oh my shame...
Pygmalion always seemed like such a story of a freak until I took Archaeology.
Do you know Pygmalion? I should tell everyone just so no that there is no one out of the loop. Pygmalion was a sculptor. A greek one. I think a king of some sort too, but I forget. I think Ovid tells this story, too. Ah! Yes he does. Let me look up the story so I know I get this right.
Oh, Pygmalion was a great misogynist. He was "revolted by the many faults which nature had implanted in the female sex." So he kept to himself and his sculpture. Which was all fine and good until he happened to fall in love with one of his sculpted women. He looks at it, and decides that she really wants to be alive, but is so modest a girl that you can hardly tell. He falls in love with her. He pretends that he's caressing the ivory searching for flaws, but really he just wants to touch her.
He asks for a girl like her from Venus. There's a whole festival for Venus going on, so it's an appropriate time. He doesn't dare ask for his ivory girl to be turned into a human, but Venus knows that's what he really wants and so she does it for him. They get married.
The story bothered me on a few levels. The scenes with Pygmalion kissing the statue are just a few shades disturbing. And then the conclusion: I suspect Pygmalion still hates ordinary, women born women. He got the ideal, so he never had to realize that the many faults he detests so in women show up just as often in men. It's called Being Human, man. But no, he got faultless ivory. He'll always be confused.
In Archaeology, we sit in a dark room and look at naked marble men. The reclining man from the pediment of the Parthanon. Roman copies of greek statues of Apollo. They're these powerful, beautiful, ideal men. And sometimes they look a little vulnerable. The Apollo has massively elaborate hair, and is slim, and stands tall. He's so beautiful. Oh, now I understand Pygmalion.
It's really embarrassing where my mind goes during the hour and a half of naked-men-slide-watching. But I won't let that stop me now! The statue of Apollo had long drapery falling off his outstretched arm. All I wanted was to curl up underneath it. I wanted to be wrapped up next to Apollo. See, I pretty much accept that the statues aren't going to move much unless I knock off a plastered-on limb, so I imagined myself doing all of the curling. They might not recieve me, so I'd have to do all the recieving.
"Great," said Rational Brain, in that old "I've seen her like this before, we just have to waiiit it outttt" tone of voice. "Good luck getting wrapped up next to Apollo! You're going to be barred from every museum with antiquities before you're finished. Also, you are creeping me out."
I can't believe I'm telling you this.
So, this is me, Modern Female Pygmalion. Though (i think) I can safely say I've never blamed men for all human wickedness, I commit the other Pygmalion sin. Uh-uh, nope, I don't want real men, with faults and flaws and cracked marble. (And hair! The bearded statues do nothing for me. I want marble smooth skin.) I don't even want the Teen Magazine fodder, which you could argue are fairly idealized. Nope, I want Greek Sculpture. The ideal. Horrible, I know. And this is all just more evidence of that annoying naivete of mine.
This is all so heinously unfair, though. Pygmalion had all the ins. It doesn't help me that my school's patron goddess is Athena Lemnia. "Study study study study, Bryn Mawr girls!" says Athena. She's no fun. She wouldn't give me any Apollo statues if she could. She's not quite the looker Venus is, either.
The second thing is that Pygmalion made his ivory girl himself. If I had to sculpt my lover, he'd either end up looking like some sort of bird or have three toes on one foot and a mangled ear. I can't sculpt! Plus, I just don't want to do that sort of work. I want a ready made man.
Okay, I'm blushing too much to say anything more of substance. Let me state though, for the record: I have a sexual fixation with greek sculpture.
Stop looking at me that way.
2000-09-23, Greek sculpture makes me hot
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