"In this world, when a girl’s called ‘beautiful,’ sometimes my reaction to that is: In what terms? In fashion terms? Beauty pageant terms? Real people terms? I wish I could just say, ‘She’s beautiful,’ and leave it at that,” V Magazine creative director Stephen Gan
DISCLAIMER: this blog is for all the girls without a fast metabolism, whose bodies don’t fit into sample size, who weren’t JUST born athletic or genetically inclined to skinny anything. This is the blog post for girls who will gain weight if they just look at a cupcake the wrong way, whose bums’ unapologetically hug every outfit. Yes this is the blog for those girls with one or two dimples on their thighs…(okay maybe three)!
So before you right me off as a bitter fat girl hear me out…
As the editor of a magazine targeted at young girls most of my day is spent reinforcing the belief that no matter your body shape, skin colour or hair texture you are born good enough. The by-product of this should ideally be a super natural level of body confidence, and steel-like resistance to the proverbial “beauty ideal BS” spewed by TV shows, fashion magazines and the like.
But sadly I’m not immune to the stupidly unrealistic levels of perfection that women in particular are expected to live up to (or at least aspire to). So over the last few months realizing that I’d overindulged in way too many burgers and sav blanc evenings I began on my new lifestyle. I call it a lifestyle because I realized as a size 12 girl that I was never gonna be able to rock a bikini with confidence without some serious sweat! So thanks to Virgin Active I’m a few kg’s lighter but most importantly I’m healthier than I’ve been in years and yes I’m walking around with a little extra swing in my taut round derriere.
So you’re probably wondering why would I be spewing all this body bile.
Well, I still have a few gripes: the first of my fat gatvol-ness came with the realization that even if every over weight woman in the world were to get to their healthiest body weight it still would not be good enough. Why? Because we have been brain-washed into this notion that rounded hips, robust thighs and a rotund butt are anything but normal.
Little known fact: if you’re thick and pear shaped, no amount of dieting or exercise will get you a slim n’ lean like Zoe Saldana or athletic super woman like Cameron Diaz bod. In fact trying to get there will probably lead you down a dangerous path to life long body issues.
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| Even tennis champ Serena Williams admits to trying to diet her thick ass away - just cause her body wasn't seen as mainstream pretty |
My second gripe is with this word curvy! As an African woman (big asses ain’t anything special South of this continent) all this curvy body celebration that get’s thrown around feels a bit like a special needs euphemism to me. Like being pretty or talented despite not being a size 0 is some kind of great achievement. Though I love these girls I even hate the way Amber Riley’s confidence, Jenifer Hudson’s weight loss and Kim Kardashian’s ass are toted out at every opportunity to show the world that big girls have a chance too. What I hate even more is how a magazine will put an obese girl on their cover in the hope of getting some ‘look what we did for the regular people badge.’ Oh and my personal pet peeve: the more than one carrot a day servings at fashion events - as if this were some sort of a ‘solidarity with the mere size 10 mortals’ statement.
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| Kim Kardashian works her curves |
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| Glee star and hot tamale Amber Riley in Essence mag (see more here) |
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| Interesting that both these mags felt the need to have alt. covers featuring thin girls for their Gabourey Sidibe issues |
Shoot me down if you must but I am fed up with people using the big girl as a fashion or political statement. Worse still when media outlets do tote out an honorary curvy girl for beauty purposes it's some warped store mannequin version of a real woman. For example I do not consider Halle Berry to be curvaceous and no, lil’ girl Barbie is not a body type either!
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| Halle Berry a beautiful slim woman |
Furthermore I believe that photographers who refuse to shoot with bigger models should be castrated and these fashion houses who send out size 6 sample sizes when the brief is for ‘real people’ really need to look up the word ‘normal’ in the dictionary. And to those model agencies who try to sell a size 8 girl as full figured, you know what you can do with your plus size division.
What's even sadder is that it's not just us trivial media types who have lost the plot. The world in general has become so used to seeing Jennifer Aniston’s personal trained 40-year-old body being paraded about that we’ve actually begun to believe that’s it’s completely natural for a middle aged woman to fit into a 12-year-old’s shorts.
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| 42-yr-old Jennifer Aniston in a fragrance campaign looks like prepubescent child |
Taking this degradation to the next level we now have to contend with the sickening racial body stereotyping that has begun to enter our collective psyche too! Suddenly it’s become totally okay for large bootied, booby black girls to be beautiful - but only in the context of an ulta-sexualized toy-thing image. I mean God forbid a girl with Amber Rose’s proportions should actually dare to be taken seriously as an actress or be accepted in high fashion circles! Worse still if she can’t even sing! So basically it’s okay to be curvaceous as long as you only flash your bits in music videos, or on the cover of Maxim. No one said you can’t be a size 14 actress but you need to be satisfied with the funny girl supporting roles or becoming a crude art-house film anomaly. If however you have any ambitions of becoming a sexy mainstream Hollywood starlet or romantic comedy lead make sure you google Blake, Anne, Julia and McAdams before you apply.
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| plus size model Toccarra regularly appeared in men's magazines, doing more catelogue work till she lost some weight and now she's walking runway and appears in the latest Vogue Curvy (yes you heard right Vogue Italia has a website for curvy fashion - how special - find it here) |
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| kelly osbourne was always a thick girl - her reward for becoming skinny? a clothing endorsement for madonna's new clothing line! | |
Basically what I’m try to get at (in my own bitter convoluted chocolate starved way) is that with so many kinds of beauty out there it’s a stupid, sad and very petty situation that something as affirming as being considered beautiful should come down to such a narrow ideal. Every healthy size should be celebrated and every body shape should be acknowledged in a real way. And by this I don’t mean that condescending once a year body issue we magazine types are so fond of.
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| I'll forgive V Mag 'cause this shoot is haute...but really?! |
So say it with me mistresses: REAL is not a dirty word, NORMAL is a standard we should want to live up to and a FULLER FIGURE is not a disease we need to be cured of.
And that’s the end of my big girl rant! *cue the “I’m a supermodel but I have body issues too” stories…
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“I’d like to see everyone take on the attitude that there are women of all different shapes and sizes as `the beauty ideal,’ and that it’s not one type or another. There are women who are naturally a size 2 — you can’t forget them, and that’s discrimination the other way. All women bring something different to the table and we have to appreciate them" - Plus-Size Model Crystal Renn and author of “Hungry – A Young Model’s Story: Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves”.
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ON A SIDE NOTE: I hear Chanel Iman is eating herself silly trying to gain weight because everyone (including me) has been complaining that she's too skinny to be a Victoria Secret model. In the spirit of acceptance I will leave this gorgeous poor girl alone because A cups need love too!
