I adore how she carries his head low, at her side, and not aloft in triumph. This is not a self-aggrandizing hero lauding her great deed. This is a woman who wanted to be left the fuck alone.
Also look at her body. The double hips. The asymetrical boobs. She’s thin, but she’s realistic as hell. That’s a real woman.
And the look in her eyes. Damn.
I originally saw photos of Garbati’s Medusa a long time ago, but I specifically remember this post from earlier this year. Medusa was one of those pieces that really buried into my head and heart. Sounds silly, but just looking at it gives me strength.
Today I was lucky enough to see it in person. She’s incredible. And, something that the original pictures don’t show— she’s HUGE!
I love this even better now that we can see the baffled look on Perseus’s face.
I know people are gonna get salty af about this but by God she’s RIGHT.
When Brad Pitt did Fight Club, he was cutting weight for every single scene to maintain his physique at 155. I’ve you’ve ever cut weight, you know how horrible that must have been. He did it because they needed a “look”.
Changing Tatum said his Magic Mike body doesn’t last for more than five days. He starved down and dehydrated his already fit physique for a “look”.
The male soldiers on Spartacus: Blood and Sand were eating pretty much chicken and veggies for every meal to maintain a “look”.
Why is this such a big deal? Because all these characters are considered physical goals for men. These are actual unobtainable physical standards for men. Male body image issues get swept under the rug so often that some people don’t even think they exist.
You want proof? Just check out that scene in Captain America: First Avenger where Cap just transformed into that beautiful beefcake of a man. Agent Carter’s actress just HAD to touch them muscles, it was completely unscripted.
Chris Evans had to wear shirts so small they physically hurt, and he dislocated a shoulder during the helicopter scene in Civil War. But who cares, girls got to wet their panties watching Captain America flex.
If we are talking about unrealistic physical standards of male fitness given to us by movies, I would like to mention Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman here.
Yeah, he is ripped, isn’t he?
Well, it is true, but to get that kind of definition, he went through 36 hour period of dehydration, which caused him to temporarily lose 10 pounds of “water weight”.
Thus during the fight scene he was filming, he was a hair breadth from blacking out whole time, just to look unrealistically muscular.
As he said during interview with Steven Colbert, “If You go three days without water, You will die. Then, when You are halfway there they shout ‘Roll it!”
It’s the same with professional bodybuilders who get into periods of extreme fasting and dehydration to lower their fat-to-muscle ratio to inhuman levels, all in hopes of making their muscle definition a bit better.
According to experts, healthy body fat percentage for a healthy male ranges from 8% to 20%, depending on height, lifestyle and numerous other variables.
Fitness model and professional bodybuilder Helmut Strebl also known as “World’s Most Shredded Man” as he supposedly managed to get his body fat percentage below 5%…
… But only when he partakes in competitions, since it is not humanly possible to live with such low fat percentage of one’s body for longer periods of time.
I mean, yeah, he keeps a draconian training regime, as well as a very strict diet even off-season, but looks much more human then…
There are documented cases of incredibly fit and muscular bodybuilders fainting on the stage in the middle of their flexing routines, as well as several who outright died, because of cardiac arrest caused by their blood becoming too thick, due to long dehydration…
And let’s not forget about Muscle Dysmorphia, colloquially known as “Megarexia” or “Bigarexia”.
Yeah, it’s a thing, but it’s barely talked about, since it’s apparently not manly to admit to having problems like that, which also creates problems with researching this particular disorder…
So… Thanks Hollywood?
I had no idea that most people who looked like this are dehydrated until I read posts like this.
