Teeth
On Beauty
•
26m
Directed by Alice Arnold • Documentary • 2007 • 26 minutes
The vital importance of an attractive smile, accented by gleaming white teeth, is repeatedly emphasized in all forms of contemporary consumer culture. This film is an amusing but informative look at the psychological, social and economic issues involved in our concerns about dental hygiene, and how the marketplace perpetuates and exploits these anxieties.
Featuring interviews with people having admittedly less-than-perfect smiles-with yellow, crooked, missing teeth or gaps-plus commentary by dentists, a psychoanalyst and a health educator, TEETH examines historical and cultural attitudes to teeth, society's current notions of beauty, and the recent boom in teeth-whitening products and cosmetic dentistry.
While discussing how economic inequalities, including the lack of universal dental healthcare insurance, affect Americans' oral health, TEETH also examines hip-hop culture's fashion of sporting gold or diamond-plated "grills" in the mouth as just the latest example of the connections between consumer culture, commercial images, self-identity and personal expression.
Up Next in On Beauty
-
Made Over in America
Directed by Bernadette Wegenstein & Geoffrey Alan Rhodes • Documentary • 2007 • 65 minutes
In the age of surgically enhanced beauty and reality television, how do we perceive body image? MADE OVER IN AMERICA combines the style of reality television with experimental film to weave together th...
-
On Beauty
Directed by Joanna Rudnick • Documentary • With Rick Guidotti • 2014 • 31 minutes
ON BEAUTY is the latest film from award-winning filmmaker Joanna Rudnick and Chicago’s Kartemquin Films. The film looks at beauty through the lens of fashion photographer Rick Guidotti, who highlights vibrant indiv...
-
La Petite Lili
Directed by Claude Miller • Drama • With Ludivine Sagnier, Nicole Garcia, Bernard Giraudeau, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Robinson Stévenin, Julie Depardieu, Yves Jacques, Michel Piccoli. • 2003 • 100 minutes
Ludivine Sagnier stars as Lili, the love and muse of an idealistic young filmmaker in this mod...
