OBJECTIFIED BY SOCIETY’S ARTIFICIAL STANDARDS: Hollywood Actors: Six-Packs That Speak Lines.

Via Outside the Beltway, I see that Men’s Journal has a lengthy article on what it takes to be a male movie star these days. The short answer: 3 to 4 percent body fat, an incredibly carved six-pack and lovingly sculpted musculature. Because that combination does not normally occur in nature, the long answer involves nutritionists, traveling weight trainers, and more-than-occasional injections of testosterone and human growth hormone.

In other words, a Hollywood star is not so much an actor, or a body. It is a nearly starving body that has been stripped of almost all its naturally occurring subcutaneous fat, then artificially bolstered with various supplements and medical technology to make it look like a statue rather than a famine victim.

Nanotechnology will take care of that, eventually, at which point, not being difficult and rare, the look will go out of style. Meanwhile, I’m reminded of this article from back when Salon didn’t suck.