Wow.

[bladespark]

Okay, the "skinny is beautiful" media thing has officially jumped the shark. Gone beyond the pale. Passed the point of no return. Because apparently this woman is supposed to disgust you. Go, clicky, look. Then come back and read. (Er, clicky leads to gal clad only in strategically placed rose petals, may not be SFW in some workplaces.)

I am more or less straight, when Aidan's not doing the talking. (Probably a Kinsey 1, and a 2-3 when Aidan and/or Yin are around.) But that first girl especially is hot. Holy CRAP is she hot. She's supposed to be disgustingly overweight? What? She is drool-worthy even for people who do not have a BWW fetish. She has hips! She is gorgeous!

Media people have lost touch with reality. They spend so much time in their little marketing world, surrounded by yes men and crazy people who think a size 6 is overweight, that they no longer have any idea what real people like. (Heavens! A size six! I've been one, it was during my stick period, when I was too stressed to eat, and when I did eat I was too broke to have anything other than Ramen. I was too thin!)

Here's a clue, media people. Real people like real people. People who look like themselves. People who are beautiful in many ways, but who do not need to be airbrushed to be so! People who are thin and fat and in between, who are short and tall and dark and blonde and pierced and not, and everything. We may be momentarily attracted to a perfectly symmetrical face on a magazine cover, but it does not make any real impact on our minds. You want to capture our attention, well... you need something real. And that's the problem, isn't it? You don't know what real is. You try to manufacture reality, you try to be hip and cool and down with us homies, and you fail utterly, because you are not real.

Screw the ad campaign and the diet youghurt, I will take that lady with the rose petals right there. Mrow! (Hush, Aidan.) She looks pretty real to me. And if my not eating the diet yougurt means I look like her, I am not going to mind one bit! (Although I won't, I put my fat on in funny places...)

Comments

[catwoman69y2k.livejournal.com]

Yup......I deal with this often as a model. While Ican accept that I am not the cats meow to every photographer or to everyone that views works that feature myself....its crazy that I am considered ugly for having meat on my bones. Im built like this girl in the roses....not uber skinny but not needing 2 chairs to sit on either. I think that is healthy and reflects the average human being.

Kat

[mavikfelna.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely agree with you, the girl in the rose pedals is HOT. And I didn't think the other pictures were all that bad either. But the rose pedals, yum.

--Mav

[harliquinnraver.livejournal.com]

see thats where they fucked up....

did you read their tagline? Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.

MENS preference will never change?? NO. how about, "Hollywood's will never change"?

im sickened.

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

...That girl is hot.

And further, they've done studies where men are given pictures to sort according to preference of models, sans head (so you can't tell who the model was, thus preventing you from choosing the ones you 'should' like). The winner? Cindy Crawford. The loser? Kate Moss. (Cindy was the most curved model in the list; it was a few years ago when they were still big, so.)

It turns out normal men like curves. The thin-is-beautiful is entirely media-based.

That girl does not need a diet of low-fat yogurt. She needs a ticket to NZ. ¬¬

[soapinha.livejournal.com]

Dear God... that's just, excuse the language, incredibly fucked up.

That woman is not fat - not even remotely. Are the people who made that add on drugs, or something? Good Lord!

The whole "stick thin is teh gorgeous", as you said, is not based on reality. Because honestly, most people are not as skinny as Nicole Richie unless they're sick, malnourished, or have just come out of hospital.

My aunt (on my father's side) is pretty skinny - but she doesn't look unhealthy, she just looks naturally skinny, and like she enjoys excercising a lot (she's fairly muscular).

I could say a lot more about the stupid little quip at the end of the advert about "men's preferances" - but I won't bore you with it. :P

[tieran.livejournal.com]

..........

Media is insane @_@

The first girl and the last girl are OMG hot... I mean wow....

But since media influeces culture, many many flock-minded people will go along with it.

There's this new diet pill we're selling at Walgreens called Alli, the only FDA approved diet pill. It just recently became non-prescription, and it has all sorts of warnings on it about it's side effects and how you should be at *least* 20 pounds overweight to even think about trying it, in fact, it's tagline is "Before you start, be sure" O.o ad yet, it's hordes, literally hordes of skinny people that are buyig this crap! It's flying right off the shelf! It's..... very scary actually o.O

[thalass.livejournal.com]

Hear hear!

[eisenhart.livejournal.com]

I'd hit it.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

I dunno - I didn't get a massive hotness thing, but then I'm very fixated on faces, and I didn't like any of the faces of the models. As far as their bodies go, though, yes - there's nothing wrong with especially the first woman.

[graydown.livejournal.com]

I think all women are kinda gross looking, so I can't really judge those women. I don't think ads like this would get made if they didn't work.

