A Two-Minute Dose Of Va-Va-Va-Voom
According a recent study, overweight women have a decrease in self-esteem when looking at models, regardless of the size of the models, whereas underweight women experience a boost in self-esteem, again regardless of the size of the models (thanks La Wade for the link).
We get a LOT of e-mail from PR folks about random stuff that sometimes makes us question whether or not they even READ the blog (Note to PR people: Do not send us diet crap. No, your diet crap is not different, it’s not special, it does NOT pertain to the spirit of BFD no matter how hard to try to convince us that it does. It’s diet crap. Stop it. Sincerely, Weetabix) but our friends at Igigi released a short film on Wednesday that is very sensual and kind of awesomely empowering. And hot. Did I mention the hotness? Yeah. It’s hot.
What do you guys think? Does it make you feel empowered? Or does it make you feel bad about yourself? And to the straight chicks, does it maybe make you reconsider just how solid your sexual orientation is? Er, just me then?
Yeah, it’s probably kind of NSFW, especially if you work at a convent or something.
Posted by Weetabix
Filed under: Fat Positive, Feel Good Friday, NSFW, Video
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LOVE IT! I’m already solidly bi, she is smokin’!
She’s gorgeous! Very sexy…I’m “traditionally” straight, but that girl can definitely make my temperature rise!
I could probably look that good with the right hair, makeup and camera work too!!! I be she looks the same as all of us with out all that jazz!
That report of the study was weird. Did they not look at women who were neither over nor under weight according to whatever standard they used? And what was their methodology? Did they account for race, or was it “women” as defined by “white”? Did it matter what race the models were? (Or if they were in, ahem, blackface?)
I hate reported studies that are vague and anecdotal, as they don’t make any sense, and judging them against personal/anecdotal evidence doesn’t work, as, if the study’s any good, they’re not saying it’s true for everyone (and people who visit Fatosphere blogs are already a self-selecting group).
That said, photos of models are all photoshopped to hell and back, and even someone like Fluvia Lacerda, who is admittedly quite beautiful, is a few sizes smaller than me, wears more makeup than I have ever owned, and I suspect has not had three children.
So I don’t look at Ms. Lacerda and see myself or something like myself, even as I can appreciate that she demonstrates that, with sufficient primping and artful photography, a size 16 young women with an hourglass body can be treated as an art object and clothing hanger just as well as can a size 00.
I prefer the photographs at Adipositivity, as she features a variety of body types and shapes and doesn’t privilege the modeling industry’s standards sized up a few times but still, essentially unchanged.
I need to apologize for my last post because it really didnt come out the way i had wanted it to, it was a long day at work and my mind was a bit fried lol, but she is a beautiful women and so are all of us! I hope I didn’t upset anyone!
Hot.
Hothothothothothothot!
Coming from a straight man, I FRICKIN’ enjoyed that video!!! It’s tasteful, it’s sexy, and I hope it’s empowering!! She is one BEAUTIFUL, SEXY plus size model!! One of the best in the business today!!
For me it was… oh she’s in a shower, black dress, shower again… that music is weird. She is pretty though.
I wonder how weight has anything to do with how you feel when you look at a model. I would think it has more to do with the individual, their self-esteem, and possible presence of an eating disorder or other issue.
She’s beautiful, the video is really gorgeous, and it’s wonderful to see a more realistic body as a model.
However, I’m one of those fat women who’s self esteem takes a dip. Because my body doesn’t look like that, even though she is closer to my size than the usual model. Often when I see beautiful fat women, my first thought is “Well, she’s fat, but she’s still impossibly beautiful.”
I dunno, I think the clothing/makeup/beauty industry is simply geared to make us feel bad. Even with fat models, they’re still covered in makeup, are women with hourglass figures and a gajillion dollars spent on their hair and very expensive clothing. And as a woman that doesn’t have a team of stylists and makeup/hair artists, and a body far bigger and apple shaped rather than hourglass, it’s still an unattainable level of “beauty” for me.
