Ideals

Saw this posted on Beauty Schooled and Sociological Images today:

From UK magazine "Fabulous"

As both sites point out, the scientific methodology here is somewhere between quackery and bogus. There’s really nothing surprising about this. The Christina Hendricks outpouring of love has made it quite clear that not everyone goes for a size 2. Though honestly, this is a fact that we already knew, right? The range of human preference is vast and varied, even more vast and varied than this (all white) triptych would suggest. What’s new(ish) about this is the idea of publicly declaring one’s none-size 2 preference. Not that any man in this “study” did that. How many of them, I’m curious, date women of Anna’s size?

The image got me thinking about men. Since I don’t have any of the “data” that this Fabulous “study” had, this is pure speculation. It’s not quite comparable, but worth considering nonetheless:

Anonymous male model, Brad Pitt, Kevin James

I’m all in favor of a wider range of men on screen as well. After all, the incidence of male eating disorders is on the rise. And yet, the prevalence of less-than-svelte dudes on screen is already taken care of (Seth Rogan, Zach Galifianakis, Jonah Hill, etc). Where are my size-12 actresses? Average-sized actresses never play “average” characters, they are always the sidekick/comic relief/sassy best friend. There are a few examples on TV now in which average-sized women play just-another-girl, not “the fat one” (think Brooke Elliott on Drop Dead Diva, Sara Ramirez on Grey’s Anatomy), but it’s slow going.

Related Post: A wider range of women featured on The Good Men Project.

Related Post: My mom’s thoughts on a different sort of narrowmindedness