Looking for answers

I want a magazine that refuses advertisements that use these deceptive dollbaby images.
I want models who don’t look like lollipops.
I want Hannah Montana to stop grinding her hips when she dances in front of an audience of 9-year-olds.

What do you want from the worlds of fashion and entertainment?

To balance out my anger, I went in search of goodness and found it: read about today’s hero, Karen Gaffney, who swam across Lake Tahoe yesterday. Read the article. I guarantee you’ll feel better. Then check out Karen’s website.

Our Internet has been taken over by poltergeists, so I have limited email and web time this week. I am deep, deep in my rough draft, walking around in a fog. It’s a good thing that BH is a patient man. Daughter Meredith sent me a giant vat of popcorn to feed the muse. If this keeps up, I might even meet my deadline!

26 Replies to “Looking for answers”

  1. EWWWW, that neck-stretch thing looks creepy as hell! This is why I stopped getting fashion mags. Now I just read art and music mags, if any, these days.

    I want more plus-size actresses and models. ACTUAL ones, like the girls in the episode of “Cold Case” I watched last night.
    I want “plus size” to mean the same size range in the modeling industry as it does on the clothing racks, so when they model those clothes, they’re accurately represented.
    I want all clothing sizes to be in actual measurements…none of this “8-10-12” and “S/M/L/XL” bullcrap.
    I would like plus size clothing makers to realize that not all of us who are big also have huge boobs. Boobs and waist and hips do not always expand proportionally.
    I want magazines to fire all their photographers and casting people and let all the awesome photographers on DeviantART take their places, because they can find normal-looking people and make them look gorgeous.

    /tangent

  2. AMEN!

    “I want Hannah Montana to stop grinding her hips when she dances in front of an audience of 9-year-olds.”

    Just this morning, we had a wardrobe lockdown over a pair of too-tight jeans. We’re so fed up with Disney’s sexual manipulation of our children, we’ve locked the channel. Too bad, too, because I think HM is funny, and Miley has a bright future in comedy.

  3. More than any of the things I want from fashion/entertainment:
    I want young people to recognize that the people on magazines don’t really look that great (thanks, photoshop), that celebrities aren’t always the best idols, and that free thought is more important than hot trends.

    The fashion/entertainment industry, in my opinion, is what it is; it’s always been about the unrealistically beautiful, and I think will only become more so. Thus, the real battle is with each young person (or, hell, each old person) who needs to recognize that a magazine and computer-created model don’t dictate the worlds’ self worth.

  4. What an amazing story. My hat is certainly off to your hero of the day!

    In the world of magazines and music I am glad that I am not raising a daughter. The images they are trying to fit into are terrifying. At 37 I almost feel inadequate against these “kids” and roll models. I would love a normalcy. A mix. I loved Doves campaign that used normal women. Curvy, plump, beautiful women.

    I thank God everyday for my boys. The very boys who find beauty in so many ways that reach beyond what society is telling them is beautiful!

  5. Could not much care less about the world of fashion, but what I want from the world of entertainment would be several LJ posts in itself. Starting with– and I’d settle just for this, as it’s the vast majority of what’s wrong with the entertainment industry– a ban on all TV advertising. Make the entire industry make all its money by subscription. TV advertising is effective to a poisonous degree; there’s no other word for it. It’s the most significant reason why we have a national negative net savings rate, which reduces people’s ability to do the right thing.

    Sorry for the mini-rant! 🙂

  6. Thanks so much for sharing the video! My friend works for the Center on Media and Child Health (part of Children’s Hospital in Boston) and I consulted with the center on a presentation for middle-schoolers on media and body image. This is a perfect example of what takes place between the real world and the magazine/tv/perfect image world.

  7. Re: AMEN!

    I can’t cite an article off the top of my head. Raven, Miley, and the Cheetah Girls come to mind, though. Disney’s target audience is ages 9-12, when teens form ideals in body image. To package overtly sexual young teens for this group is a form of manipulation.

  8. I think we’re close to a societal pendulum swing on modesty.

    With popcorn support from a terrific daughter like that, how can you go wrong? Give your BH a hug from us. (That’s “Better Half”, right?)

  9. Appearance and stereotyping

    That video was friggin’ amazing! I’m sending it to my daughters.
    Here’s an anecdote, and antidote, on stereotyping and appearance.

