Maureen, thanks for your lengthy and interesting response. Since I initiated the Liz Taylor thread, I'd be happy to call an end to it. I was simply sharing a personal response with a potentially interested group. It made me feel good to know that a number of others - men, it's true - shared my feelings. I was beginning to feel like an alien. It never occurred to me that this simple remark could be viewed as a gender issue. I'm not a professor or film researcher, but I am a film-literate academic familiar with gender politics. It could very well be that there are women of all kinds who find Liz Taylor more or less beautiful than do men of various kinds, and for many reasons. In my experience the beauty of female movie stars has usually been addressed as a matter of what appeals to men, Camille Paglia (whose attraction to Madonna is well-established) nothwithstanding. But there's no reason it has to be. If you or any woman could tell me what I may perhaps be missing or overlooking in Liz, or in any other female beauty queen, I'd love to know. Are men's criteria for attraction to female movie stars actually a subject for contentious discussion? What part do women play in maintaining the status and power of female beauty queens? Maybe men (fans, producers, critics, directors, co-stars, cinematographers) only think they determine this. Who knows? I have no doubt that beauty on the screen is often a far different quality from beauty in the flesh, and it could be that many men who find, say, Julia Roberts, very attractive, have never actually addressed an beautiful woman in person, or loked beyond their surface. Ditto for Kathy Bates. I've loved Liv Ullman for years on the screen, but also got within 5 feet of her at a local screening 2 years ago: she was even more beautiful in person, though "past her prime." Paul B. Wiener Special Services Librarian SUNY at Stony Brook Melville Library 516/632-7253 fax: 516/'632-7116 [log in to unmask] ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html