Screenshots At ABC.com
February 23rd, 2010
I just had to share something I noticed as I was browsing ABC.com.
The picture they use to promote their “Is It Okay To Be Fat?” story is of two “faceless fatties” (better than the headless fatties, for sure); the picture they use to promote a story on “Fat Acceptance” is… of two rail-thin models. (To be fair, the story focuses on model Crystal Renn.) Kind of interesting, no?
Posted by mo pie
Email us
Oh news. It’s like they don’t even check any more.
Aren’t those both pictures of Crystal Renn?
After looking around online a bit, it appears that’s the case – the picture on the left is Crystal as she is now, and the one of the right is of a younger Crystal, presumably when she had her eating disorder and tried to stay thin to be a mainstream model.
Personally, I think Crystal is less than “fat” as she is now, even though she has relinquished her dream of mainstream modeling. It would be really nice if they had found other people to use as spokesimage for “fat”.
How is size 12, really a plus size?????? Does she really look plus size? Am I missing something here?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/02/24/crystal.renn.gaining.weight.ppl/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Thoughts?
I think the point of Crystal Renn is that she ISN’T fat and shouldn’t be considered fat at all but the fashion/media industry promotes an image that is so thin that it creates an unhealthy extreme of ideals when a healthy body (such as Crystal Renn’s current height ratio) should be promoted and praised just as much simply because it is a perfectly common and healthy weight for I think the majority of people.
Everyone should be saying “But she isn’t fat!” That’s the outrage.
I don’t think Crystal should be there only to represent that “fat” side, and for people to say, “What is she doing there? She isn’t fat!” is kind of ignorant in understanding why she’s actually really there. Marianne is there representing the “fat acceptance” and Crystal serves her own purpose and point of view for being there.
The reason “plus size” models wear size 10 or size 12, and “regular size” models wear size 0, is that it’s easier to take sample clothes in than to let them out.
If clothing manufacturers started making sample clothing sized to the middle of the size range rather than the bottom of it, models would get bigger because size 8 clothes would look better on size 4 models than size 0 models, and size 20 clothes would look better on size 16 models than size 12 models.
The clothing manufacturers have 100% of the power to change this by making larger sample sizes.
JMS, you should watch the America the Beautiful documentary about the fashion industry and beauty marketing:
http://americathebeautifuldoc.com/
I downloaded it on DirecTV awhile back, and it was very enlightening, as it follows a teenage girl starting to become a model, I think she’s 16. Well she gets an opportunity to model in France at one point of the documentary, and they tell her she has to lose a lot of weight, and she’s already pretty thin.
They also go into how Dove when they had their ad, showing women of all different sizes and colors, were actually using that as an ad to promote firming cream. As well as how the beauty industry in general could care less about how their advertisments harm women.
There also was a discussion about how there are so many hidden Phthalates in makeup and how it could be harmful to women, but I think since the documentary was made there was much more investigation into that.