NEWS: Body Size Shifting in TV, Film

I don't expect Hollywood to have a particularly sane grasp on anything or to be a vehicle of social change. We defend glorified violence in film, saying that it doesn't effect violent behavior in viewers. But we attack filmmakers for glorifying an unrealistic body image, saying that it causes viewers to hate fat people, or something along those lines. The situations seem symmetric to me.

Either Hollywood is a vehicle of social change, in which case we should want them not to glorify violence, unsafe sex, unsafe driving, unhealthy body images, and a host of other social problems; or it is not a vehicle of social change, and we should address those problems in other ways than bitching at filmmakers and the modeling industry.

The standard of beauty for fashion models is just that - a standard for fashion models. Women are fucked up if they believe that they have to aspire to that - unless, of course, they plan on a career as a fashion model. The fashion industry is not the problem, it's the epidemic of low self-esteem among women, which is far more personal. TV, fashion magazines and the like are a really easy scapegoat to keep one from having to look inward.

The media and entertainment industries, contrary to common opinion, do not a have a duty to show the average person. Representing reality should not be a requirment in image/media creation. I, as a woman, and an image-maker, do not want to see average bodies on the screen or on the page. I want to see exceptional bodies.

If you are secure with yourself already, the aesthetic of beauty of an era has no baring on how you feel your body should look. If you give media power over your self-perception, you need to throw away your magazines and turn off the TV, and spend some time getting to know who you are. I give women a little more credit for being stronger than that.

av

why don't we make it a national initiative to just be fit? I don't mean super muscular or skinny (the 'ideal' for a men or women respectively). I mean just able to jog a half-mile non-stop or something. It's getting so that we're not only wasting energy trying to spread the ideal image, but also to spread some lie that it's ok to be obese. It's not ok. It can be as unhealthy and debilitating as cancer.

I really wish we had leadership that made a fucking effort to shape up our population instead of just bloodying up another population to maake ours look better.

huh?

Exactly.

Very well stated.

If most people were really secure with themselves, there wouldn't be an aesthetic of beauty for the era, because there wouldn't be widespread consensus on what your body should look like. It annoys the hell out of me that mainstream media only shows a narrow slice of the people I find attractive.

I dont know if it is actually changing that much, more I would tend to think that it is un-PC to react to someone negatively for being overweight nowadays. I know we are supposed to accept people for what they are and all, but I usually think this is just sort of a popular illusion we all maintain. To use a quote from a plif comic..

"I mean, it's one thing to talk about loving thy neighbor, but can you imagine actually feeling that way? Just look at that guy!"

Which is kind of how I percieve the acceptance of overweight people in society.

I can't find supporting links,but I heard that the energy intake of people today is not much different from that of many years ago, when obesity was much more rare. The difference is that people get much less exercise.

Perhaps the makers of SUVs and cumfy sofas should be sued?

"That 6', 110 lb bonerack on stilts is the STANDARD that is set by the fashion industry and society for women as something to aspire to or emulate. "

I just wanted to point out that the average model is 5'9-5'10 and weighs 120-125 pounds.

I think you have to be thin to be sexy. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

1) Because average people are the majority so buy more clothes than stick insects.

2) Unfortunately, yes.

3) Gives you something to hang onto

that's my point, I don't care what the media shows... be it short, fat, skinny, tall, and everything in between. Phoebe Kates, the pool scene in Fast times at Ridgemont High, and Daryl Hanna as Pris in Blade Runner jump started puberty for me, and my attraction for girls that fit those body types has been hardwired in my brain ever since.

throwing sizes around... I don't know a size 2 or 6 or 14 from a heafty bag... tell me height / weight and then I'll know what you're talking about. these articles just piss me off. I know what I'm attracted to, but if that body image is not "normal", then I'm being called abnormal for being attracted to skinny.

stop using the word "normal". use "average".

I only use the word fat for people who actually are fat.

Kirstie Alley doesn't llok fat in this photograph. I know she's probably holding it all in and stuff, but if she needs to lose weight I can't imagine it's that much.

But that would not be healthy either. Athletic, Healthy or Active is in, NOT "Skinny"

Americans are TOO FAT and thats based on real research; sorry I'm not trying to down grade eating disorders in teenage girls. Instead of making seats wider or showing 'fat' models we should be stressing a healthy diet and a more active life style along with less smoking.

the correlation between thin/healthy and fat/unhealthy is actually pretty complicated. as others have noted, being *too thin* is just as dangerous as being too fat. further, a lot of our assumptions about weight/poor health are based off of old actuary tables, that are really flawed. people who are 'fat' are - in general - only losing a very small amount of 'life' to their condition. certainly, not as much as we often assume.

more recent evidence suggests that it is *fitness* that matters, not so much 'weight,' when it comes to health (fitness being cardio-vascular health for instance - blood pressure, pulse rate, lung capacity etc). hence, 'fat but fit' is much much better than being 'thin but not fit.'

of course, morbid obesity is bad .. but that's VERY few people. and sure, most fit people tend to be thinner (but not "model" thin either - maybe with love handles, a belly etc). anyway, the larger point is that it's not really fat that matters - and a lot of why we 'blame fat' is more about *moral* issues. sooo ... a lot of our assumptions about weight are spurious. just wanted to say.

Smoking makes you skinnier, so I'm not sure how that would help Americans overcome the obesity problem.

Incidentally, Brenda fucking Hampton? Did she decide that offending everybody through 7th Heaven just wasn't fun anymore, so she wanted to focus on fat people?

[Edited on Dec 19, 2004 1:52PM]

[Drat. Double-post.]

[Edited on Dec 19, 2004 1:51PM]

Yesssssss!

I wonder how far she could toss a supermodel.

Another thing that kills me about current standards for women's bodies- They imply that weakness and frailty are attractive. You'd think after all the years of feminism we'd be at a point where the ideal female body isn't completely useless.

Nick