Cartoon: Your Yucky Body (Embrace Your Shape Edition)!
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Posted by Mikhaela Reid July 29th, 2009 |
Seriously, even Vogue has an annual “Shape” issue where they patronizingly allow someone as (*GASP*) huge as Beyonce or Kate Winslet on the cover in addition to their usual sub-zero model roundup… then offer drastic dieting tips… all while mysteriously claiming to promote body acceptance: And don’t miss the small print under the “LOVE YOUR BODY! headlines…
I threw in the “Lucy Loser” joke after being enraged by comments in a Entertainment Weekly piece (from the 7/31/09 issue) claiming that the proliferation of “inspiring” weight loss reality TV shows is a public good. Says the Style network’s Coleman Smith:
“Given what is going on with the country with obesity, I absolutely think weight loss is its own category. … It’s enabled us to stop thinking we live in a size 2 world by appropriately embracing real people.” (emphasis mine)
Ah, I see. The only APPROPRIATE way to show non-size-2 bodies on TV is to show people trying to DIET DOWN to become a size 2! And this is about HEALTH, not HUMILIATION and RATINGS, right? That’s body positivity we can all believe in!
This cartoon is part of a series I’ve been doing for a while now. See also:
- “Your Yucky Body: A Repair Manual” (the original)
- “Summer Swimsuit Spectacular”
- “Designer Dieting”
- “Mommy Makeovers”
For more on fake body positivity, see…
- Marianne Kirby’s Daily Beast piece “Really Big Love”. (Kirby says of “More to Love”: “It’s a one-two punch of acceptance followed by a knockout blow of shame” and that she’s “tempted to make up a drinking game around how often the contestants and suitor on the show say ‘voluptuous, curvy women.’ It would be an easy way to get sloshed.”)
- My pal Jenn Pozner, who is live-tweeting a host of reality TV horrors as she writes her book Reality Bites Back.
Crossposted at my blog, The Boiling Point.
July 29th, 2009 14:09
i love this cartoon! i’m going to print it out and hang it next to my desk.
July 29th, 2009 15:02
I like the cartoons. It’s easier to find porn than images of women online. (Am older, still
newish online). Found a good site: Female Body Image; Social Ideals vs Reality
www.the-clitoris.com/.htm/body_index.htm
I hope I copied it right; still can’t do edit
thing. Reenforces your cartoons.
July 29th, 2009 15:04
typed incorrectly, google for title Female Body Image:Social Ideals vs Reality Sorry
July 29th, 2009 20:23
Mikhaela, I LOVE this cartoon. Brilliant. And even more:
“Ah, I see. The only APPROPRIATE way to show non-size-2 bodies on TV is to show people trying to DIET DOWN to become a size 2! And this is about HEALTH, not HUMILIATION and RATINGS, right? That’s body positivity we can all believe in!”
I have a feeling I’m going to be quoting you in the book…
July 30th, 2009 09:38
on the subject of images of women’s real bodies, i’ve also seen the Belly Project, which was started by a midwife and a sex educator. women take pics of their tummies and submit them listing if they’ve had pregancies, any abortions or miscarriages whether they were c-section or vaginal delivery, and their age. it’s pretty amazing to see the diversity.
http://thebellyproject.wordpress.com/
August 3rd, 2009 06:56
Thanks so much for this cartoon. It cheered me up so much. I didn’t even know that Kate Winslet is considered fat. That is shockingly stupid.