Did I miss a meeting or did I fall asleep?During a recent conversation with Editor Jane that it was decided that I am virtually impossible to offend. This because she had been instructed by a friend to ask me whether she had inadvertently offended me the previous day.
Her initial response was ‘No that’s just Scotty. You can’t offend him’.
Which to all intents and purposes is true, but the other side of the coin is that, while people I know can’t offend me, there are things out in the world that offend me deeply. Most current Top 40 music, for example, offends me. A Current Affair, conservative politics and, of course, repugnant journalism dressed as social comment offend me to the point of nearly (but not quite) incoherent rage.
Which brings me to Susie O’Brien!
Her article (written for the News Ltd papers mind you) dedicated to the new ‘fad’ of applauding plus-size models and the alleged harm this is doing to our society, gave me the drizzling shits.I thought encouraging self-confidence, positive self-esteem and happiness in one’s own skin would be something to be encouraged, but apparently, no, this is A Bad Thing.
O’Brien explained that it is so very, very wrong to find any merit in fashion shows using anything less than the picture-perfect-but-still-needs-to-be-airbrushed-for-publication-example-of-how-women-should-all-bloody-look model because it would promote obesity.
This completely contradicts an article she wrote in January this year about how dangerous it is for people, especially women, to consider they are waging war against their weight; an article in which she stated ‘The winners are those who feel good about themselves and their bodies - whether fat or thin’.
You cannot champion the positive body image cause one day and then, a few months down the track, contradict that opinion by labelling moves in the fashion industry to right a huge wrong as ‘a dangerous fad’. O’Brien uses the term normal in adverted commas when it is adjacent to the term women.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t women come in a variety of shapes and sizes and who, besides the hopelessly deluded fashion industry, made the distinction between a normal woman and an abnormal one? If it were up to me I would choose to see more of Laura Wells (who is a beautiful woman and, despite not being the modelling world’s ideal, is a healthy human being) over the skeletal likes of Jodie Kidd and Kate Moss.
Maybe I’m not the best person to comment about this, because I really couldn’t give a shit about fashion. I generally find most of the models that inhabit that world irrelevant at best and repugnant at worst, but I don’t like the idea that gaunt, anorexic-looking teenagers are the ideal image for any woman, young or old.
This may surprise some women, but that kind of image is actually quite repulsive to most men, certainly at least for those of us who have a fully developed frontal lobe, functioning opposable thumbs and do not support Collingwood.
O’Brien is ignoring the positive effect that having models like Wells, or in the past Sophie Dahl, on a catwalk can achieve. Yes there is a growing (pardon the inevitable pun) problem with obesity in Australia, but having normal looking women on the cat walk does not encourage obesity, it just says that women don’t have to achieve an unobtainable and unhealthy skinniness to be beautiful. How is that wrong? And, for those people who do have chronic weight problems, wouldn’t having an achievable goal to strive for, rather than the disorder-inducing stick insect, be more helpful?
More normal healthy happy women and less anorexia / bulimia inducing clothes racks is a good thing for all of us! And Susie O’Brien shutting the hell up would be even better!
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|130.194.145.xxx |2009-09-17 04:28:54 Miranda VALLEJOS - Thanks for the honest answer.
Hey, Scotty - nice to hear from the "horse's mouth" (so to speak) that men prefer real women, not air brushed, anorexic coathangers. You made my day. Now, excuse me while I go and eat some chocolate to celebrate. Miranda
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|120.152.63.xxx |2009-09-17 06:18:22 Scotty
Cheers Mandy :D
Happy to bring a little joy to your day. Enjoy the chocolate.
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|203.28.166.xxx |2009-09-17 06:31:57 Rachel - Plus size - my arse!
Love your work Scotty - thing is, the supposed plus size women are actually average size in most cases anyway - Scarlett Johanssen is constantly referred to as being a plus or larger size because she's got an arse and tits - she's by no means anywhere near overweight
In fact, can we ban the term plus size altogether? - it's a nonsense that allows people pretending to be politically correct to accuse people who are not overweight, of being fat.
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|148.182.52.xxx |2009-09-17 06:37:53 Corinne
"This may surprise some women, but that kind of image is actually quite repulsive to most men, certainly at least for those of us who have a fully developed frontal lobe, functioning opposable thumbs and do not support Collingwood."
There's something wrong with this statement ... oh I know, you didn't include the losers who support Port Adelaide or Carlton ;)
I always love your prays, exspecially when they make me feel like I might be pretty when I've been in the middle of a weight-fueled depression and self-loathing.
It'd be nice if they stopped reducing the sizes of a "14" when apparently we're all getting bigger.
And don't forget the Pharmacutical-funded change in the BMI to make it look like there's been an even bigger shift in obescity levels. I read a very very interesting article on that last year. What's "Healthy" now wasn't "healthy" teen years ago, and there's little evidence to prove that there are significant health risks until you get into the "morbidly obese" range ... which are proportional to those in the "underweight" category.
I'm sick of it all, frustrated, depressed and powerless.
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|210.49.199.xxx |2009-09-17 06:52:26 Jane Shaw
Corrine, without wishing to get too pretentious, you’re not powerless. That’s why we do these blogs, us and thousands of others. If we get enough people able to say this, comment on it, agree to it and forward it on, eventually the message gets out to someone. It may not get to the people who are perpetuating the myths, but it will get to people who can offer an alternative and hopefully they can take over from an outdated woman-hating fashion industry that makes us all feel like you feel right now.
Yay internets! Power to the people!
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|120.152.63.xxx |2009-09-17 07:13:10 ScottyNice to get comments indicating I'm onto something here. I'm all for the eradication of the term 'plus-size' because it is a misnomer in the way it is used. Would be nice if some others of the male persuasion weighed in on the conversation too.
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|210.49.199.xxx |2009-09-17 07:36:15 juzzy
Okay, bloke weighing in.
The fashion industry is run by, as opposed to consumed by, masculine women and woman-hating homosexual men. Of course their desired image of a women, as evidenced by the majority of models having no hips, small breasts, and the general look of an eight year old child, male or female.
Funny that women round the world allow themselves to be dictated to by this, and their menfolk go along with it, when the majority of us just want our womans to look like womans, not emaciated shiny freaks...
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|124.19.31.xxx |2009-09-23 14:17:57 Scotty - re:juzzy wrote:and their menfolk go along with it, when the majority of us just want our womans to look like womans, not emaciated shiny freaks...
I just re-read this bit and spat vodka on my keyboard as I choked with laughter. I don't know how I missed it the first time around Juzzy.
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|115.130.69.xxx |2009-09-17 12:53:29 Anonymous - Men dont really care!For the term "plus size" substitue "normal" rather than "surviving on a diet ciggarettes and speed". While I still feel there is a need to ban the production of size 18 leopoard print binkinis, the idea that a healthy woman has curves and cellulite and that men generally dont care (they are just greatful to get us naked regardless!!) needs to be promoted and celebrated!! Go Sotty!
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|124.19.31.xxx |2009-09-18 03:06:23 ScottyClose most recent Anon. There needs to be a ban on the production of ALL sizes of leopard skin print bikini's. We (I mean the ones with the frontal lobe, working thumbs and not supporting Collingwood types) can't stand leopard skin print anything. How leopard skin print clothing has survived is astounding. Something that was popular in the 70's actually still being sold today confuses me. It indicates there are still people who think it's great and buy it!
!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved."
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