrote it's complex,
38:16
it's multifaceted,
38:17
fluid dynamic and ever changing.
38:20
And that's what I think we need from masculinity is for it to be truly transformative.
38:27
I honestly think you just wear your masculinity,
38:30
like you kind of put on,
38:32
you know,
38:33
your clothes.
38:34
I see masculinity is about a very kind of,
38:37
you know,
38:37
plural identity.
38:39
And I see it as kind of performative in the way that we don't just kind of wear one masculinity.
38:45
You know,
38:45
you know,
38:46
our masculinity is constantly kind of changing from moment to moment.
38:52
And,
38:53
you know,
38:53
and and in that way,
38:55
I feel like male identity,
38:58
it's it's not even exclusive to obviously to men in that way we need to talk about.
39:03
Masculinity is not masculinity.
39:06
Masculinity ease as a plural.
39:09
And then that allows any person.
39:11
Either man woman or gender non conforming to be able to access their masculinity ease.
39:17
Working for fashion magazines,
39:19
David sees how he's not quite invaluable to desire.
39:23
There were challenges what makes male bodies desirable and works to highlight all aspects of masculinity as he also works in the fashion industry.
39:31
This contrast of creative work emphasizes how David really does appreciate all the ways which we can creatively present body images,
39:39
masculinity and desire.
39:42
He explains to me that these contradictions and small hypocrisy is within us are also something interesting to explore.
39:49
I think it's okay to have contradictions,
39:51
that's okay,
39:52
we're complex people,
39:53
you know,
39:54
and it's okay and it would seem really kind of reactive and reactionary if my position was just like,
40:00
oh I hate fashion magazines.
40:03
I actually I actually worked for um This luxury fashion magazine called 10 magazine and I make collages for them.
40:11
And so I love that I like that,
40:14
you know,
40:15
fashion operates in fantasy and in that sense.
40:18
So I do find it's seductive and you know,
40:21
that was very interesting.
40:23
I've noticed now that when I was at college,
40:25
so this was before social media,
40:28
people would say like I,
40:30
oh yeah,
40:31
but you know,
40:31
there there there there there there men's bodies in fashion magazines,
40:34
they don't actually like,
40:35
look like that in real life.
40:36
I would go to a gay club and I thought,
40:38
well,
40:38
actually I would challenge that because it's like everybody,
40:42
a lot of people there had like,
40:44
great bodies in terms of the ideal.
40:47
And even today,
40:48
like,
40:48
you can go on instagram and you know,
40:50
you can get lots of men will have like,
40:53
you know,
40:54
and they have great bodies and there's also another right to that.
41:01
I was really influenced by I called Jose esteban minnows and he wrote this amazing book called Cruising Utopia and he would talk about the ideal body as the dominant imprint and I really like this idea and he would talk about increasing utopia,
41:20
how we kind of are informed from the past.
41:25
And he would kind of use that it was kind of temporal to be how how the past impacts the future.
41:33
And that kind of interests me because he would like argue that as a game end today,
41:38
we're not in a place of where we can truly celebrate and being comfortable.
41:44
He feels that that's kind of deferred and we need to,
41:47
you know,
41:49
that Utopia and you know,
41:50
he looks at thomas more and he sort of says we need to kind of go to that space because we're not there yet.
41:56
And I really like that idea.
41:58
Becoming comfortable in ourselves is something we all learn throughout our lives,
42:03
particularly as we change and grow.
42:05
Hopefully these stories provide inspiration on Howie's with our bodies is possible for all of us.
42:12
Whether it's aspiring to the virtuous and divine using social media to create a more representative world or creating art with the power to reform laws and defy expectations.
42:24
It's all possible if you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more stories like this,
42:30
you can support us by making a donation or becoming a member at Liverpool museums dot org dot UK slash join and support.
42:38
Thank you for listening to the National Museums Liverpool podcast and remember to check out the other episodes in this series.
42:45
Mhm.
42:47
Mhm,
42:48
wow.