Comments on: What is the ideal woman of the moment?

What is the ideal woman of the moment?

desjardins — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:10:19 -0800

"We replicate what the perfect girl is." (SLYTP) No nudity, but may be NSFW.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:17:05 -0800

Perfect? Can she code linux drivers?

By: fusinski

fusinski — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:36:58 -0800

They're working on that for v2. Unfortunately introducing that feature resulted in the product losing her perfect body due to increased consumption of fatty foods and sugars. Researchers have so far been unable to switch off the undesirable behavior.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:38:42 -0800

The filmmakers successfully tricked me into thinking this was about plastic surgery. The gold chains are a nice touch.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:41:22 -0800

The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:48:20 -0800

Insert snarky, possibly sexual, and definitely boyzone "but can she do X" comment here.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:50:08 -0800

When the guy with the tan and the thick necklace came on, I was sure that it was going to be a documentary about the production side of the porn industry. There are a whole host of things that surround us every day, including these mannequins, that I think we tend to take for granted, rather than thinking of as being designed and manufactured by people somewhere. I liked this, because it made those mannequins seem not like inert lumps on which clothes are hung, but rather as intentionally designed items that carry a lot of cultural baggage. As an aside, how tall are these 34/25/36 mannequins?

By: bookish

bookish — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:52:53 -0800

I remember being startled the first time I saw a mannequin with visibly protruding hip bones. Those seem to be getting more and more common. "People need something to believe in." Yes, they do. But obsession is a symptom of that, not a solution.

By: bookish

bookish — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:53:42 -0800

er, fashion obsession.

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:57:10 -0800

But can she insert a snarky, possibly sexual, and definitely boyzone "but can she do X" comment here?

By: spilon

spilon — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:57:57 -0800

"Excuse me sir, how would you describe the ideal woman? What would she be?" "Oh not me. I wouldn't know nuthin' about that... I'm a I'm a I'm a ba.... bbb.... bachelor myself."

By: allkindsoftime

allkindsoftime — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:58:05 -0800

Where's the electric shaver that's supposed to be in her wrist? This looks like a downgrade to me.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:58:11 -0800

"People have to believe in something" Well yeah, if you make plastic naked ladies all day, I guess you will tend to ponder and expound on whether spirituality has been replaced with consumerism, and whether what we actually worship above all else is a stylish female physique. But I'd rather learn about that from people who aren't actually dependent on selling it.

By: nola

nola — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:02:43 -0800

See that made me think of Killer's Kiss

By: elendil71

elendil71 — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:03:06 -0800

Well the commentary was pretty insipid but the snippets showing how the mannequins are made was pretty cool. What a strange job that must be, crafting those things (including that of the older, grey-haired guys whose job it was to buff down the perfectly sculptured torsos of the "girls"). Weird but cool. Thanks.

By: doctoryes

doctoryes — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:11:15 -0800

What's a tortoise? I don't think it's just the consumerism that he's alluding to here. It's the idea that the perfect female form somehow transcends the profane and borders upon the sublime. To him modern day mannequins are a direct descendant of the Venus de Milo or David. I love to think that the guy in the thick gold chains is somehow spiritually linked to Michelangelo. It's not a far leap from idolizing the virgin mother the ideal of a real woman. "A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird.... --Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy."

By: The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew

The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:14:22 -0800

hrumph.

By: NikolaTesla

NikolaTesla — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:31:05 -0800

A pleasant, surprise it was definitely not what I thought it would be. While I understand that we need mannequins to model clothing and promote sales it does leave the question open to that, quite unique movie of the 80's mannequin. It takes a particular niche artist to pursue the artistry of the mannequin, perhaps more so depraved than the artist of the sex object. An interesting human agenda to say the least.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:42:50 -0800

You know what a turtle is? Same thing.

By: Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger

Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:47:11 -0800

Astro Zombie: Turtles are aquatic (and stackable)

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:48:05 -0800

"36/24/36, what a winnin' hand"

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:49:56 -0800

maybe if she's 5'3"!

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:53:21 -0800

I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean.

By: redteam

redteam — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:58:05 -0800

Women: yet again, gay men with no interest in you are shaping your insecurities.

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:03:17 -0800

I've met several people in my life (including my current girlfriend) who are geniunely freaked out by mannequins. I can understand why. Hell, they're used in the first Condemned game to absolutely terrifying effect in a dark, abandoned and rotting mall. Glad to see the people making them are quite creepy too. They're just questions, sveskemus.