I’m with Kath.
I watched the video and all I could think was “yeah, but I’m bigger than her, and I’m uglier than her, and not even when I was a size 16 and younger did I look anything like that…” It made me feel worse about myself, not better.
I felt happy, but I’m bi and find her reasonably attractive, so some of it was ‘pretty lady!’
The rest was def. a self-esteem boost. Yeah, I’m bigger than she is, and I don’t hang out in evening gowns or huge amounts of makeup. But seeing a body like hers be celebrated – seeing a larger body be unironically viewed as sexy – is awesome. I just watched disfigured, and one of the things that was SO great about it was seeing larger actresses just *be* larger. Getting a chance to see representations of really big women onscreen, without the disgusting ‘Shallow Hal’ “oh she’s GROSS” treatment, is really powerful. Seeing them in a judgment free context is great; seeing them celebrated is wonderful.
Maybe I’m just out of the habit of comparing myself to models and finding that I fall short, but in broadening the ideal, I see there as being more room for variation, and therefore more room for me. It creates a space where the fat = unsexy equation is moot, and I LIKE that space. It’s sometimes hard to find it when surrounded by mainstream media.
I can honestly say that models have absolutely no impact on how I feel about my own body. I guess i am just very secure and set in stone with my body image. I no longer compare myself to anyone and no images sent in the media nor anyones comments affect my self esteem. I just wish that all women can also learn to find that level of positive self image as well.
I have to be honest, I feel as rubbish looking at Fluvia and Crystal as I am looking at Freja or Abbey. I’m actually really pleased this article exists, because I really did think I was the only one who felt like that!
Um, yeah. I think I need a minute to recover from that. She is HOT! My boyfriend sitting right next to me wholeheartedly agrees, btw. :D
And, study schmudy, I got a bit of a boost from that. Also, where did she get that dress? I can haz?!
On a sort of related note, Mark Fast (who is apparently some designer) recently did one of those runway shows and cast several size 10-12 models. While his clothes are not anything I would ever wear (being fugly nipple-baring shredded doilies), I think that’s kind of neat.
Link: http://www.style.com/fashionshows/complete/S2010RTW-MFAST
Oh My GOD!!! This video is just freaking amazing. And yah, even though I feel good about myself regardless of any model out there, this is just so great and refreshing to see that us curvy beauties are now being shown in a sexy way.
I am so tired of what’s on TV, with the only way big women being addressed is by asking as to loose our ass of, or on the dating show being addressed as our weight. Really, this is the first time we are being shown in a sexy and artistic way. Hooray IGIGI for creating this film. And oh my that dress is just smoking hot. I am soooo buying it.
I felt good and bad.
Good because, well, I’m straight…but hot damn. And I’m saying that thinking that “16″ indicates her size which means she is very close to me in girth.
Bad because even though she is supposedly very close to me size-wise, I still don’t feel like I could ever look like that.
Yeah, I’m solidly on the “unacceptably fat” side of the sphere (around 400 lbs), so this didn’t make me feel so good. In a way I’m glad to see someone of a larger size be considered as sexy and desirable as anyone else. However, being that I am “anyone else”, and I look nothing like this woman-and will never, ever lose enough weight to feel that she represents me/my type of beauty-it can be hard to see how she’s “empowering” (although I do respect the fact that for many her image *is* progressive). If the standards for fat models veer so close to mainstream, then there’s really no way that I can look at a woman like Fluvia without understanding that she is just another form of unattainable beauty. She’s a *real woman*, and women who look like me are just pretending.
I get where they are coming from and maybe where they are trying to go (it’s all about getting someone to pay that outrageous amount of money for an outfit by letting them know they too can look fabulous like that-there model), but I might be a bit more impressed if she wasn’t wearing a crapton of makeup and false lashes…if she actually looked like a person. But, again, that isn’t the point, the point is to show a larger than the normal industry-sized model looking hot. “Hey look! She is fat AND she is hot! SEEE! It can be done! Buy our shit!”. blah.
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