I'm sure most of you have seen this commercial. It features a girl from an old movie (reminds me of a Bond girl for some reason) who dances in the most hysterical fashion. I love this commercial. Does anybody know what movie this clip is from?
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
The "girl" is Audrey Hepburn. The movie is, I think, Funny Face.
She's really pretty famous, actually. Posted by GForce (Member # 9584) on :
OK, I feel kinda dumb. Of course I know who Audrey Hepburn is. Not a big classic movie fan, though. I've seen her in Roman Holiday, that's about it. I might have to check this one out though.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
It's a pretty good movie. I like Love in the Afternoon better, though. Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
I think it is Funny Face, though I haven't seen it. And the song is Back in Black by ACDC. I love that comercial, it makes me very happy, as do most GAP commericals, Mellow Yellow anyone?
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
The skinny pant is a bane to society. It must be annihilated.
-pH
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
oh I agree, Pearce, but I like the comercial
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
I'll get right on that.
Posted by Luet13 (Member # 9274) on :
The movie is definitely Funny Face, which has an all Gershwin score which is always fun. And Audrey Hepburn does her own singing, which is not always fun.
That commercial drives me nuts. I hate it when adexecs take things out of context and make them into something else. (Especially things from old musicals. I don't know why that in particular irritates me so, but it does.)
Also, on the topic of the skinny black pant: I think only Audrey Hepburn could really get away with them gracefully.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Skinny pants are only appropriate if worn inside knee-high boots. And even that must be done with care.
Skinny pants are unflattering on everyone.
The smallest leg I'll go for is boot-cut.
Anyways, skinny pants make me cry on the inside.
-pH
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
I think I was happier before I knew that skinny pants where somehow different than regular pants.
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
quote:Skinny pants are unflattering on everyone.
I think they looked great on Audrey Hepburn. And when I was young and thin I think they looked pretty good on me. But those days, alas, are long gone. This is yet another fashion trend that will be passing me by.
But I hate the commercial. Poor Audrey must be rolling in her grave.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I am young and thin and would like to burn all the skinny pants in the world.
As I'm sure you've noticed, I am absolutely furious that this trend has resurfaced. The world does not need to throw any more unwearable pants in my face.
I will try on A pair of skinny pants for the sole purpose of determining if I can pull off the skinny pant/knee high boot look. Then, the burning may commence.
That is the weirdest rant I have ever had.
-pH
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
The skinny pants look fabulous on young girls though. My nine year old looks fantastic in leggings, a top and a short denim skirt.
But, she's nine.
I don't think anyone much older than that should be wearing leggings, personally.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
That's a commercial? All I ever see is Audrey Hepburn.
I suppose I'm not the target audience, anyway.
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Belle, Audrey Hepburn was also 5'7" and weighed 110 lbs. Not exactly your average grown woman's body!
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
I now have AC/DC's "Back in Black" screaming through my head. Sigh.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Audrey is very pretty but the commercial makes me want to claw my eyes out. What was she supposed to be dancing to in the actual movie? She just looks so incredibly stupid doing it.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I'm glad that the GAP has the stones to actually get right out there and support eating disorders. The rest of the fashion industry is so two faced about it, but GAP will actually go right out and say that if you aren't skinny enough to wear a horribly tiny pair of pants, you may as well start at the puking.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
I dislike both the commercial and the pants, though I adore Audrey Hepburn. I'm not completely recalling the movie scene, Pix, but I think she's dancing to music in her mind. I think it was something to do with beatnik (?) culture in Paris. I could be really, really wrong, though.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
Sigh, Audrey Hepburn is so beautiful. Though I've seen her only in photos and short clips, never a whole movie. I always have to make sure not to stare when that ad comes on if I'm watching TV with certain other people.
I don't think you have to be super-skinny to wear tight clothes, as long as you carry yourself with confidence. If you're larger than average, people will be able to tell no matter what you're wearing, and it's not attractive if you look like you're trying to hide the fact.
Posted by SenojRetep (Member # 8614) on :
In the movie it's an experimental bit. She's in this really beat cafe, guys with sunglasses and berets. Totally amelodic. And that dance sequence always drove me nuts in the movie, because she looked like such a wing-nut.
