Thursday, January 25, 2007

Grabbable Asses!

Conseula blogs. I rant. I rant like an old man sitting on his porch complaining about those dangblasted teenagers. Today, I'm going off on a tirade about women's body images. Let me be the first to say that when the revolution comes (and it is coming people) that some of the first ones up against the wall will be those thrice-damned tabloid people, and I mean all of them -- writers, editors, and publishers. One week they'll run an unflattering pic of Jessica Simpson with the headline "Jess is wasting away!!! Family and friends tearfully beg her to eat!!!" Right next to it will be another rag with a different photo screaming "Lonely Jess is eating herself to death!!! How will she get Nick back after packing on twenty pounds?!!!" Meanwhile, a third magazine will blare "Jessica's secret diet plan!!! How you can eat healthy and look good too!!!"

Yesterday Conseula told me that she overheard some students talking about how fat Tyra Banks is. Okay, Tyra Banks is 5'11" and currently weighs in at... wait for it... wait for it... an elephantine 145 pounds! Jesus, the average American woman is 5'4" and weighs 140. The average American woman weighs 2.18 pounds per inch. Ms Banks weighs 2.04 pounds per inch. I've seen recent pictures of the woman, those pounds are distributed quite nicely.

My point is, if Tyra Banks is considered to be fat (compared to runway models), then what hope is there for the twenty year-old who gains five to ten pounds while living in the dorms? What hope is there for the young mother who hasn't lost all of the pounds that she gained during her pregnancy?

Finally, who are the tabloids to tell me who's sexy? Personally, I happen to like a woman with curves -- hips, a defined waist, and (please forgive me) a nice grabbable ass.

Curvy women of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but a poor body image!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

so you seem to have a deep knowledge of the tabloids....

And thank you -- while you blame the tabloids, few men tend to publicly reject the images of the waif that the tabloids and other media promulgate.

Alison Piepmeier said...

Ha! This is perfect! I'm going to assign it to my Intro to Women's and Gender Studies students. You should be a guest lecturer.

Anonymous said...

i really enjoyed reading this! yesterday at the grocery store, i checked out the tabloids to see if i could see anything about the whole "fat" model thing and I saw one with a photo of Tyra Banks that had a little caption under it that read "161 pounds!" and then another that said "I feel great"... It must suck to have your weight as the headline of a magazine. but ya know, I instantly thought "hmm. she looks really good!" I hope she is able to help change the way media looks at women.