    My oldest daughter is in her mid-20’s, athletic, nice looking, but no model. She’s getting her doctorate in physics. She and her grad student friends just had T-shirts made which read:

    THIS IS WHAT A PHYSICIST LOOKS LIKE.

    They all got tired of people saying “But you don’t LOOK like a physicist!”

  10. The comments at youtube are hilarious. “Why didn’t they just use a pretty girl?” etc. Way to miss the point, there, bucko.

    I read Bust (music & everything else) and Bitch (overtly feminist) instead of teen-girl magazines.

  11. I think this may pertain to the topic at hand……….
    I was very please to see the other night while watching Dancing with the Stars, a young woman who is a little round around the middle and does not have the “perfect” body by today’s standards was the dancer that kicked the most butt! The swimsuit model who has the body of a dancer was the weakest contender. The swimsuit model’s dance partner actually said her strength was that of zero, most likely because the poor thing doesn’t eat!
    I would also like to point out that Jane Seymour who is 54 kicked a little booty too and she does not appear to have been nipped and tucked beyond recognition. She was simply stunning. It gave me hope.

  12. In my teaching I’ve become acutely aware of how many of the ideas I thought of as media-generated are coming up from people and communities as well as down from corporations. I want the media to reflect a shared set of values, but it’s those values that I want to address first, and they are:
    Women and girls have value and power beyond their sexualities.
    Our sexualities are parts of our own selves; they do not exist primarily to amuse or entice or please or threaten others.
    Romantic relationships can be defined by affection and respect rather than primarily by unreasonable expectations leading to unrelenting frustration.
    In general, it is possible and indeed desirable to respect others and at the same time stick up for oneself.

  13. I want the advertising industry to stop using violence against women and child pornography to sell things. Abercrombie, Calvin Klein, Dolce, I am talking about you.

    I don’t mind so much when there is violence in a movie, or a girl who looks absolutely perfect. Movies are fiction. They don’t pretend to be otherwise. But advertisers want you to think that their ad is reality.

  14. What I want

    Hannah Montanna grinding her hips? That doesn’t bother me as much as her having a show/singing career considering the fact that she has no talent… I’m tired of everyone coming out with cds and movies just because they discovered that our gracious Lord blessed them with vocal cords. I’m tired of 12 year old girls dressing like Paris Hilton because it’s “Hott!”, when all Paris Hilton has done to contribute anything to society is a *questionable* home movie and some less-than-savory roles in crappy flicks.

    I’m also sick of reading Cosmo and seeing skinny chicks that look like they haven’t eaten in 3 months. There ARE gorgeous, curvy girls out there that are worthy of being in a magazine. Since when does skinny=beautiful? And no, I’m not one of those 400 pound girls that sit behind their computer screen ranting and raving about what’s wrong with the world. I am also not a stick skinny chick who eats a salad and then throws it up. (*NOT SAYING ALL MODELS/SKINNY PEOPLE ARE THIS WAY*) I am a girl with some meat on her bones and am proud of the way I look, even if most magazine photographers wouldn’t give me a second look.

    So, yeah. I guess that’s my spiel for the day.

  15. People should turn their Tv’s off and teach their children to read!
    (he says with a slight grin as he surfs channels trying to find the latest episode of Worlds Deadliest Catch)

  16. LOVE Bitch mag. I also read Time and adbusters(anti-consermerist). I hate that a lot of girls my age feel the need to live up to the expectations of near-perfection set by teen-girl magazines. I think a girl’s ideas/opinions are much more important than how she looks.

  17. Speak

    I have read the book speak nad i just wanted to tell you that i did not like it……i loved it. It was awesome. I understand some of the things that Melinda has gone through and you got all right. It would be very hard to SPEAK if ou got raped, especially in you teen years.

  18. I want older people, particularly older women, to be celebrated – they should be more covered in the fashion and entertainment world, breaking stereotypes, and not photoshopped to the point that they look like wrinkle-less smooth pre-packed supermarket meat. Because older people have wrinkles. And wrinkles are beautiful.

  19. Oh, wow! This might be too late to comment on a post from…2007, but I remember this so clearly from last year’s health class. Our teacher introduced this video to us. It’s very evocative in its meaning.

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