I should have written this a while ago, but my life’s been pretty hectic lately. Sorry if anyone already knows about all of this. But I’m here now, and as usual, here’s what I think.

To start this out on a positive note, last Sunday there was an article about Size-Acceptance in one of the local newspapers – http://www.buffalonews.com/185/story/422068.html. It caught my eye because there was a little “advertisement,” complete with illustration of a big woman in a bathing suit, on the top of the front page. I actually photocopied the article, and highlighted and scribbled notes over the whole thing. I was going to post all my notes here, but I don’t have it with me. So I’ll just say that I feel it started out really good, and though there were some negative points (where he quoted certain doctors and nutritionists who disagree with size-acceptance, and often contradicted themselves), the article in general was great. The fact that acknowledgement of it made the front page is even greater. So yay for that

Now for some more ambiguous and hopefully positive news. According to this article on Yahoo – http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20080828/en_celeb_eo/26366 artist Marc Quinn has created a 110 pound solid gold statue of Kate Moss, which he is calling “Siren”. I find the specific weight mention ironic, considering Moss probably only weighs what, 70 pounds? Anyway, the same artist previously created a bronze Kate Moss sculpture called “Sphinx,” and his golden one is the same pose as the bronze one. His reasoning for doing this at all is “I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who’s the ideal beauty of the moment.” At first I was very annoyed, because I assumed his work would be promoting the standard of beauty that women like Moss represent. However, take a look at ”Sphinx” -http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/upload/2007/06/mq2.jpg …I think now that this one, at least, might be saying something else, something WAY more positive. “Sphinx” is obviously in a similar pose to Buddha statues, but it shows Moss’s body as horrifically skeletal. This at least points out that “deified” body types have changed over time, and might even point out the horror that is what we’ve come to accept as the highest standard of beauty. Now that I’ve seen that, I’m actually very interested to see what “Siren” looks like. I’ll post about it and what I think when its unveiled.

Finally, on a definitely negative note, formerly fat-positive actor Queen Latifah has now become the spokesperson for Jenny Craig. The “angle” they’re going at it with, in terms of advertising and her role there, is about losing weight to be healthy, not to look better. Here’s her page on the website – http://www.jennycraig.com/queenlatifah Even there, she mentions her “journey to a “Size Healthier”" …wtf? This blatantly reinforces the idea that fat is unhealthy, even though it does not appear to be motivated by looks. Though Queen Latifah claims to have become healthier by losing weight, that is not going to be the case for all people, so it should not be advertised as truth. Furthermore, even though she says and they say its motivated by health, the average person is going to look at her and go “Omg, she looks so much thinner now, how excellent!!!” The emphasis, in their eyes, will still be on looks. And the fact that it’s Queen Latifah, a woman who wasn’t ashamed of her body before even though it was bigger, who played fat-positive Motormouth Maybelle in the recent “Hairspray” film, who was a fat-positive role model in general, is very important and damaging. People will see her as a “reformed fattie,” I think, who finally came to see that her body really was disgusting and that she needed to lose weight. I really think the power of our twisted beauty standards is that strong, strong enough to make people think that first, even though she still looks “fat” by American standards. I am really afraid that is the impact her sokespersonship will have, and it really saddens me.

I wish now that I had ended this on a positive note, not a negative one. Oh well. Hopefully next time I’ll post something more uplifting.