Review of Breasts: A Documentary (1996) by Eric H — 03 May 2009

It's surprising how educational this documentary is. It's not always particularly enlightening in what these women are saying about their boobs, but it is enlightening (at least from a guy's perspective) to just look at breasts with out any real immediate sexual association involved. There's some rough production value here, and the elements haven't survived very well for the disc, so there's a lot of video noise. It looks vaguely like it was transfered from a VHS tape. But it's the content and the concept here that's surprisingly effective and eye-opening.

I was watching with my wife, and oddly enough, she found it interestingly educational as well. Movies and images of breasts do kinda stay toward the "ideal," so the image of the breasts you see in strip clubs and on porno, and in movie sex scenes is the image we've all got in our minds (male or female) of what breasts are supposed to look like. Of course, most men out there with any sexual experience will be able to tell you that boobs come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and only maybe half of them look like the ones you'd see in movies and strip clubs. This movie gives you an eyeful of what the unglamourous breasts look like.

And more than that, it offers up a real honest exploration into the taboos that surround boobs. Highlights include a woman talking about what it does to your self image to have a breast removed because of cancer. Also there's a woman who talks about what it's like to have BOTH breasts removed because of cancer. Also there's a woman who talks about a horrifying silicone implant leakage. And there's an extraordinarily overweight woman who shows us her "wraparound boobs.".

It's thoroughly engrossing to confront the reality of these people, and to consider that there is a great deal of social significance (most likely too much) put upon breasts. Boldly busting some taboos here. I'd generally reccomend Netflixing this and its male counterpart Private Dicks: Men Exposed, for a thoroughly uncomfortable but intensely thought-provoking date night. Watch them with a member of the opposite sex for some honest discussion afterward.