Besides, every straight man I know would agree with it.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Then the straight men you know are shallow idiots.

[wolfmare.livejournal.com]

Yeah... To me, even that girl is a bit skinny. Because I'm bigger then she is.

You know, since I moved in with Tech, I've stopped watching tv. I don't read magazines in which the 'thin' image is predominant. Because honestly, seeing stuff like that makes me feel bad.

Our downstairs neighbors BOTH fit the 'skinny is beautiful' type, and those girls can't even defend themselves in a fight (one got jumped in the parking lot) because they barely have any muscle over their bones. And when I think about that, I realize maybe I'm better off being bigger then some. I'm not fat, but I'm built sturdy enough to take care of myself at least.

...It's just getting really, really sad.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

WTF? Ok, what is wrong with straight men? Gods, I'm gay and even I say "wow." That women in the rose petals is hot. Seriously, aren't women SUPPOSED to be curvy and jiggly and sexy?

This reminds me of an MTV skit where there were doing music videos of "full figured" (which the implication was "fat") women. And they used... Shakira. SHAKIRA! They considered Shakira to be fat!

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

No, you're confusing "what society tells you that straight men should be attracted to" and "what straight men find attractive". As you will see in a previous comment, the evidence shows that straight men still find curves attractive in reality.

[eisenhart.livejournal.com]

See previous comment, RE: I'd Hit It.

<< Straight man.

[doran-eirok.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear... The only thing I find disgusting in all this is the media itself and the assumptions they're willing to make regarding people's preferences and what is healthy. The assumption that in order to be attractive and healthy, and honestly, of any actual worth in our society, all women have to look exactly the same and conform to one body type that has generally as I understand been proven repeatedly to be not even remotely realistic or healthy for the great majority of people.

How dare people make such assumptions and implications about how people should be, how they should feel about themselves, and how they should feel toward each other. But then I guess it wouldn't be the media if they didn't. Social pressure and guilt sells products.

[thetommydodd.livejournal.com]

1: /me joins the (long, and getting longer) queue for the attentions of RosePetalWoman. Yes, I certainly would...

2: Preferences are much more individual than many people realise, and many seem to be culturally derived- african girls wouldn't stretch their necks with wooden rings unless that rated very highly locally. Look at pre-raphaelite art, or figurines recovered from ancient sites, and you'll soon discover that the ideal of feminine beauty ain't what it used to be, not by a loooong way.

3: Humans have a looong childhood compared to most species, so behaviour that is usually instinctive, we have to learn. And, believe it or not, this includes sexual attraction. Much like ducklings "imprinting" on the first moving object they see, humans have to be taught what they are and what they need. This process can occasionally go wrong, and when it does, fetishism is the result: To clarify, I use "fetish" to mean an object or situation without which an individual cannot function sexually (kinky likes and desires are fine and dandy, but when you'd rather get down with the shoe than the owner things are indisputably out of kilter). When I was a schoolboy, this imprinting was available from the top shelf of your local newsagent- a lad of 12 had no excuse for not knowing what was hot and not. I know you have reservations about porn*, but in this case I believe it does (or at least did) fulfil a useful social role PROVIDED the idea of beauty it offers for delectation, imagination (and any other word that rhymes...) is realistic and natural, because that's what today's 12 year-olds will be dreaming of tonight and looking for tomorrow. If what they're looking for doesn't exist, PROBLEM.
To illustrate; when I was a snotty schooboy, sneaking peeks at "adult art" comics when the shopkeeper wasn't looking (waay back in the mid 80s), the fashion in ladies' hair downstairs was pretty much au naturel- trimmed along the bikini line perhaps. These days, although without buying some research material and conducting extensive studies I couldn't say for certain, I guess the social pressure to look more airbrushed is pretty intense: Certainly beauty salon windows are full of banners hard-selling Brazilian Waxes and the like, and I guess girls wouldn't be paying hard earned cash, sweat and tears (well, it certainly SOUNDS painful to me) for services like that if they didn't feel it was necessary. So I can only assume it's so.

[pet-tiger.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the popularity of shaving/Brazilian waxing is due in part to the fact that it's more comfortable for some of us? *shifteyes*

[silveradept]

Yep. The world of the advertisement, and the runway, are often galaxies, if not whole universes, away from what the rest of us here on Gaia are thinking. So real people are often really weird for then to work with, if they're trying to use them to convince other real people that they want to be like the media people. Wasn't there a Dove campaign not too long ago that supposedly went through the process of make-up, hair, and other such things that led to the placement of a face on an advertisement?

[thalass.livejournal.com]

There are a few things like that popping up lately. Mostly by Dove, iirc. They have a campain to improve girls' self esteem and such, at the moment.

