Calendar Girls
Calendar Girls, the film, is based on the true story of a band of Yorkshire women of a certain age who, after the death of one of their husbands, decide to use their rather mature bodies as the subjects for a calendar designed to raise £999 for a hospital sofa.
In fact, these 'girls' from the Women's Institute reveal none of the bits that usually cause a stir. And in the film version, at least, the photos are witty, winsome and full of joie de vivre. In the end, the women underestimate their allure and succeed in raising enough for a £999 sofa and over £500,000 for an entire leukaemia unit.
In so doing, they throw their clothes in the face of the 'youthism' that prevails in Western culture, confidently affirming the possibility of beauty and sexual attractiveness beyond the age of 23.
Indeed, the ideal of a wrinkle-free, fat-free, sag-free, firm, toned torso that is promoted by Laboratoires Garnier, L'Oreal et al is subverted by their readiness to allow themselves to be photographed as women of spirit in the bodies they have. Their self-confidence is a liberating force in itself. They come to believe that they are, as David put it in Psalm 139, 'fearfully and wonderfully made'. Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder but in the heart of the owner of the body.
In the film, the women wrestle with the morality of the project and justify their decision to pose by drawing a distinction between nakedness and nudity. They are not naked, they decide. If they were, the pictures would be pornographic. Rather, like thousands of artists' models before them, they are nude. Indeed, the photos do not deny their sexuality (which would, in turn, deny their humanity). Rather, they affirm, like Rembrandt's portraits, that the form of the body or face is far less important than character and personality.
Certainly God is the creator of wondrous physical beauty, but he is nevertheless much more concerned with the heart. As 1 Peter 3 puts it, 'Your beauty ... should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.'
Bravo to the calendar girls?
Mark Greene
Comments
There are currently no comments for this article.
