leelastarsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
leelastarsky) wrote2006-04-06 11:26 am
leelastarsky) wrote2006-04-06 11:26 am
Entry tags:
skinny girls
I know everyone has probably had their say on the topic of JK's views already, but I had to weigh in too.
I am regularly appalled by the... what's the word? ...Worship? of the skinny, androgenous, pre-pubecent figure. Of magazines promoting wafer-thin sexless bodies as the ideal for girls and boys to set as a goal. But it is a ludicrously unachievable goal as this ludicrous advertising demonstrates -
This is a prime example of the ridiculous Photoshopping the advertisers do on the models! The purple lines I've added as a rough estimate of where I think her body really was and you can see by the lighting changes where she was cropped.
My point being that not even the models are thin enough! They're promoting figures that cannot be achieved in Real Life as the ideal. What does this do to kids who have no idea that a figure in photo can be manipulated like that? I have seen women's ragmags simply stretch pics on actresses - widthways when they want to flail at them for being fat, lengthways if they want to point the finger at them for being too thin. Seriously WTF?
And, of course, being that wafer-thin means no boobs, so implants are required. Or, as is now the trend in Hollywood, the poor actresses who do happen to have some cleavage are getting breast reductions!! (Jennifer Connelly leaps to mind) Because the andrgenous look is what keeps them working. *head desk*
Look at photos of Marilyn Munroe - all womanly hips and breasts - she would be laughed out of Hollywood today for being horrifically fat.
Which, in my mind is silly and tragic. Women have hips. Women have breasts. They have been designed by nature (or God) to bare children and need hips and breasts to do so. Yet it is the pre-pubescent girl figure that is held up as the ideal, which I find extremely disturbing.
It's not just girls either. The ideal male must either be musclebound or boyish, both with no bodyhair (again with the pre-pubescent).
Why is this? The paedophilic overtones creep me out, and I can't help feeling it's like some weird sort of anti-promotion of sexuality - we're not permitted to show you images of sexually mature males and females because, godforbid, you might think about sex! But we want to use sex to sell our product so we'll use models who look pre-pubescent so that you don't notice. O.o *sigh*
I am regularly appalled by the... what's the word? ...Worship? of the skinny, androgenous, pre-pubecent figure. Of magazines promoting wafer-thin sexless bodies as the ideal for girls and boys to set as a goal. But it is a ludicrously unachievable goal as this ludicrous advertising demonstrates -
This is a prime example of the ridiculous Photoshopping the advertisers do on the models! The purple lines I've added as a rough estimate of where I think her body really was and you can see by the lighting changes where she was cropped.
My point being that not even the models are thin enough! They're promoting figures that cannot be achieved in Real Life as the ideal. What does this do to kids who have no idea that a figure in photo can be manipulated like that? I have seen women's ragmags simply stretch pics on actresses - widthways when they want to flail at them for being fat, lengthways if they want to point the finger at them for being too thin. Seriously WTF?
And, of course, being that wafer-thin means no boobs, so implants are required. Or, as is now the trend in Hollywood, the poor actresses who do happen to have some cleavage are getting breast reductions!! (Jennifer Connelly leaps to mind) Because the andrgenous look is what keeps them working. *head desk*
Look at photos of Marilyn Munroe - all womanly hips and breasts - she would be laughed out of Hollywood today for being horrifically fat.
Which, in my mind is silly and tragic. Women have hips. Women have breasts. They have been designed by nature (or God) to bare children and need hips and breasts to do so. Yet it is the pre-pubescent girl figure that is held up as the ideal, which I find extremely disturbing.
It's not just girls either. The ideal male must either be musclebound or boyish, both with no bodyhair (again with the pre-pubescent).
Why is this? The paedophilic overtones creep me out, and I can't help feeling it's like some weird sort of anti-promotion of sexuality - we're not permitted to show you images of sexually mature males and females because, godforbid, you might think about sex! But we want to use sex to sell our product so we'll use models who look pre-pubescent so that you don't notice. O.o *sigh*
no subject
As for the photoshopping....gaah, you're so right! They do it all the time. I even remember seeing an episode of Oprah where she showed a magazine shot of her and pointed out all the parts that some editor had 'altered' without her knowledge. I remember her being like "Look at that! THat is NOT My arm!" They had, of course, made it thinnner.
And then there was that spread that Jamie Lee Curtis did a few years ago. The one where she insisted on being photographed as she *really* was. Meaning, she posed in her every day clothes, without make up, and she specifically stated that her photos were not to be airbrushed in any way.
And the truth is? Yeah, ha ha, she looked kinda bad. But only 'kinda bad' in comparison to the faked up way they usually made her look. In reality, she looked like a normal, everyday woman. Someone you'd live next door to and bitch about your kids with. Anyways, I always thought that was really cool of her to do. Especially since there are other celebs who throw fits if you happen to photograph them from the wrong side. I guess it was her way of trying to get the message out about the 'unrealistic ideal'. Or whatever.
I used to have much more interesting things to say about this, but my sociology major seems to have faded from my brain. ;)
no subject