September 21, 2010

Heidi Yourself? There’s an App for That.

This is just creepy. Plastic surgeon, Dr. Michale Salzhauer, launched a new app for iPhones allowing users to “Heidi” themselves by choosing from a menu of surgical treatments similar to the 10 procedures Heidi Montag endured while under the knife last year. This follows his previous app, iSurgeon, one of several do-it-yourself-first editing tools used by plastic surgeons to promote their services. Apparently, the plastic surgery industry has been hit by the recession and the ability to see what you might look like post-op is a way to strike up business.

In an age when younger women are seeking cosmetic surgery and the new horror show, Bridalplasty, the show that Jennifer L. Pozner calls “a headline-baiting reality show combining the desperation and body dysmorphia of Fox’s cosmetic surgery competition The Swan with the unbridled hyperconsumption hawked by wedding industrial complex series such as TLC Say Yes to the Dress, and WeTV’s Bridezillas and My Fair Wedding with David Tutera,” debuts on E! and even Heidi Montag has expressed regret about her procedures, the last thing we need is yet another way to bait women and profit off their insecurities.

Thanks to Karina O for bringing this to my attention.


Kush Support- Another Lame Product for Your Imperfect Boobs

Your breasts may be too big, too saggy, too pert, too flat, too full, too apart, too close together, too A-cup, too lopsided, too jiggly, too pale, too padded, too pointy, too pendulous, or just two mosquito bites.

If you’ve seen Killing Us Softly 3 or Killing Us Softly 4, the two most recent installments of pioneering scholar and media literacy educator Jean Kilbourne‘s video series examining images of  women, sexism and sexuality in advertising, you’ve heard the copy of this famous ad for Dep styling products. The underlying message of this ridiculous ad is that-surprise-no matter what our breasts look like, they’re not right and in need of improvement.

We all know that ads exist for one sole purpose- to sell products by appealing to our emotions and socially constructed desires. In a culture that has an insatiable breast fetish, our breasts have consistently appeared at the top of the ever-growing list of unacceptable body parts and there’s always some product to fix our pesky problem areas or avoid them in the first place with “preventative maintenance.”

And here we’re offered Kush Support, the miraculous sleep support for big breasts. Because now we don’t have too merely worry about their size, shape and degree of perkiness but we can fret over the potential chest wrinkles big breasts create as a result of sleeping on our sides. And because of our increased insecurities and body anxieties, we’ll buy a cheesy plastic cylinder that actually looks like a cheap dildo and our problems will be solved!

September 8, 2010

All Asses Were Not Created Equal

Originally posted at A Spot in Time by Ms. Sarit. Cross-posted with permission.

…or at least that’s what Levi’s wants us to think!

A couple of weeks ago, I walked into a Levi’s store with the intention of picking up another pair of my beloved jeans–the ones that fit my curves, are comfortable, and don’t make me feel like a stuffed sausage. Sadly, I discover, as with so many other things, they’ve discontinued the style. Instead, they have their new “Curve ID” line, which has subsequently taken over the women’s section. Their claim: these jeans allow each woman a custom fit. Great concept, not going to lie, but the truth is there are only 3 options: Slight Curve, Demi Curve, and Bold Curve. Sounded interesting….at first. According to the new branding, “all asses were not created equal.” Frankly, upon reading that, I agree…at least from a superficial standpoint. But as I scan the rest of their advertisement and take in the criteria for each of their 3 new fits, I am flabbergasted. For starters, none of these models are of an average size. In fact, they “average” a size 2–a far cry from the actual average, which is about a 14. As they tell consumers that our asses are individual and should be celebrated as they are, there is an even stronger implication that one ass is far superior than the others: the one ready to fill out their Demi Curve jeans.

Levi’s breakdown of “curvature” goes like this:

Slight Curve

  • celebrates straight figures
  • defines your waist
  • enhances your curves

Demi Curve:

  • frames perfect proportions
  • flatters your waist
  • smooths your shape

Bold Curve:

  • honors real curves
  • hugs your waist
  • no gaping or pulling

So, I guess having hardly any curves at all needs to be corrected, and having a lot should be honored, but those whose curves meet their description of “perfection,” well, hell, frame it and flatter it. To me, who sadly only fit into one wash and style of the Bold Curve jean, it would appear that Levi’s is just another company marketing for the exceptionally thin, young, pre-motherhood, barely pubescent crew.

