Site Meter Reflections on Playboy: Mozart damages Salieri’s self-esteem

October 19, 2005

Mozart damages Salieri’s self-esteem

To understand the harm done to the female psyche by Playboy centerfolds and other images of unrealistic, unrepresentative, and unattainable female beauty, rent the movie Amadeus. It tells the story of Antonio Salieri, who has the terrible misfortune of being born into a society that glamorizes beautiful music. He internalizes this attitude and comes to base his sense of self-worth on his ability to become as great a composer as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Quite reasonably, he expects this to be the inevitable result of his own hard work. Honor and glory should always be conferred strictly in proportion to a person’s deliberate effort to achieve them, shouldn’t they? This is why beauty contests are immoral: they reward people by the luck of the genetic draw.

Some might argue that the Mozarts in every field are essentially genetic freaks whose oddly configured brains and bodies give them an unfair advantage over the rest of us. But, as we all know, anyone who gives genetics its due in a discussion of public policy or social justice must be a Social Darwinist. We need not listen to such a person.

At least Mozart’s talent is natural. The beauty of a Playboy model is artificially enhanced with meticulous lighting, airbrushing, and sometimes cosmetic surgery. Even though these technologies democratize beauty in some sense, granting more opportunities to choose one’s physical appearance, they still pose an added threat to women’s self-image. Just take my word for it.

Related subsequent posts:
Celebrate Mozart’s birthday by renting Amadeus
F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri shows how piety can corrupt
Madrid’s guilt trip over skinny fashion models

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 4:59 PM

  • Blogger Dave The Hat left this comment at October 21, 2005 8:46 PM  
    Lol. Good call.

    Mind you, Mozart died an alcoholic and was put in a unnamed sulfur pit so I guess Salieri had the last laugh.

    Really interesting idea behind the blog as well. Keep it up.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at October 22, 2005 9:41 PM  
    Dave In A Hat,

    You are my very first commenter, and I thank you for it. I’m working to earn an audience, and your comment is an encouraging sign that my work is beginning to pay off.

  • Blogger Chad Hille left this comment at October 28, 2005 10:08 PM  
    So, I was hopping through some blogs and I came across this posting. Interesting blog you have here. I have a blog about classical music which just so happens to have an in-depth essay on Salieri's life. The link is http://classyclassical.blogspot.com/2005/08/antonio-salieri-truth-or-fiction.html

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at October 29, 2005 12:33 PM  
    Chad,
    Thank you. Amadeus may not be historically accurate, but it’s philosophically truthful.

  • Blogger Will left this comment at January 7, 2006 9:33 PM  
    You wanted more responses, so here goes:

    Honor and glory should always be conferred strictly in proportion to a person’s deliberate effort to achieve them, shouldn’t they?

    I think I understand what you're getting at... but things such as honor and glory are so subjective, even to those conferred with them, and by those who hold people in high esteem. By nature, there is nothing measured as being more worthy of honor or glory than other things objectively. Some people loved Mozart's music, and some people thought he was a bit of a radical. Some people hated him just because he was German.

    Additionally, I want to focus on the words "deliberate effort to achieve them." Regardless of our desire to give people the benefit of the doubt, it is almost impossible to judge people by their outcomes (rather than their processes). We often see what we're shown because that is what we are supposed to be shown, and I find that I have a constant sense of skepticism that any media can ever produce a sketch of a human being that will ever produce any feeling of intimacy and connection between that person and myself.

    And this is just as true with Playboy. My days of mystification with attractive models, television stars, and musicians have come to an end. Unless I know someone personally, I'm unwilling to grant that person much of anything other than a reputation that I'm fond of. It is just too abstract, too alienated. Playboy doesn't do much for me because I feel that the distance between myself (the consumer) and the female (the product) is too great.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 11, 2006 9:09 PM  
    Will:
    By nature, there is nothing measured as being more worthy of honor or glory than other things objectively.

    You’re right—and this reinforces the point of my satire.

    ...I have a constant sense of skepticism that any media can ever produce a sketch of a human being that will ever produce any feeling of intimacy and connection between that person and myself.

    Again, you’re right. At best, I can get only a thumbnail sketch of who the woman is, and she doesn’t even know I exist. However, I don’t believe in reducing sexuality and eroticism to the interpersonal. I don’t encounter a person when I gaze at her picture, but I do encounter an archetype, a source of wonder and mystery. I suppose you could call me a vulgar Jungian: I think that archetypes can be found everywhere in high, middle, and low culture.

  • Blogger Ron Amos left this comment at October 26, 2006 2:05 AM  
    Yes, it is in a sense archtypical,
    the image connects to something inside about how things might be and in the process opens the mind to greater possibilities. It's not the real woman in the picture that is the attraction but rather this
    archypical quality, the contemplation of which changes one's relationship to the world.

    This is exactly the same process that music brings to the emotional breakfast table.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at October 26, 2006 5:52 PM  
    Well put, Ron. I like your breakfast-table metaphor. It reminds me of the expression mental furniture.

  • Anonymous Bean left this comment at October 26, 2006 6:12 PM  
    If there were no magazines like Playboy, women would find other threats to their self-image. At least if it's someone in a magazine who we are never likely to meet, we have a "nameless" beauty to be cranky at. Much worse when that jealousy is projected at someone we actually know. I happen to quite *like* myself, I'm not even too devestated about my physical appearance, but even I get a fraction depressed by the seeming perfection of the faces and bodies in magazines of all kinds. Never mind, Plato tells us that humankind has always desired to possess the beautiful and it has always been painful too. Cest la vie!

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at October 26, 2006 7:26 PM  
    Thanks, Bean. I wish more women thought like you.

  • Blogger Salihah סליחה صالحه left this comment at January 11, 2007 3:01 PM  
    I used despise the thought of women modifying their bodies for supposed "beauty". Then one day I tried on a push-up bra...hmm, not bad! I bought it just because I liked the look. My husband's thoughts about it were just an added bonus. ; )

    • Post a Comment

    « Home

    Create a Link