*Spoilers* But then that's sort of the point; she goes to Paris on this modeling gig because she's infatuated with the post-existentialist scene (in the movie her pet philosophy is called emphaticalism or something like that). Then she finds out they're really not all that and falls into the arms of a much-too-old-for-her Fred Astaire.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Ya know, nearly 2/3rds of Americans are overweight, with nearly 1/3rd being obese. And this "white people are discriminated against" style of attack against minorities was annoyingly tiresome by the time SpiroAgnew made it a cornerstone of the Republican platform in Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. The assumption that "skinny folks are anorexic and/or bulimic" is the same type of pure nastiness for the sake of nastiness as "heavy folks are gluttonous and/or lazy". Humanity is a continuum. Some folks are born with the genetic predisposition to be heavy. And some are born with the genetic predisposition to be thin.
That said, AudreyHepburn was on the fast-track to becoming a prima ballerina during her early adolescence: ie naturally thin. Unfortunately during her 15th year, she was living in Arnhem, the pivot point of one of greatest battles of WWII.
On average, the Dutch were always amongst the tallest&healthiest peoples in the world. They were usually the tallest&healthiest. The Occupation was not kind to them. Even during the best of those times, "taxation" for the Nazi war machine drove most of the Dutch into poverty level diets.
Then came the Liberation effort, and the blossoming of the Resistance. The Dutch who were trapped on the German side of the battlelines were politically punished for that resistance with an artificial Nazi-induced famine. Dutch food and fuel stores were stripped. Dikes were blown to flood roads and rail tracks. So what little "surplus" that existed couldn't be transported to areas of greatest need. Between September of '44 and March of '45, the average Dutch diet on the wrong side of the battle lines dropped to under 1000calories per day, around half of what an average already-grown woman needs merely to maintain weight. Throw on top of that one of the harshest winters in Netherlands' record, with no heating fuels.
And when the Dutch who experienced WWII as children and adolescents grew into adulthood, they were no longer amongst the tallest&healthiest. Not just them, but the "boomer generation" after them were stunted. Later studies of the Sudan famine have shown that the effects of severe malnutrition continue for several generations before normality returns. The Dutch didn't return to their status of 'tallest&healthiest' until the late1990s/early2000s.
Hepburn starved through that HungerWinter in Arnhem. And when she was able to resume ballet classes, she was told that due to the effects of malnutrition on her growing body that while with a lot of extra effort she might become a professional, she could never reach the prima ballerina level. It takes a lot of the love of the dance, and a LOT of HARD work to reach the level of even being evaluated as a possible future prima ballerina. And that involuntary starvation killed her career. Hepburn never forgot the HungerWinter. Throughout her adult life, she spent a great deal of her time and celebrity working for UNICEF, to prevent or at least mitigate the effects of hunger and malnutrition.
So now you know why I am more than slightly irritated at the suggestion that Hepburn was either anorexic or bulimic.
[ October 05, 2006, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
Someone say I have an eating disorder?
Just because most of the men in my family don't start to retain weight until their 50's doesn't mean I have a disorder. Besides, I am on a diet...a seefood diet. See food and I eat it. I'm also on a beer diet.
It sucks being skinny. You know how hard it is to find jeans my size? Out of 200 pairs of jeans in a store they might have 4 pair that'll fit. 6 tops. Most are just too big around the waist. That, and they probably aren't the brand and style that I want anyway.
Now I wouldn't mind my pants falling down, But I would like to choose when that happens.
Now, my 18 year old sister could wear these pants no problem. She's skinnier than me. Again, no disorder.
For the topic starter: Yeah, Audrey Hepburn. Though not really one of my favorite of actresses, she was an extremely beautiful woman, inside and out.
Posted by NicholasStewart (Member # 9781) on :
Audrey is great; I dislike the commercial.
I feel the media (and business) has done a lot to create an impossible standard (for most women) of beauty. You can never be skinny enough, pretty enough, attractive enough or have the right hair color.
As long as women feel they are unattractive they will feel the need to keep buying products to make them more beautiful.
This makes me sad.
Okay, end of rant.
