Posts in category Celebrities
All I Want for Christmas Is Less of this Crap
Recently, I posted the cover of 1994's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. While still thin, the models looked untouched by Photoshopped and not as perfectly flawless as the cover images of today. Here's another comparison from 1994 -- check out the striking differences between Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" music video from 1994 and the re-make from 2011. As you'll notice, "... the comparison reveals two trends: the rising emphasis placed on consumption and the new hyper-sexualization."
Here's the original 1994 version. As Sociological Images notes:"The first video involves Mariah mostly bounding around in the snow in a snow suit. Often acting pretty darn goofy, with dogs and Santa. She spends part of the video inside with kids, a Christmas tree, presents, and more animals. She’s usually wearing a sweater. She spends less than (I’m guessing) 10 seconds of the video in a sexy Mrs. Claus outfit and, when she’s wearing it, it looks like she’s got long johns on her legs."
And here's the new version for 2011. In the new video:
"Instead of a snowy field or an intimate home, the video takes place in a shopping mall. It centrally features a Nintendo product. Likewise, instead of bounding around in the snow like a goof, she spends the entire video up against a wall in super high heels and the sexy Mrs. Claus outfit (except this one doesn’t have sleeves or a midriff). At one point she runs her hand down her body, touching her breast and moving down to her crotch; at another she just leans against the wall with her back to us and swings her butt back and forth."
Pink
From the song "Perfect," written & performed by Pink.
Dirty Harry
People have been watching too many action movies. It's like they have some sort of hero fantasy that they're gonna be prepared at any time to dive down in slow-motion with guns blazing and be able to take down a psycho who's been preparing for months and is armed with an assault rifle and bullet-proof vest. Why the fuck do average citizens need military-style assault weapons? What are you preparing for? A huge influx of stampeding deer while you're hunting? The zombie apocalypse? Jesus Christ - these innocent victims aren't even buried yet, and everyone's screaming about having their precious weapons taken away. America, fuck yeah. :/
Mr. Rogers
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world." -- Mr. Rogers
Supermodels from 1994
Kathy Ireland, Elle MacPherson, and Rachel Hunter (L-R) appeared on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 1994. Today's thin ideal, popularity of plastic surgery, and extreme Photoshopping make 1994 seem like such a long time ago. And times have certainly changed.
Romy & Michelle Were, like, Totally Right
From the movie, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion.
Ashley Judd
(Fyi - "inter alia" means "among other things")
This Woman Has Rights Too
I've recently started posting a few original memes here and on my Facebook fan page (which has over 2,700 fans -- so please check it out!). As an artist, I enjoy creating these images. I add a small mention of my website, Facebook page, and logo to my memes in case they're shared. Unfortunately, another fan page on Facebook, Women's Rights News (which has about 100 times more fans than I do and should know better), has shared several of these images, but cropped my info off.
I realize that memes are found all over the Internet and it's hard to know where most originate, but when a meme actually has the originator's info on it, it's just not cool to crop it off or cover it up! I just found out that I'm not the only one -- they've done the same thing to several other great pages, such as Feminists United. I can't contact them discreetly, since they don't have a website and they've disabled private messaging and posting to their wall on Facebook, so the only thing left is to comment on their posts, which they ignore. So Women's Rights News, since you've left me with no other recourse and since you clearly follow my page, my latest original meme is dedicated to you!
Here are links to the above memes, which were posted previously on Beauty Is Inside:
- J.K. Rowling: http://beautyisinside.com/2012/10/is-fat-really-the-worst-thing/
- Portia de Rossi: http://beautyisinside.com/2012/10/portia-on-body-image/
- Iyanla Vanzant: http://beautyisinside.com/2012/10/what-we-believe/
- The 1950s Kitchen: http://beautyisinside.com/2012/10/1950s-kitchen/
Tease
Example of men's sense of entitlement over women's bodies. Here's the underlying message: She's a tease, because men wanted to see her topless but she wouldn't do it. But as a woman, she's obligated to show men her breasts if they want her to. But haha - the joke's on her because they got their way after all, whether she was aware of it or not. (And before anyone says that she chose to wear a sheer top without a bra, I speak from personal experience that in certain lighting, black tops are sometimes more sheer than you'd think.)
Tina Fey
LOL :D
Ava Gardner
Why wait? This sounds lovely right now, while I'm younger & dark-haired!
Not Very Gentlemanly, GQ
Can you spot the difference between these three photos? One of the things that indicates sexism is when women are treated in a way that reduces them to a superficial quality, such as treating women as sex objects. In these photos, "Ben Affleck and Channing Tatum sharing the 'man of the year' title and Rhianna [is] named 'obsession of the year.' Affleck and Tatum are fully dressed, while Rhianna just gets a leather jacket. Affleck and Tatum get closeups, while Rhianna gets a suggestive body shot."
Why am I getting deja vu? Oh yeah, it's because of the recent British GQ's Men of the Year covers, which featured fully-clothed comedian/Broadway star James Corden, fully-clothed singer Robbie Williams, fully-clothed rapper Tinie Tempah, fully-clothed "Mad Men" star John Slattery, and naked singer/Internet celebrity Lana Del Rey.
I'm noticing a trend here. Apparently, GQ doesn't think women are noteworthy unless they're undressed. You'd think that a magazine called Gentleman's Quarterly would behave in a more gentlemanly manner. But no.
