She's Too Fat, Say What?!
If you didn’t catch the headline this week about Ralph Lauren model, Filippa Hamilton being fired for being “too fat”, check out this link and Today Show video, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/filippa-hamilton-ralph-la_n_320396.html At 5 foot 10 inches tall, 120 pounds and a size 4, you can just imagine the reactions! When did this become fat!? Much of the outrage also comes on the coat-tails of negative responses to a photo-shopped image of the model in an ad that warped and morphed her body into a human impossibility.
Some have defended the company, commenting on the fact that everyone knows images like these are not real! In my opinion, the issue with extreme photo-shopping in advertising and the beauty and fashion industry is not about whether or not the images look real, but that they communicate a certain picture of what it is to be a beautiful woman or man in the most narrow, false, and even impossible terms.
As a woman who has struggled with self-esteem issues related to body weight, I can't help but admit, like it or not that these images have affected me over the course of my life. A few years ago I returned to live in NYC, and while I weighed significantly less than I had before coming back to the city, I noticed my self-image plummeting in response to my increased exposure to the level of high-fashion advertising found at every turn.
As I became aware of this impact, a desire to recover a sense of pride in my appearance and myself occurred. I found a need to redirect my energy inward, to recognize my own beauty and feel good about myself beyond comparisons with the media images that surrounded me. My awareness of the situation became a call to a higher degree of self-love. If I had been content to blame the media and denied my role in the matter, I would have been left feeling powerless and miserable; a victim with no say in the matter of how I feel about myself. That would have been perhaps the biggest distortion of all!
I actually hope the absurdity of this story and other models being fired for being too fat is a wake-up call to us all; that it reminds people to give less "weight" to the influence of fashion and advertising to determine what the perfect weight and beauty looks like. May we return to find a love of self and pride based on something more substantial than external appearances alone or the influence of media images. May it force us to turn inward to acknowledge our own individual and unique brand of beauty!
And if you’ve never seen the Dove evolution ad on You Tube on this topic, follow this link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYfwIAWWH6M
