Aestheticism is simply defined as a doctrine that the principles of beauty are basic to other and moral principles. To an aesthete, life is spent trying to maximize the amount of beauty and pleasure in one’s life, regardless of the ethical and moral repercussions. One thing that people try to aestheticize in their lives is their food. In the film Tampopo, the director, Juzo Itami takes the idea of food as pleasure a step further when he eroticizes it and takes the simple act of eating and changes it into something that is sexual and carnal. The author of the article “Food Masquerade”, Ann Berminghan, and the characters in the the scene “How to Eat Ramen” of the movie Tampopo are inspired by the power and pleasures of perfecting the art of…show more content… While Tampopo was about the figurative eroticism, “Food Masquerade” is about the physical eroticism of foods. In the short article, “Food Masquerade”, Berminghan explains how “Japan is a culture devoted to visual aesthetics in which ornament and artifice, even in food, are valued for their own sake” (12). The scene in Tampopo begins with a medium shot of two people, one older man and one younger man, sitting next to each other at a ramen noodle house in Japan. The old man is teaching his student, the young man, the proper and best way to eat Japanese ramen noodle soup. After a few close up shots of the noodles, the old man explains that the first action before starting to eat is to “caress the surface with chopstick tips”. When asked the reasoning behind this action, the old man replies “to express affection” much like in the way you would caress the surface of a lover’s skin. The next instruction the old man gives to his young student is to apologize to the pork in the soup. He says to tell the pork, “see you soon”. This apologetic action is the same thing you would say to a lover when departing ways after a nice date. Not only is the ramen tastefully stimulating but the multiple close up shots of the ramen noodle soup are intended to make the audience member aware of the beauty of the food as well: “food is not just about…show more content… The first item in the ramen soup that the two men eat first is the noodles, all while maintaining “affectionate” eye contact with the pork. Eye contact is very important in relationships and in observation. This kind and careful watch over the pork is similar to the way lovers stare into each other’s eyes. The old man then eats some of the root in the soup and the young man follows suit. The old man starts to sip the soup as well, taking exactly three gulps. The young man watches intently and follows every move without hesitation. Before eating the slice of pork, the old man taps the pork