Podcast: Play in new window
Image via Wikipedia The Full Monty: maybe you’ve seen the movie or the musical, but what is it like backstage? What are the actors thinking? What would you be thinking if you had to take your clothes off in front of an audience? Would it make a difference if you were a man or a woman? How so? This week I take a look at the Full Monty and issues like body image and gender. I interview the cast and I think you’ll find their views very interesting. Join me as I go backstage and explore the psychological and societal issues brought up by The Full Monty musical.
There were several controversial opinions about body image and gender expressed by the interviewees during this episode. I’ve pulled of the quotes out. Listen to them here:
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The Full Monty Actors Interviewed for this Episode
- Playing Jerry Lukowski….Scott Laska
- Playing Dave….Andy Lindberg
- Playing Horse….Richard Waits
- Playing Malcolm…..Michael Dunn
- Playing Ethan…..Jason Winfield
- Playing Harold…..Me
- Special thanks to the Tri Arts theatre in Sharon, Connecticut
Resources on Body Image
- Mirror Image by Alicia Potter
- Here’s a great summary of a research article on body image called Ken and Barbie at Life Size.
- Here’s a fascinating article on gender roles in cartoons.
- Unrealistic body size can also be found in action figures (not surprising, I guess) in this article.
- More on the male body image and the media.
- This article might be of interest. It’s about plus size supermodels breaking the mold on body image ideals.
- A recent piece of interesting research was conducted by Deborah Schooler on men and real bodies. Here’s the citation: Schooler, D. & Ward, L. M. (in press). Average Joes: Men’s Relationships with Media, RealBodies, and Sexuality. Psychology of Men and Masculinity
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Howdy,
I really enjoyed this episode and really hope you’ll look at other gender differences in future - I’m particularly interested in libido and how that differs between the sexes and how the difference is managed by couples.
As a side note, I’m wondering if I was the only one who was a little exasperated by the limited vocabulary that the interviewees used when referring to genitals, even one fellow was lightly chastised for referring to his ‘dingle-dangle’ - what on earth should he call it!? :o) I think perhaps Australian culture is a less worried about using medically correct terms like genitals, penis, and so forth.
It just amused me, and made it a little hard to figure out what people were talking about sometimes. Not much you can do about that as the interviewer, I suppose, other than perhaps suggesting terms for people to use.
I can understand that you want to keep the podcast available for family viewing, but surely even children have a right to know what the correct names of their body parts are.
Anyhoo, keep up the great work and thanks.
D.
Thanks for the comment. I definitely have not done enough episodes on gender issues and I’m going to focus on getting more episodes on this topic in the near future.
Regarding the use of awkward vocabulary for the genitals: I told the interviewees that this was a “family show” before the interview so that’s probably why they stumbled a bit, but you’re also probably right that Australian culture isn’t as hung up on this issue as we Americans are.
Thanks for the comment!
Michael