Keeping Up with Limited Options
In a new study conducted by USC Annenberg and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, researchers looked at the way women are portrayed in the media. They analyzed nearly 12,000 speaking roles on prime-time TV and in children's TV shows and family films, studying "female characters' occupations, attire, body size and whether they spoke or not."
The results were pretty depressing:The team's data showed that on prime-time television, 44.3 percent of females were gainfully employed -- compared with 54.5 percent of males. Women across the board were more likely to be shown wearing sexy attire or exposing some skin, and body size trends were apparent: 'Across both prime time and family films, teenaged females are the most likely to be depicted thin.' ... Perhaps most telling are the percentages of speaking female characters in each media form: only 28.3 percent of characters in family films, 30.8 percent of characters in children's shows, and 38.9 percent of characters on prime time television were women.
... [R]esearchers reported that they found a lack of aspirational female role models in all three media categories, and cited five main observations: female characters are sidelined, women are stereotyped and sexualized, a clear employment imbalance exists, women on TV come up against a glass ceiling, and there are not enough female characters working in STEM [science, technology, engineering, math] fields."
Media messages reinforce sexist attitudes about what women are capable of achieving. As this study shows, female characters are significantly limited in the roles they play -- they're often relegated to supporting roles, as characters less central to the plot, and as sex objects. This impacts how girls grow up feeling about their own abilities and what opportunities are open to them, and it also affects how boys learn to view girls -- who gets to be the star, who gets to be the boss, and who's supposed to just sit there and look pretty:
"Both young girls and boys should see female decision-makers, political leaders, managers, and scientists as the norm, not the exception. By increasing the number and diversity of female leaders and role models on screen, content creators may affect the ambitions and career aspirations of girls and young women domestically and internationally."
Read more about the study at Huffington Post.
Vietnam
In June 1972, Kim Phuc was pictured in a world-famous and iconic photograph from the Vietnam War. She was the naked child who was horribly burned with napalm and was running from an airborne attack.
Since then, Kim has found a way to transform her suffering into good. She runs The Kim Foundation International, and she acts as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNESCO. She has transformed into a viable, visible symbol of peace and hope. Hers is an important story of resilience, courage, and forgiveness.
Tailoring Your Reality
A woman recounts a story about a friend's experience winning a free style consultation with Clinton Kelly from the TLC show "What Not to Wear". The friend wore a plus-size and had a hard time finding clothes that fit her well. She assumed that it was because of her size, but she couldn't seem to get good results even when she tried to follow plus-size fashion tips from the show. She asked Clinton what she was doing wrong, and he shared this secret:
"His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear. Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles. He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses. You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on. Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered. He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit. That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there."
Everything is altered. So many of us find fault with our bodies for not fitting the clothes, instead of finding fault with the clothes for not fitting our bodies.
"I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed. I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to. No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to. I guess I just didn’t know. I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.
I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are 'wrong,' who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself."
Remind yourself of this helpful little secret the next time nothing in your closet seems to fit. Remind yourself the next time the diet ads start making you think you need to lose weight. Remind yourself when you start feeling fat and ugly and worthless. Because the truth is, the flaws may simply be in your jeans — and not in your genes.
Ellen on Bic’s Pens for Her
Love this! Ellen DeGeneres' opinion & fake commercial about the stupidity of Bic's "Pens for Her". Enjoy!:
Ugly Magazines
Here's actual proof that beauty magazines make women feel ugly:
"A new University of Missouri-Columbia study found that all women were equally and negatively affected after viewing pictures of models in magazine ads for just three minutes. 'Surprisingly, we found that weight was not a factor. Viewing these pictures was just bad for everyone,' said Laurie Mintz, associate professor of education, school and counseling psychology in the MU College of Education. 'It had been thought that women who are heavier feel worse than a thinner woman after viewing pictures of the thin ideal in the mass media. The study results do not support that theory.'"
Plastic Surgery & Misogyny
Former supermodel, Isabella Rossellini, on plastic surgery ...
Portia on Body Image
Portia de Rossi, actress and wife of comedian Ellen DeGeneres, struggled with anorexia for years. Her weight hit a low of 82 pounds while filming the TV show Ally McBeal, partly due to entertainment industry pressure to be thin and also due to the shame of hiding her sexual orientation. She wrote her book, Unbearable Lightness, for anyone who's ever struggled with body image.
The above quote was from an episode of the brilliant new show, The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet, which airs on Lifetime. Watch a clip from the show here:
Even Her
Next time you fell a little insecure about your looks, remember this ...
Get Over It
Christina Aguilera on pressure from her record label to lose weight:
"You are working with a fat girl. Know it now and get over it. ... They need a reminder sometimes that I don't belong to them. It's my body. ... My body can't put anyone in jeopardy of not making money anymore. My body is just not on the table that way anymore."
Vicious Cycle
"While this won’t apply to everyone who enjoys wearing lots of makeup or who tans, I find that, for some people, they are already feeling the pressure of standards they cannot live up to. Makeup and tanning are a way of compensating. So, if we turn around then and call this woman a whore or a fake bitch (or whatever our insult of choice might be), we continue the process of victimizing her and degrading her body. We become a part of that vicious cycle." - Laci Green
Objectified at Any Age
