A scene from 34x25x36

In her award-winning documentary Body Typed, up-and-coming young Jewish filmmaker Jesse Epstein explores our society’s complex and distorted obsession with physical perfection. In a series of short films—Wet Dreams and False Images, The Guarantee and 34x25x36—she presents her audience with three different portraits of life in a body-fixated world. These films speak to an important and ominous truth, and Jesse is on a mission to expose it: “I think body image, self-esteem and identity affect everything we do and are important issues to talk about,” she says.

After working in the art department on film and television sets and observing directors at work, Jesse decided to go to film school. Her first short film, Wet Dreams and False Images, was actually Jesse’s film-school thesis project.

In this documentary, we are introduced to a bubbling Brooklyn barbershop, a pseudo-community hub and host to the curve-loving barber named Dee Dee and his towering “wall of beauty.” Standing in front of his beloved masterpiece—which features a multitude of half-naked pictures of Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez, among others—Dee Dee gestures excitedly, razor and comb in hand, to these miraculously flawless backsides and breasts, all of which he assures the camera are 100 percent natural. “I … wanted to hear what young men thought about female body image,” Jesse says. “One day, the cameraperson and I were out filming … and ran into someone we knew—and he went to get a haircut at the barbershop. So that’s how I met Dee Dee and the other barbers and was introduced to the ‘wall of beauty.’ I liked them and their banter right away and thought Dee Dee would be a good ‘protagonist’ for the film.”

Dee Dee’s voluble enthusiasm is complemented in the film by two far more sober specimens—the digital artists interviewed about their role in retouching and “Photoshopping” images of women for magazines, advertisements and the like. Shown a copy of Dee Dee’s favorite image, one artist adeptly points out evidence of digital manipulation covering puckers, dimples and other “imperfections.” “I suspect in myself some sort of covert obscured misogyny,” he says in the film. “I’m really screwing with people’s sense of identity and self-worth by doing this.”

Returning to the barbershop armed with new information, Jesse—who, for the most part, is behind the camera—shows Dee Dee, the other barbers and patrons her interviews with the digital artists. Many are flabbergasted and some are solemnly accepting, but Dee Dee is nothing short of heartbroken. One friend sums up Dee Dee’s sorrow and says, “My man had a lot of wet dreams to a lot of false images,” hence the film’s title. As Dee Dee comes to accept the truth and essentially goes through the five stages of grief on camera, he and his friends continue to offer up a telling and poignant array of comments on our body-focused society. Jesse’s message has clearly made an impression on these fellows.

“Personally, making the film was very therapeutic,” Jesse says. “I was really making the film to explore my own beliefs about physical perfection—and learning more about how images that I see everywhere are actually produced was empowering. I wonder what would happen if people knew how much work really goes into making images look the way they do. How would this affect how we see ourselves and each other?”

The next two films in Body Typed delve into similar issues in new, unique ways. The Guarantee, in simple first-person narration illustrated with fantastic live-action sketches, compellingly tells the story of a promising male dancer pressured into getting a nose job. The Guarantee highlights that body-image pressure affects all sexes and genders. “I think we are all affected by living in media-saturated societies, and there needs to be more ways to talk about this,” Jesse says. “The stories I’ve [heard] have been pretty incredible. At a post-screening Q&A at Sundance, a young male actor told a story about being self-conscious about his shoulders. For men, the pressure often seems to be around being bigger and stronger. But for women, it seems to be a bit more about being skinny. But this depends on whom you talk to. Some girls are more concerned with having a bigger butt than being skinny.”

34x25x36, a hauntingly shot film about the process of making mannequins with “perfect” body measurements, also examines the deeply ingrained effect culture, and even influences like church icons, have on our perception of beauty. Says Jesse: “A lot of expectations around beauty and perfection are cultural. Body image is such a big topic, and the three films are really part of the same story—from different perspectives. Pressures come from culture, society and images. All in all, I got into filmmaking because I think media is one of the most effective tools we have for social change.”

And Jesse’s Jewish identity has certainly played a role. “Part of [my] identity as a Jewish filmmaker is to produce films that explore and ask questions,” she points out. “The desire to learn and discuss ideas has always been part of my cultural upbringing, and this definitely influences my approach to filmmaking and this project.”

Check out the trailer for Wet Dreams and False Images below. To watch all the trailers, visit jessedocs.blogspot.com.

Liz Imber is JVibe's editorial intern. She loves singing, Scotland and reading crime thrillers.