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Hoo... I may only be genderqueer (with an appreciation for the artistry that is the "maternal goddess" figure in women), but she is indeed hot. Maybe a little overly airbrushed; something about the photo itself looks and feels too unnatural and therefore less appealing to me. The others look more natural though. The Marilyn substitute looks like a bubbly fun person!

I am disgusted not by the woman, but by the ad execs who came up with that tagline. Truly horrific.

umm..

[aazhie.livejournal.com]

...if they used fat creepy midwestern american women who don't have any redeeming features, then yeah, i could see that ad sort of working, but GO-DAMN those ladies are sexy! they look pretty, kept up in appearance (not slobby and obsese) healthy and attractive. Generally tallish people under 250 lbs do not look fat to me. Those women look Baroque, they look healthy and fairly active. The rose petal lady is like, omg, wish i were gay and that i knew her!

[pet-tiger.livejournal.com]

You know, I think the thing that bothers me the most is the assumption people make that being fat automatically means that you'll have health problems. One commenter there said something to the effect of "diabetes waiting to happen != beauty", which is complete shit. Just because you're overweight or obese does not bloody well mean that you're going to develop diabetes or heart disease, or whatever else. Those things depend much more heavily on your genetics and lifestyle including diet and exercise. Not to mention body composition. (Apparently carrying your excess weight around your midsection has higher health risks than carrying it in your thighs, hips, etc.)

I've been obese for most of my life, and other than (undiagnosed) arthritis (which might have happened anyway since a good majority of my relatives have different kinds of arthritis) I'm damn healthy. I'm not as fit as I could be, but I don't have (and never have had) high blood pressure or any warning signs of diabetes. The only reason I'm losing weight is for myself. I want to feel better, and I want to be at a weight were I look even better, and look the way I feel inside. I love looking at curvy women. Smooth curves, no matter the size of the women, are just incredibly visually appealing to me. I'm 'turned off', so to speak, by people who are obese to a point were it would be dangerous to their health. I can't figure out, though, if I'm more turned off by stick-thin people. I think it comes down to whether the person looks like they're healthy and taking care of themselves and confident.

And I'm rambling. ^^;

[lin-chan.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong. She's not unhealthy or unattractive, but she is overweight. Not even obese, just overweight.
But also, this is Brazil. If I understand correctly, the childhood dream of all little Brazilian girls (Of course there are exceptions, just as not all little Disney-watching American girls want to become princesses) is to be Miss Brazil and enter the Miss Universe Pageant. So yeah, anything bigger than anorexic swimsuit model is going to scare them into eating the yogurt.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Lin, love... "overweight" means you weigh too much. If she is not unhealthy, nor unattractive, then how, exactly, is she overweight? What does she weight too much to do? Be model? I weigh too much to be a model.

The beauty industry's ridiculous standards of what is a "proper" weight are not something I will ever accept.

[thalass.livejournal.com]

Wasn't the real Marylin Monroe rather curvy and lumpy in all the right places?

She certainly wasn't a twig - and that wasn't the fashion back then.

[silveradept]

Marilyn is also remembered for some other things - a scene involving a grate blowing hot air, being on the cover of Hugh Hefner's first issue, things like that. She's also a quite beautiful person, curvy and such, but I think some part of her legacy is because she had memorable scenes and places, in addition to being beautiful.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

I've seen this link bounce around but I've yet to see it actually work. (It redirects to localhost).

That said, I prefer women (and men, I guess) who are on the thin side (and NOT overly thin, ick)... but only because there's something about the deliberate movement that I find gorgeous. I don't like jiggly (even in breasts, so that puts me out of the norm.); I like fluid motion with no recoil... the kind you get in dancers and swimmers and runners and gymnasts (except that female gymnasts all look 12 or younger and the thought of sex with one is gross). Plus, normal-weight people tend to be more lively and more likely to do the kinds of things I like to do: hiking, swimming, dancing.

So yeah, I would say that I judge people by their weight a little... but only in that sense. There are some "overweight" women who carry their weight very well and are active and lively and I would find them very attractive indeed. And there are plenty of underweight people who look like they'd die if you went on a five mile hike with them.

PS. I love fat-free yogurt. It's a weakness of mine. If you're going to boycott fat-free yogurt because of this campaign, I implore you to not. It's too good to give up. But please don't buy the stuff that has gelatin or pectin or other fillers in it. It should have fat-free milk and cultures only.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I boycott fat free yogurt already because it tastes like crap. Full fat all the way, baby!

[aurora77]

I watch so little TV these days that I've become re-calibrated to Realistic Normal. My first thought was, "What's wrong with her?" And she looks happy. That makes her seem even more attractive. I saw the other ads and I can't say that the others look as good as the one with the rose petals, but they're not disgusting by any means. Okay, so the slicked back hair is kinda ugh, but that's beside the point.