"... but it seemed completely normal. And I haven’t even touched on Bridget Jones.... a film series portraying a 130lb woman as a disgusting sad lump....
Of course this is not to suggest that millennials are the first or last generation to be subject to unattainable beauty standards. While the body positivity movement has done so much to shift the conversations we have about our bodies, Gen-Zers are already beginning to deconstruct their own relationship to TikTok and Instagram’s faux empowerment of the 'slim thicc' ideal-type.
I mourn the life I could have lived if the Nineties had just let me weigh what I weighed."
From "Millennials were traumatised by Nineties fatphobia" (Evening Standard).
"Slim-thicc" refers to an overweight woman with a relatively small waist and a somewhat flat stomach. It seems to be fat acceptance within the narrow range of the conventional appreciation of voluptuousness. That is, you can weigh a lot and look great but only if it's distributed according to a certain traditional preference. That's the ideal that, in the future, Gen-Zers will look back on in articles about what traumatized them in the 2020s.
Posts
7 comments:
Temujin writes:
I have to say this has been an interesting topic for your morning posts. One wonders what triggered the focus on this topic. That said, I find 'fat talk' a topic that seems to be pushed out at us a lot, and not many people really care about it. A classic supply with no demand sort of thing. In today's world, we have people (such as so-called 'influencers') telling us what we should care about, how to look, what to think, how to lay out your living room, what type of non-milk milk you should be drinking, what sort of man is right for you, and on and on. Including, 'you should love me because I'm fat'. There has never been a more narcissistic time than the one we live in. Not even the Roaring 20s or early 1930's comes close to these days.
Today it's all about me. And me is a victim of some societal thing. As such, me is going to announce that I am proud to be me and demand that everyone else is proud of me for being me.
Honestly, I'm not fat-phobic. I'm fat-indifferent. Just as I am Black-indifferent. Gay-indifferent. Etc, etc, etc. But I am most definitely influencer-phobic. Influencers are another unintended consequence of the internet era. And we will one day soon, look back on some of the twits we allowed ourselves (well...yourselves) to be swayed by and just shake our heads. "What were we thinking?"
From Jimmy_w:
This campaign against Fatphobia, is as deluded and tragic as Trans Acceptance. For they are struggling for something they will never get.
What they are really looking for, is sexual desirability. Fat people have plenty of friends with other fat people. Similarly, Trans people have other Trans friends. So they have plenty of acceptance and fellowship within their social circle. They don't have as much sexual attention as their thinner cis-sisters.
But "acceptance" will never get them their sexual attention. These women believe that sexual attraction is completely a "social construct", a learned behavior. That is a Post-Modern lie. Some of sexual attraction is learned imprint behavior (to include some fetishes), but most of it is still genetic. This is scientifically obvious from the social media statistics. Skinny cis-women have vastly more followers and likes than any other demographic blocks.
Men may "accept" trans women and fat women. But they (mostly) will still prefer skinny cis-women. And therefore men will keep ignoring fat women and trans women. And women will keep interpreting that as Hate. For the opposite of Love is not Hate, but Apathy.
Ozymandias writes:
Second wave feminism went to war against narrow beauty standards, but apparently the beauty standards won.
The Millennial author says the “Nineties" didn’t “*let* [her] weigh what [she] weighed.” (Darn those pesky “Nineties”!)
A reflexive surrender to the crowd. Not even a conscious choice. Poor booby. Even now, no sense of her own authority.
And more on the way.
Tommy writes:
"Re “And I haven’t even touched on Bridget Jones.... a film series portraying a 130lb woman as a disgusting sad lump.... Of course this is not to suggest that millennials are the first or last generation to be subject to unattainable beauty standards…” – this, of course, ignores the fact that Renee Zellweger, who played Bridget Jones in the movie, quickly lost the 20 pounds she gained to play the role. The standards, at least with respect to weight, may be difficult to reach, but they are not “unattainable.”"
Well, they hired a person who had to take the trouble to load on extra weight. Why didn't they hire an actual fat actress?
I think the point is that for many the goal is unattainable and also that the weight of the character — 130 -- isn't something that should be portrayed as a big problem.
Zellweger's work depends on her controlling her weight and we know her name because she's able to do it. We don't know what she does to get there, but many of the weight loss things people do are unhealthy, and it wouldn't be unhealthy for a 5'4" woman like her to weigh 130. It would actually be about exactly the best weight.
Charlie writes:
"I was reading your posts about fat-acceptance/fatphobia, and it occurred to me that there's some overlap in the philosophies of this movement with the people who subscribe to the "incel" movement. As I understand it, many incels would say that they are excluded by society from participating in sex and intimacy, partly because hookup culture in all about superficial attractiveness. You might object that incels often shade past hating the culture into just hating women, but I've read (and personally heard) some pretty horrible things that some of these fat-acceptance people have said to skinny women - I don't think it would be a stretch to say that many of them hate skinny women, at least on some level."
efrank writes:
Anyhoo, once again Temujin makes great points, and Jimmy_w too--there are
plenty of fat guys (and gals, and skinny male chub-chasers) out there for
the fatties. Especially on large university campuses, there are plenty of men
from cultures that value plump women, though admittedly fair hair and
skin are preferred even in those instances.
As a big and good-looking (and at the time overweight) male librarian
I got hit on at conventions by a lot of burly women--only some of whom
fit the classic "she'd be OK if she lost 30 pounds" mold, alas. (I have
a younger librarian/historian friend, a tall, good-looking and
athletic fellow, who has had the same experience . . . he said wistfully one
day that he wished he was more attracted to the chubbies--and I found that
hilarious! Like wishing one was more attracted to the uglies,
but PC can do that to a guy.)
lordsomber writes:
"What they are really looking for, is sexual desirability."
Grown adults know too well that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," but to put it in blunt modern terms these people will understand: You can't argue with an erection. Or in this case, with the lack of one.
If a man was demanding to be seen as sexually desirable, it would be called "rapey."
I don't see the difference here.
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