... for a title to this post. But, credit where credit is due: This post is inspired by all the totty I'm seeing as I make the rounds lately, most recently in Blog-Bud Morgan's Alphabet Wars. Which is all well and good. We ALL like to look at beautiful women.
That said... You should be expecting this, you know I'm gonna do it, I've done it before, I'm not gonna change now, so here comes the inevitable "but." WHY are all the models we see stick-figure, rag trade runway rejects? That's a rhetorical question and I don't want or mean to kick off a war here, that is NOT my intent. I'm thinking I just might begin an irregular feature at EIP featuring substantial women, if only to serve as a counterweight to all the anorexic beauties we see elsewhere. I may do this, I may not. But I will today.
So... here's Whitney Thompson, a "plus size" model who won some sort of model competition in the recent past:
Forgive me my ignorance on Things-Fashionista; I'm not at all well-versed in this space. But we know what we like and we do like young Ms. Thompson. She could park her Jimmy Choos under my bed any ol' time. You can google her for more hawtness.
I mentioned over at Morgan's place that I think the culture's changing definition of beauty is a generational thing. Not to flog the dead horse or anything... here are a few examples of what I was raised on in the beauty space:
Marilyn
Gina
Sophia
Get my drift? This seems to be a case where we're not wallowing in nostalgia; things actually WERE better in the way-back than they are now.
One final shot across the bow... this was my first step in researching this post:
Well, that picture doesn't do much to advertise Ms. Thompson as plus-sized, but I see it at the Google link. And yes, she's a hottie.
ReplyDeleteWe're a fitness obsessed culture. Sure, you can be the size of the ladies you are showcasing here and be in perfectly good health, but the Western Consumer has a more stringent ideal in mind. Thinner, more muscle tone, more ready indication that this is a chick who hits the gym and cares for herself.
Shallow? Eh, who knows? Just what we're after these days.
As far as this: "WHY are all the models we see stick-figure, rag trade runway rejects?"
Simple: The Western Consumer, yet again, demonstrates incessantly that those are the types we prefer to see, and spend more money at the sight of. So they give it to us. Basic stuff. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but if replacing Willa Ford with Whitney Thompson would make a company one penny more, they would do it yesterday.
Speaking as a woman who is built for comfort, not for speed...
ReplyDeleteThis is something that has puzzled me since junior high school. The stick-thin ideal has been around since Twiggy first graced an advert and we've never gone back.
Sadly.
In a world where Kate Winslet is considered plump - at a size 8 - then anything and everything is suspect.
Twiggy, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and their "look" spawned a few generations of anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders.
I know - because I flirted with anorexia all thru my junior and senior years in high school. I was thin, yes. Was I healthy? Absolutely not. Even though my flirtation was mild compared to full-blown practitioners - I suffered gum disease, intestinal problems and other "girl" problems that plague me to this day.
All related to the fact that my daily consumption of food consisted of:
One can of Sprite
One package of Cheetos
One scoop of cottage cheese
Sometimes a bagel or english muffin for breakfast
Possibly dinner, which I would skip if I was working - lying to my family about what I did eat.
I may not be Kate Moss these days, or even Whitney Thompson - but I'm healthy and happy.
There isn't enough airbrushing in the world that can give that to a stick insect.
Heh! For once, Google DOES get it. Buck, I grew up severely in love with Kim Novak, Ann-Margret, etc. So, the sight of a substantial gal is always pleasant.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I don't mind tiny little women. Heck, FDL is a little stick girl...but she's just that way naturally...eats like a hoss, and is just gorgeous at roughly 102.
But, the other Andy has a point. Millions go into researching what the public responds to. If it gave a bang for the buck, we'd see more like the photo you posted.
Every once in a while you'll see a "Roseanne" have a hit show, because she's got a character that millions can relate to. But, it's rare. I remember when that big gal won an emmy for whatever lawyer TV show it was (Mannheim maybe was her name), and the press made such a big deal (and I think she did too, at the time) about how wonderful it was that a fat gal could succeed in the biz, yada yada yada.
That's just the way it is. Nobody woulda given Susan Boyle a shot, or a second look...
Man, did that comment run off the road and clean out both the ditches, or what? ;)
Seattle Andy sez: Simple: The Western Consumer, yet again, demonstrates incessantly that those are the types we prefer to see, and spend more money at the sight of. So they give it to us. Basic stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think it goes a little deeper than that. Without doing too deep a dive into the culcha... a lot of what we see is force-fed to us by the Fashion "powers that be." I don't think it's so much as what we (as a big-ass collective) WANT to see as much as it is "training" by our so-called betters, i.e., the arbiters of taste. I'll just throw that out there without further ado, I'm sure you know what I'm on about.
Kris: I hear ya. I'm also glad that you've come to the point where you're comfortable with yourself. The love of a good man will do wonders in that space, no?