Posted by Stan the man (Member # 6249) on :
Oh I know the TV and movies make everything go like that. Too bad too. Course I've been talking with a girl for a couple months now. I like her....don't know what she looks like, but I like her. But we aren't going serious for awhile.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
nicholas: Nah, some of us just give up =)
Hopeless Pix
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: Hepburn starved through that HungerWinter in Arnhem. And when she was able to resume ballet classes, she was told that due to the effects of malnutrition on her growing body that while with a lot of extra effort she might become a professional, she could never reach the prima ballerina level. It takes a lot of the love of the dance, and a LOT of HARD work to reach the level of even being evaluated as a possible future prima ballerina. And that involuntary starvation killed her career. Hepburn never forgot the HungerWinter. Throughout her adult life, she spent a great deal of her time and celebrity working for UNICEF, to prevent or at least mitigate the effects of hunger and malnutrition.
So now you know why I am more than slightly irritated at the suggestion that Hepburn was either anorexic or bulimic.
aspectre, having insufficient or intermittantly-available food as a child or young adult is one of the risk factors for developing a disordered eating pattern later in life. I have no idea whether Audrey Hepburn had an eating disorder or not, but I would suspect that having this as a history would put her at greater statistical risk, not lesser.***
[And sometimes people do fight most publically against those demons which most plague them. It can be a familiarity with the demon that makes one fight the hardest. Again, though, I have no idea if this was relevant to AH -- just that the history and campaign itself by no means rules out the likelihood of later problems.]
I can look for data on this online, if anyone is interested in more information. I tend to prefer not to go into details (and to screen sites carefully before I recommend them) because some things can be "triggering" to those who are predisposed, currently dealing with, or in recovery from an eating disorder.
---
***Edited again to clarify: As I understand it, this is thought to be due to an inordinate emphasis on the food itself: getting it when it is in short supply, hoarding, guilt when you have it and others don't, etc. That is to say, food starts to take on more roles than just simple nourishment, and this unbalanced relationship with food can be expressed in lifelong disordered patterns of eating (of many diferent kinds, anorexia nervosa and bulemia being just two manifestations).
[ October 05, 2006, 08:33 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by DaisyMae (Member # 9722) on :
I saw on something like Good Morning America that Hepburn was very against using her image to sell products, that she only wanted to be a force behind humanitarian projects. The point was that the only reason they were able to use this clip in a GAP commercial is because she's dead; she presumably would have never approved it if she were alive.
Posted by DaisyMae (Member # 9722) on :
Oh, and I think the skinny pant is not only ugly, but tremendously unrealistic for the women of society at large. No pun intended.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
The skinny pant is just not FASHIONABLE. I was talking to a girl about it today; she said she calls them "carrot pants." I mean, even just straight leg or boot cut still make your figure look more proportional and curvy (in a good way). And they're much, much more stylish. Aside from the impracticality, I just think the skinny pant is horrible, horrible fashion which should never have come down the runway.
-pH
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Clothes are inherently a tool of the man, man. Just say no!
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
Orson Welles called her "the patron saint of anorexia". But then again, he was always somewhat bitter from growing up with a funny name.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
It would be bloody!
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
Regardless of how Hepburn felt about food, what does it say about the Gap that they're holding up a woman who was starved as an adolescent as a standard of modern beauty?
Let's not scorn poor Audrey. Scorn the corporation that deserves it. And sells mostly ugly clothes. (I did get a nice scarf there once that I love, so they're not as bad as, say, Banana Republic. Talk about bland. Ugh.)
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: Regardless of how Hepburn felt about food, what does it say about the Gap that they're holding up a woman who was starved as an adolescent as a standard of modern beauty?
That thin sells?
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
quote: The skinny pant is just not FASHIONABLE.
We like to think that what is fashionable now is what is going to continue to sell--but just watch. The flared/bell/boot cut pant is on its way out--the Gap knows its fashion trends.
Not that I'm happy about that. But I've seen them cycle in and out. When the most recent appearance of the bell bottom/hip hugger came in, I groaned--oh no, back to the 60s/70s. I was late to adopt the fad, and now that I'm used to it and like it (and am fatter than I want to be), they want to foist skinny pants on us again. Phooey. But it'll happen. We'll still have a few years of being able to find our flared-leg pants in the stores, though, I imagine.
I remember in 1980, when I graduated from high school in Long Island, NY, and then went out to BYU in Utah, I was aghast at all the bell bottoms worn by men and women. NO ONE in New York wore those anymore. Our uniform was straight-leg jeans, Levis or Jordache or whatever. The other thing that astounded me was the electric curlers used by the women to create big fluffy 'dos--I didn't know anyone my age in New York who used curlers.
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