What does "the whole picture" mean? Thanks.
A, an assistant of B, director in a publishing house.
A: You've got mail. I'm gonna go back to work now.
B: No, stay. This is going to be a real treat for you.
A: It's for me?
B: God, no, it's for me. But you get to be the first to see it. It's Judith Leiber, made to order. Just cobra and stingray with antiqued gold hardware.
Hematite, Austrian crystal, and onyx stone inlay.A: It's gorgeous.
B: I just wish men appreciated bags as much as women.
A: Men are visual. They respond to the whole picture, even if they don't know why. I'm telling you, men are gonna love that purse without even realizing they saw it.
Best Answer
"Whole" here is used literally: the entire thing, the undivided unit. The "whole picture" means "everything you can see".
I presume the characters here are women. One has bought a new bag, and she is saying that carrying this bag will make her look more attractive to men, even though a man would be unlikely to say, "wow, that's a very pretty bag". Men "respond to the whole picture, even if they don't know why". That is, a man will see a woman with all the facets that go into her appearance -- her shape, her hair style, her clothes, and, yes, her bag -- and make a judgment about how pretty she is, without thinking of the individual components.
One could debate if that's true, but this is a forum about grammar and not dating advice.