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:08:17 -0800

Looking at the advertising and mannequins used here in Chueca, the gay distric of Madrid, gay guys have plenty of people actively working to shape out their insecurities as well.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:16:08 -0800

What kept running through my head as I watched this is that whatever these guys are saying, they're more a symptom of the problem than the root. It's not like window dressers all over the world are clamoring for plus-sized mannequins and these guys refuse to make them. Everything they're saying is really just sort of an after-the-fact rationalization of the fact that they're making what people are asking them for because they're good at making mannequins. If the whole world suddenly liked girls with one arm, a 57 inch waist and an asymmetrical face then that's what they would make mannequins of. but the whole world isn't asking for that, and to my mind the real problem is addressing that demand at a social level. nonetheless, it was an interesting depiction of the kind of mentality that thrives in industries built on the imagery of oppression.

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:19:03 -0800

All I know is if I made mannequins I'd definitely make ones that were not shapely and did not reflect the actual demands of the marketplace. These people are disgusting.

By: MythMaker

MythMaker — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:19:54 -0800

I liked this little doc - I thought it had a poetic tone that really worked in its favor. Good job!

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:19:55 -0800

Or, what shmegegge said, if I knew how to preview.

By: eye of newt

eye of newt — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:38:11 -0800

Watching them make a mold of this woman's face--picked, no doubt because that one part of her is 'perfect', reminded me of the movie Frankenhooker, where this guy gets various 'perfect' body parts from various hookers in order to rebuild his girlfriend (and in the end, he gets his perfect body!) I like the idea of the Japanese ceramic artists, where they are always careful to have some imperfection in each piece, so that you know it is handmade and not some 'perfect' piece from pumped out of some factory. (Of course now the factories are putting in these same perfections. You can't win).

By: everichon

everichon — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:39:52 -0800

Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about... Mathowie.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:50:12 -0800

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MATHOWIE. -blammo-

By: Herodios

Herodios — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:54:33 -0800

I've met several people in my life (including my current girlfriend) who are geniunely freaked out by mannequins. I can understand why. Welcome to the Uncanny Valley, a place where creepy things that look almost but not quite human reside. Recent and relevant on Metafilter. As to mannequins specifically, I'd prefer a return to the rather abstract ones that seemed popular in the 1970s -- jet black or silver or bathroom-fixture-white, featureless and hairless. No more distracting than a coat-hanger. The attempted realism viz. Are You Being Served? seemed goofy and old-fashioned when not downright disturbing.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:57:35 -0800

He can breathe OK as long as nobody unplugs him.

By: chowflap

chowflap — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:01:36 -0800

I haven't seen the video, but I wanted to say that I notice CONSTANTLY that clothes, even tiny size zero clothes, don't fit mannequins -- the shirts are very often clipped on the lower back so that the clothes fit the waist. I wear a small-ish size but I don't have the wasp-like proportions that these ideal women do. Apparently, the people who make mass-market clothes know that most women don't, either.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:01:48 -0800

Skateboarding Girls. Previously, although the link there is dead

By: NationalKato

NationalKato — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:11:34 -0800

I'm staying for the Blade Runner quotes.

By: Phalene

Phalene — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:17:06 -0800

Honestly, as a woman, I've never felt I had to be a mannequin, because they look like dolls, and I no more think I'm supposed to look like Barbie than the noseless playmobil I played with as a child. What gives me the heebie jeebies is photoshopped pictures passed off as real women, the real models that the fashion industry uses and things like beauty pageants, where I can't look like that but the expectation is that I should aspire. No amount of plastic surgery will give me poreless skin and pipe cleaner arms, and while my kid sister got the tall + slender genes that modern fashion idealizes, even she, at 14, is past her modeling prime as her figure comes in. And the thing I hate with the heat of a thousand firey suns is the 'top 10 hot women in X'. It's not enough that they're expert engineers/bloggers/athlete/whatever, now they have to look like a particular ideal too? As a person who'll never be wee featured or small framed, it's withering to know I'll always be lacking, no matter how good I am in my field.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:17:08 -0800

Cool Papa Bell writes "Insert snarky, possibly sexual, and definitely boyzone 'but can she do X' comment here." It's really a joke on the priorities of obsessive programmers, not "boyzone".

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:51:42 -0800

This video would have been more interesting with less of the philosophizing. The talk about specifics of the process was much more compelling than this pseudo-religious mumbling. It seemed clear to me that the filmmaker had pre-scripted the conversation he wanted to have with the designer, and more or less pulled the designer through it line by line. Notice how we were never looking at the guy during the last half of the video. I'm guessing that's because we were listening to lots of cuts spliced together.

By: anazgnos

anazgnos — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:07:50 -0800

If the whole world suddenly liked girls with one arm, a 57 inch waist and an asymmetrical face then that's what they would make mannequins of. but the whole world isn't asking for that, and to my mind the real problem is addressing that demand at a social level. I've had it up to here with these unrealistic female body images!

