Saturday 14 July 2012

A post in which appleworks paint is used to express my emotion


I saw this picture on facebook a few days ago.  The accompanying text was: 'like this photo if the person on the bottom is you lol'.  I really really hate to sound like an* ANGRYFEMINISTSAVETHEWORLD* but this is wrong on so many levels.  The top images are 'thinspo'; images created for the purpose of motivating people to be skinnier.  I know that the addition of the bottom image is supposed to be making a joke out of it, like 'OH, fuck that skinny shit. I'm just gonna eat all this junk food' but you're also sort of saying that you believe eating cake will give you fat thighs.  I am telling you right now, one piece of cake is NOT going to make your thighs any larger.  BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN THE POINT!
The point is this.  It's like you have to choose between these two people:

'that girl' VS 'NOT that girl haha'

crap 'appleworks paint' skills by me
if you think this is great you should see my friend's artistic genius on paint
watch this space
yes maire i'm talking to you
In the facebook photo, the thinspo pictures are 'that girl', and the one having a party by themselves is 'NOT that girl haha'.
OK, here is the most INCREDIBLE MIND BLOWING THING YOU WILL EVER HEAR:

'that girl' DOES NOT EXIST!

DOES NOT EXIST!
DOES NOT EXIST!
'But the photos!' you say. 'The tumblrs, instagrams, the girl at school, the girl I saw at the gym!' Really?  You're going to base someone's entire existence on 1. what they look like 2. what they tell you?  Ever considered they don't tell you everything? Ever considered that actually, you have no right to judge them and class them into a specific 'type' of person? Especially on the internet.  That's the funny thing about the internet, a person has complete control over whether or not to click 'post'. The whole stupid thing about this is that girls think skinny=healthy.  And worse, not eating=healthy.
'But slim does equal healthy!!!'
Well, I don't know if you knew this, but you can't tell whether or not someone is healthy just by looking at them.
Watch this Laci Green video for more:
You do not have to put yourself into one of the two mentioned 'types' of girl.  You can be healthy without running through forests.  You can eat cake and be healthy.  Actually, you can just eat cake.  Eat cake.
I'm not going to do some 'you're beautiful on the inside' 'everyone's beautiful' etc shit because I don't think that's the problem.  I actually hate 'everyone's beautiful' because it's like 'OOOH okay now that I'm the same as everyone else I can FINALLY stop worrying! woohoo!' Today, we have an obsession with beauty and the sometimes ridiculous social standards that are attached to the word.  Maybe that's always been the case, I don't know.  It just seems like it's reached an extremity.
Some magazines are under fire at the moment for presenting unrealistic images of women and using models that are 'too skinny'.  (~if you want to escape from this and take a nice relaxing bath in glitter and radness and girl power, visit rookiemag.com~ p.s that was not spam I seriously love Rookie) People are saying, 'oh, I wish they used real girls in their magazines'.  DOLLY Magazine already does this.  They use their readers in the magazine and have 'retouch free zones' which I think is great.
But.
You can put as many real, plus-sized, every-day, un-retouched girls in the magazine as you want and it's not going to make a difference to the way we view them.  Some may celebrate 'NORMAL GIRLS IN VOGUE!' 'REAL GIRLS MAKE A COMEBACK'. (note: real, normal... again, all we're doing is classifying one 'type' as normal and the other as abnormal.  There is no normal!) Girls will still flip through magazines.  They will look at the shoots, and they will still compare themselves to the models.  I guess after a while we would get used to looking at girls that don't have legs as long as the Yarra River, and maybe the comparison and desire to look thin would diminish.  What I'm trying to say is: it's not the magazines that need to change, it's our attitude and our awareness about this issue.  That might seem a heck of a lot harder, but it's probably easier than convincing Anna Wintour to... well, to do anything.
There is a great article written by Helen Razer about Vogue and this issue, and I think the last sentence sums up it up well.
"If Vogue aspires to make long-lasting change, then it is no longer Vogue."
Don't let magazines (or anyone, in that case) tell you how you should look or how you should feel about yourself.  You're the one with the brain, and the body.  That means you have control.

3 comments:

  1. LOVE YOUR APPLEWORKS PAINT SKILLS and that mini write up ahahaha. You are an official awesome real life Aussie Rookie gal. Yesssss

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    Replies
    1. you are too nice! evidently, that piece of art took hours of hard work to create ;)

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  2. Wow, that's one nice article.
    These kinds of images makes me really uncomfortable. Actually, not the images, but the comments. That and healthy as good/better, some just don't have the choice to have an healthy body/mind.
    In fact, just recently, I've been distressed over eating cake/croissants/etc. At least I don't binge anymore, and I actually eat "normally", but... just a few changes in my body are so scary even though I'm supposed to change physically with time like everyone. Just the thought that if I did eat this, as I can influence the change, and people think I change in a disgusting way and it's my fault and I'm BAD, a bad person.
    I mean there is a part of it that is about being scared of putting weigh and the other part being scared of being unhealthy if I don't eat enough proteins and too much carbs, or too much lipids.
    SOCIETY, PLEASE STOP SENDING US BULLSHIT, OFTEN CONTRADICTORY, POLICING MESSAGES ABOUT FOOD AND BODIES.

    ReplyDelete

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