August 21, 2010

Jennifer Aniston’s Inadvertent Lesson in Photography

As a photographer, when some of the raw images of Jennifer Aniston’s 2006 Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot emerged, I was relieved. I ended up in photography by accident when I started shooting local Los Angeles bands for fun two years ago. Since I have no extensive formal photo training and have learned mostly through experience, I feel some insecurity regarding my technical skill. Seeing how Alexi Lubomirski’s outtakes mirrored some of my own was reassurance that I am, in fact, doing everything right. A cursory glance through his portfolio reveals a body of work that is thoughtful, exploratory, and beautiful (Not surprisingly, his conceptual photography is a lot more engaging than his editorial shoots). It appears as though he has worked with Jennifer Aniston before, producing luminously gorgeous if shallow images of the actress. Indeed, sometimes simply creating an indulgently beautiful image is gratifying, a sentiment that often guides my own work.

Whether or not the outtakes are actually doctored seems to be just a petty legal argument designed to protect Hollywood’s middle school egos. When I first encountered the outtakes, they seemed like the logical by-products of any photo shoot – especially a shoot involving unpredictable natural elements such as sunlight and sand, and I could not understand the uproar they generated. I suspect that the sometimes harsh reactions originate from a total misunderstanding of photography in general, so I have attempted to recreate the settings which I imagine contributed to the Harper’s Bazaar outtakes and subsequent published image.

August 18, 2010

Feminism, Body Image and Yoga

Originally posted at Elephant Journal, June 2010.

Healing Mind, Body & Spirit.

It was in an afternoon yoga class 10 years ago that I realized my relationship with my body had been profoundly changed.

Gazing up at my legs, glistening with sweat in shoulder-stand, I realized that I wasn’t searching for signs of “imperfection” or scrutinizing my body with the negative self-talk that too many of us have with ourselves on a daily basis—the abusive dialogue I had with myself most of my life.

For the first time I could remember since early childhood, I wasn’t critical of myself.

I wasn’t looking for parts of my body to control and change.

A distorted body image, self-criticism, and the pursuit of “perfection” by any means necessary is a perverse inheritance passed down from the women in my family and influenced by the unrealistic and prolific images manufactured by the larger media culture. Given this environment, I never had a chance to emerge unscathed, self-esteem intact. The women in my family were constantly dieting, tracking calories in food diaries, lamenting weight gain, celebrating weight loss and sizing other women up. An unhealthy pre-occupation with my body and food was set in motion before I hit puberty and manifested in all sorts of dangerous methods to obtain thinness: diet pills, colon hydrotherapy, fasting, legal and illegal stimulants, calorie restriction, self-induced vomiting and excessive exercise.

The routes to freedom presented themselves at about the same time, feminism and then yoga. Feminism offered the ideological tools to examine my tortured relationship with my body systematically and deconstruct mediated images. Yoga provided the practice that rooted the things feminism had taught me. It is one thing to intellectualize self-love and acceptance, it’s another to embody it.

August 5, 2010

Subadvertiser Takes on Skinny Pretzels

Filed under: Body Image — Tags: , , , , , , , — Melanie @ 4:55 pm

It’s no secret that we love culture jammin’ at Feminist Fatale so I was happy to see this ad remix at Salon Broadsheet today.

August 3, 2010

Beauty is for everyone…Sophia Bush Boycotts Urban Outfitters Over "Eat Less" Shirt

You may have heard that Sophia Bush is using her celebrity status to generate a boycott of Urban Outfitters over a controversial shirt that demands, “Eat Less.” In a letter to the company – which was previously in hot water over its decision to yank a shirt that said, “I Support Gay Marriage” despite keeping its political yet PR-perfect Obama t-shirts – Bush rightfully argued that the shirt is “like handing a suicidal person a loaded gun,” referring to the growing number of both young women and men succumbing to eating disorders.

While pursuing fine arts in college, I took two years of figure drawing classes. A living, breathing nude model is probably one of the best ways to learn how to draw the human body, but more than that, I was exposed to many different shapes, both male and female. Focusing on my technique, the bodies before me were never sexual, they were learning tools. Each body offered new challenges, new opportunities. I found that drawing fuller bodies was easier, with long, sensuous strokes, and that thinner bodies called more on my understanding of the skeleton. In this way I learned to appreciate the human body as a marvel of organic engineering. As an artist, I remain fascinated with the human form in space, and fashion photography is an extension of that.