Andy of the Louisiana persuasion:
I'm not down on little women, we love 'em ALL. But, that said, it's women of the "substantial" variety that float my particular and highly personal boat. I used to catch a LOT of flack for that back in my hell-raising, whoring around days... and I use the "whoring around" term lovingly and explicitly, speaking of lovelies "for hire" in places I found myself in the way-back, most specifically in some of the fleshpots found on the periphery of the Pacific Rim. But we digress. Your points are well-taken, with the exception I raised with The Other Andy, above. And no... you didn't run off into the ditch at all.
Well Buck...I get your drift with what you write to Andy (not me...him).
ReplyDeleteAnd one of my favorite philosophers, Shirley Q. Liquor, always says, "You know what the Bible say! TO EACH THEY OWN!"
There's definitely some deeper stuff in it, but there's just no denying the business end of the whole thing. They wouldn't be force feeding us anything that we proved we wouldn't buy. They feed us the thing that will get them the largest amount of our money.
ReplyDeleteThe question of why that type is what we want, as opposed to being more broadly attracted to slightly larger frames, is a different thing altogether. The ebb and flow of the human mob's proclivities and preferences over a time line means that this sort of stuff just isn't going to stagnate for too long. We'll be back after the Monroe's and Welch's eventually.
And then I'll be blogging about the good old days when skinny girls were all the rage, and how this force feeding of the big girls is bumming me out.
All those women are classic beauties. I grew up with a father who loves LOVES full-figure women and saw skinny thin as unhealthy. My brothers are the same way. I am definitely a full-figured woman (but by no means consider myself on the same level as those beautiful women). The thing is... beauty is from the inside out. It appears as though we've gotten away from that belief and have externalised it, rather than internalised.
ReplyDeleteEither way... plus-size/full-figured or thin - I think we just need to get back to loving ourselves as we are ... it would be much easier to simply appreciate the true beauty that comes from everyone.
Idealistic I know.
Hey Buck -
ReplyDeleteThis odd obsession with models as opposed to say stars in the pics you have up there truly started under the watchful eye of Gianni Versace no less. Gay mafia.
Having worked in the industry and seen what's put out for consumers and by whom, I give it all a miss these days. You had to see what we did to each and every photo and who was mincing around in the background screaming and yelling.
It's nice to see some kick back to those dumb queers running the show. Variety and all that. Why the hell not.
I adore the set of images above of Monroe et al. Like back when beauty was celebrated not commodified. It says class, realism, true beauty. I can appreciate beauty. But not photoshop for the delusional.
Yup, I agree.
ReplyDeleteExcept it seems to me...this recent obsession with "two plastic bags hanging from a mop handle" figures. It's not quite so much a lust for leanness, as a confusion. Take another look at that Sophia Loren picture; this is an outdated body style because she's fat? "Rubenesque"? Twenty pounds heavier than they like today? Thicker waist?
Eh, NO...it's her thighs. They've got some roundness to them. Like the curve you'd find on a fine, expensive violin, carved hundreds of years ago by a master.
Adding further evidence to my conviction that men did not choose this, what's going on in recent times. Women with thighs that look like lead pipes spend a lot of time watching teevee, they aren't much fun and they don't stay thin for long.
I agree with Buck; we've been force-fed by fashion industry and Hollywood. There are a lot of women out there who strive to follow fashion and are not healthy. I'm sure there are those "tiny" women who are fashionable and healthy. The important thing for women is to be happy and healthy - that is certainly more attractive than lean and mean :)
ReplyDeleteHaving been "substantial" all my life, I can remember a time in jr high when a neighbor lady said I looked "healthy" and it really irked me, because it was a nice way of saying I was overweight.
Louisiana Andy: I had to google Shirley Q. And I'll be off to YouTube to seek her out, too. I have seen someof his Betty Butterfield stuff, but never Shirley Q.
ReplyDeleteSeattle Andy: Yup. It's your time, now! ;-)
KC sez: Idealistic I know.
There's not a thing wrong with idealism unless carried to extremes (which can be said about anything). I agree with your observation about internal beauty... we've all seen it and in those exceptional cases where it overpowers the senses, we all wish we had it. But that sort of beauty begins with one's self... when we're satisfied with who we are. This circle could bring me back to a full-scale rant on the fashionistas, so I'll just stop right here.
Alison: Have you seen that Dove "Evolution" advert that shows, in time-lapse, the P-shopping of a model after a shoot? Precisely what you're on about. And that pic of Loren is relatively recent. By relatively, I mean after Carlo Ponti died, which has been some time ago.
Morgan: It ain't just the thighs, although there's a lot of truth in what you say. As I told Alison, what's more incredible is the Loren pic is of her in her freakin' 60s.
Lou: I hear ya about "healthy." I've had friends use that exact euphemism with the exact same meaning. OTOH, I've used it too... in an admiring manner. ;-)