America the Beautiful

Filmmaker Darryl Roberts examines American males' thoughts on feminine beauty and how women respond to those notions in this revealing and disturbing documentary. Interviewing teens, tweens, feminists, academics, fashion editors, and advertising executives, Roberts employs an entertaining but sobering 60 Minutes–style approach to various topics, including beauty pageants, toxic ingredients in makeup, the risks of plastic surgery, preferences for lighter skin across cultural lines, and America's fascination with celebrities. Viewers learn which doctors on reality TV programs are not board-certified, visit a classroom where teenagers create a “great wall of porn” from magazine ads, and find out that the advent of television in Fiji seemed to correlate with a rise in eating disorders. Roberts also traces the meteoric modeling career of Gerren Taylor, who was 6 feet tall and a size 2 at age 12, with a sexy runway walk that made her a sensation during her first New York Fashion Week. Within two years of her first appearance, however, Gerren—now an “obese” size 4—found her professional life was over. Brief profanity and up-close footage of plastic surgery may make America the Beautiful unsuitable for some high school audiences (this is a PG-13 rated film, which is also available with public performance rights, priced at $145, from The Video Project, www.videoproject.com), but the content is strong in this powerful and insightful documentary. DVD extras include featurettes that examine cosmetic labeling, eating disorders, and how 19th-century scientists linked facial features to moral character. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)