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:29:47 -0800

Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:34:02 -0800

Relevant 1980s mannequin documentary.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:50:27 -0800

Oh, how about that? It's just a continuation of religious iconography! That may be true enough, but probably not the religion they're thinking of: What sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgement! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovas! Moloch whose factories dream and choke in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities! Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

By: bruzie

bruzie — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:07:31 -0800

I'm the Doctor, run for your life! Never mind the Bladerunner quotes...

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:32:25 -0800

spilon: "Oh not me. I wouldn't know nuthin' about that... I'm a I'm a I'm a ba.... bbb.... bachelor myself." Ha! "Pretty, with hairy legs!" Man, I haven't pulled that album out in ages.

By: Mental Wimp

Mental Wimp — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:25:00 -0800

I would have thought something called metafilter would filter out "But can she insert a snarky, possibly sexual, and definitely boyzone "but can she do X" comment here?".

By: Tube

Tube — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:02:35 -0800

An interesting short documentary, but far too little on the actual technique involved. For instance, the body of the mannequin is made of plaster of Paris, or one of superior casting compounds, i.e. Hydrocal or Ultracal, is it not? You see workers wearing respirators sanding torsos at one point, I assume that's because of the fine particulate involved. You see two part molds, which I assume are made of fiberglass. Does this leave a "join" line in the cast part that must be sanded down? Mannequins are hollow, are they not? How do they do that? Why are the hands made of PVC and not casting cement? Are the castings painted? If so, what kind of paint and how many coats? Do mannequins have internal armatures for support? Surely they are fragile if they are made of casting cement. It seems I'm out of step with the prevailing Metafilter zeitgeist, as I'm more interested in the artifact itself rather than what it symbolizes...

By: Billegible

Billegible — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:31:10 -0800

Better than I expected... I found it hypnotically fascinating.

By: nyxxxx

nyxxxx — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:28:45 -0800

Tube, I think you need to watch another video. This one isn't about that. It's about what it's about. You can't change it by arguing with it. So what you need to do is find a video about the manufacturing process of mannequins. Oh, and, I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. .

By: wemayfreeze

wemayfreeze — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:13:11 -0800

I'm pretty happy these guys are waxing philosophical about the World and Their Place In It. They could easily be total douchebags who are just into chicks' bodies. Our world is not exactly overflowing with thoughtful folks these days.

By: onlyconnect

onlyconnect — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:36:23 -0800

Anyone else notice the excrutiating, plaintive look at the camera that the actual human model gave when the model maker started explaining to the camera, while looking between the female model and the camera and the model-under-construction, that the best part of it was that they could improve things. So she's gorgeous with Nordic features and a teeny tiny little waist, but the best part is she can be improved. Oh goodie.

By: lysistrata

lysistrata — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:47:23 -0800

There is something so incredibly disturbing about this video. I can't quite put my finger on it. I'm not going to point fingers and scream, "sexist! Sexist!" although perhaps I should. I've seen sex dolls being produced and not flinched. I've watched the most disgusting porn and come out on the other side feeling pretty good (no pun intended, sickos) but for some reason this -- this -- got to me. Maybe it's the fact that, except for the face model, every single worker in this video was male. Maybe it's seeing rows and rows of artificial women with perfect nipples but no heads. Maybe it's seeing someone buff out the rough spots in a vagina. I think, more than anything, that it's the fact that this sort of advertising WORKS. On women. I don't know. I felt like I was watching some sort of after-the-fact snuff film. We are bought and sold in pieces, torn apart and sold back to ourselves and told that this is how it should be. And we buy it. Every fucking time.

By: porpoise

porpoise — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:40:00 -0800

I want more life, father. wtf?!

By: Student of Man

Student of Man — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:50:40 -0800

My guess is these guys were high fashion hopefuls who didn't make the cut. So found a peripheral market because fashion has always been their world. They aren't shaping insecurities so no need to bash them. Mannequins are also serve a practical purpose. You can't call sexist becasue there are manufacturers of male mannequins too. There are a lot of insecure and weak women who can't deal with the world pretending to be feminists on here.

By: JakeEXTREME

JakeEXTREME — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:18:34 -0800

So she's gorgeous with Nordic features and a teeny tiny little waist, but the best part is she can be improved. Am I the only one here who thought she wasn't attractive? I'm not saying I'm glad they 'improved' her as I don't think the end product is attractive either.

By: lysistrata

lysistrata — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:11:30 -0800

There are a lot of insecure and weak women who can't deal with the world pretending to be feminists on here. Yes. That must be it. You're the real deal though, apparently.

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:10:43 -0800

They could easily be total douchebags who are just into chicks' bodies Why does being into chicks' bodies make you a douchebag?

By: asok

asok — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:38:06 -0800

the best part of it was that they could improve things Like Kate Moss' hands. And Brazil's soccer skills.