I work for a sample sale site called 365Hangers, and while shooting our products for August last week, one of our models looked so stunning in this pink BCBG dress that I asked her for a couple more shots. She said, “I never thought I could wear a dress like this!”

All shapes and sizes are beautiful, and you should never let anyone’s standards prevent you from wearing a dress you want to wear. Your greatest accessory is your self-loving confidence, and it looks fabulous with everything.

Originally posted at 365Hangers, cross-posted with permission. Urban Outfitters image via The Frisky.

August 1, 2010

Are Belly Buttons The New Armpits? Photoshop Seems To Think So…

Filed under: Body Image,Media — Tags: , , , , , — Rachel @ 3:30 pm

So a few months ago, I brought up the fact that armpits are the latest in a string of bodily flaws of women that needs to be airbrushed out.  After the photos of Lindsay Lohan in German GQ got released, where her belly button is missing in one shot, and then is suddenly moved up to her ribcage in another, I figured it was, yes, horrifying but a hopefully a one-time thing, not a new trend.  However, this weekend, I came across pictures of Jersey Shore star Jenni “J-WOWW” Farley  in the latest issue of Maxim magazine – and guess what’s missing in the bikini, midsection baring shots?

I can’t help but wonder – with imperfect: bruises, blemishes, cellulite, tattoos, arms, legs, waists, butts, hips, thighs, calves, noses, wrinkles, hair, and armpits, all deemed unacceptable by the magazine photoshopper standards in their natural state – what’s next?  What’s left?  While pondering this question, I honestly couldn’t think of anything else that hasn’t been airbrushed at some point, on some female celebrity; image editors have “fixed” absolutely every aspect of the female form at some point.  I’m beginning to wonder why take photographs at all?  Why pay a celebrity, photographer, lighting, hair, make-up, and an entire crew of assistants, if the end result is never good enough.  How long before we see entirely computer generated images of celebrities on the covers of magazines?  Only time will tell.

July 23, 2010

Mad Beauty

Filed under: Body Image — Tags: , , , , — Melanie @ 3:12 pm

I found Meghan Daum‘s latest article, ‘Mad Men’ shares a lesson on beauty, in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times fascinating.

The women of the 1960s and their ‘period bodies’ with normal proportions are rare today, and something to be envied.

The fourth season of “Mad Men” starts Sunday, and with it another round of opportunities to both marvel and gasp at how much things have changed since the early 1960s. Much of the genius of the show, of course, lies in its ferocious attention to period details. From the entrenched womanizing and nonstop drinking and smoking (even while pregnant!) to children who play with plastic dry-cleaning bags and family picnics that end with a flourish of litter shaken insouciantly onto the grass, “Mad Men” leaves no antediluvian stone unturned.

That includes body types. Watch some of the commentary features on the DVD editions and you’ll hear the show’s creator, Matt Weiner, refer to “period bodies.” What he means is that just as the show applies painstaking care to finding sofas and kitchen appliances exactly like those you would have seen in that era, it also seeks bodies — particularly female ones — quintessentially of the time. That means no ripped abs or fake breasts, no preternaturally white teeth. (A lot of people wear eyeglasses too — the horror!)

Read the complete article here. Thanks to Diahann for sending this my way.

July 22, 2010

Let her eat cake!

Filed under: Body Image — Tags: , , , , — Melanie @ 6:34 pm

over it by Liz Acosta

Artist statement:

An ephemeral drawing is one that is created to be destroyed. It addresses the relationships between medium, subject, and significance.

over it is the documentation of an ephemeral art piece that talks about overcoming disordered eating through the creation and consumption of a cake with a scale drawn on it with icing. Though its narrative is deeply personal, the experience is nearly universal in our image-obsessed culture with its narrow standards of feminine beauty.

Liz Acosta is a photographer, writer, artist, cyclist, and activist in Los Angeles. With a degree from the University of Southern California, her work is primarily focused on questions of the body and its relationship to gender, sexuality, and performance. She blogs at www.happyland2007.com and will be joining the Feminist Fatale family as a blogger in the near future.

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