In class we talked about how surprising that a role model like Wonder Woman making insulting jabs at her opponent's weight. Although ,it's inexcusable for anyone to judge another person, it's become somewhat of a norm for people to degrade people because of their weight- regardless of the ridiculousness of their insults.
Anyone remember this? Back in 2007, this was the big "scandal"...Tyra Banks gained 30 pounds! And even worst, the press has an unflattering picture to prove it. Yikes...no...not really. Note that Tyra Banks is 5' 10" and 161 pounds...an actually HEALTHY weight compared to the 130 or so pounds she used to be in her modeling days. So why is the press tearing her down and calling her "Tyra 'Porkchop'" and "America's Next Top Waddle" over this?
It's because as a woman, especially a model, society holds expectations for you to be always underweight, always beautiful, and always "picture-perfect", everything else is considered unacceptable. In retaliation to these standards, Banks took a stand for women and herself with the famous lines "Kiss my fat ass!" on her talk show.
Tyra Banks strives to exhibit a wider variety of feminine beauty and tear down such typical stereotypes through having contestants of various shapes and sizes on her show, America's Next Top Model. She also advocates for the idea of more than one type of beauty in talk show. When these hateful attacks, judging her own appearance were made, she was the epitome of her own cause when she remained self-respect and confidence in her own body.
Such gender expectations tear women down everyday, filling them with thoughts of great inadequacy and self-hate, driving them to do unthinkable, damaging things to their bodies. I appreciate that Tyra took this stand, and is true to her cause for universal beauty, but I feel as though this problem needs to be addressed one day at a time, and it will take a lot more people to follow in her example before a permanent impact is made.
However, these progressive steps make little to no impact when we have the media perpetuating these perceptions of women being objects whose values decrease based on how sexy and fit they look. It's a shame that allegedly progressive steps for women's rights, like Wonder Woman, still can't help but to simultaneously put women down based on superficial ideas.
Video of Tyra Taking A Stand (video is 1 minute 30 seconds)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOQh3evqsI
Article URL
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20009611,00.html
Video of Tyra Taking A Stand (video is 1 minute 30 seconds)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOQh3evqsI
Article URL
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20009611,00.html
This reminds me of the first "Wonder Woman" we read (not The Circle). When I was reading "Wonder Woman," it disturbed me a lot how the book was making fun of women for being fat. When Diana Prince talks about how Etta Candy should stop eating candies and lose weight so that she could look presentable to men, I found it very disappointing that Wonder Woman/ Diana Prince was evaluating Etta Candy with the stereotypical gender expectations that people have created overtime (that women should be presentable externally).
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that Wonder Woman telling Etta to lose weight was disturbing and unnecessary but it actually made me laugh. I found her blatant superficiality amusing because it is so ridiculous. However, I feel that some readers who consider themselves overweight would feel upset about this comic. Wonder Woman thinking your ugly is not a position that some people can handle. As I said before, it was just completely unnecessary to put into a comic book.
ReplyDelete