'Thighs that big belong in a bucket'

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/28/wass28.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/08/28/ixportal.html

Fully clothed, they are a group of ordinary young women whom you might see on their way to work or play in any American city. Stripped down to their knickers and bras and magnified on huge advertising hoardings, they are the Amazonian symbols of an ever-widening gulf between Madison Avenue's traditional fantasy of the female form and the way most women actually look.

The Dove skincare company's "campaign for real beauty" featuring "real women", launched in Britain last year, has finally made it to the United States to a decidedly mixed reception.

Richard Roeper, a film critic who perhaps believes that most women look like Hollywood stars, muttered that showing "plump gals baring too much skin" was "unsettling." "When we're talking women in their underwear on billboards outside my living room windows, give me the fantasy babes, please," he wrote. "If that makes me sound superficial, shallow and sexist - well yes, I'm a man."

Much of the campaign's shock value stems from the fact that most Americans have rarely seen ordinary women portrayed as attractive on television dramas or in Hollywood.

[Missy M]

1. Critics in this country say showing full size women will cause some..

to become overweight so I guess it is better to show anorexic women and have people with eating disorders. Also, for men like Richard Roeper, we have to look at your mug in the newpaper and George Clooney you're not.

[Tallison]

9. And there's a big difference b/w "full figured" and morbidly obese

Although your typical American isn't very adept at grasping such gray-area concepts.

[China_cat]

35. Most people seem to think that 5 pounds

over what THEY think is ideal is morbidly obese.

[Tallison]

37. Distorted, isn't it? nt

[shaniqua6392]

2. Personally, I love that advertisement!

They are real women just like me with stretch marks from pregnancy and saggy boobs from breast feeding. I am proud and I worked very hard for my surgical scars and wrinkles!!! I am woman hear me roar! LOL.

[Roland99]

15. Me, too! Sick of seeing the Photoshopped, fake images on magazines

[mattclearing]

59. Me three.

Those girls actually look real. Granted, I missed the stretch marks, thankfully.

Still, the women in those billboards are more attractive than any run-of-the-mill swimsuit model could ever be, in my opinion.

[Totally Committed]

3. The US has gone over the edge.

We are witnessing so much horror...

Darfur, unending war, genocide, famine, terrorism, and all we can care about is what "real women" look like in their underwear? (I happen to really like that ad campaign, btw)

The more I hear about what's going on in America, the more I worry about the fact that we may have passed the point where we can even think about redeeming our beloved country again. This, honestly, could be the last gasp we show as a society.

Have we have lost our focus, our hearts, our souls... or am I only imagining we ever had those things at all?

TC

[Beowulf]

4. Honestly,

and I'm a man, I think those women look terrific.

[charlie]

5. What the hell?

Does Roeper find his wife "unsettling"? Cripes, those "fantasy babes" he enjoys are as unreal as Lara Croft. I mean even they don't look like that in real life. Nobody does. Nobody.

http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/blonde/index.html
http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/index.html
http://glennferon.com/portfolio1/index.html

[theHandpuppet]

6. I only WISHED I looked as good as some of those women

I personally think they look fabulous, healthy and sexy!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

30. I agree with you entirely! These are beautiful women who are not

Madison Ave. Air Brushed Manniquins that have up until now, defined the way women are Supposed to look. Hopefully this will continue and perhaps, there will be less cases of bulemia and anorexia, or in my case yo-yo dieting that has had me in my life time gain and lose hundreds of pounds.

[Spinzonner]

7. Can't EVERYONE just wear a burka

so we can ignore what everyone looks like

[ihaveaquestion]

8. I'm quite often impressed by the young men I meet...

who are attracted to "plump gals." My favorite pastime is swing dancing and some of the nicest guys seem to be attracted to real women, instead of the tall skinnies that look like they'll break if they're held too tight. The guys who gravitate to the skinnies seem the shallowest - and they're usually not the best dancers!

Just an observation from a "real woman" (5'4", 140 lbs, but a size 8, so it's mostly muscle!).

[Berry Cool]

10. You know what? What's scary is

I don't think the women in the ads are that big, or fat.

Not one of them has a single belly roll or anything like that. Their biggest "sin" is wider hips than the average woman. But given the shapes of their bodies, not a single one of them really qualifies as "fat." The biggest size any of them probably wears is a 12. Max.

Sheesh. If people think THESE women are big, fat and obscene, I'd hate to see what they think of a woman who's over a size 14.

[ihaveaquestion]

13. That was my thought when I read the criticisms.

I had to take a second look to try to see what they were complaining about - they looked fine to me.

I'll ask my son - he doesn't care for boney women. His date to the prom was a girl who was about 5'10" and probably a size 14 with curvy proportions, circa 1940! Funny thing is, he wore a Zoot Suit tux and she wore a 1940's gown! They looked fantastic together!

[Skittles]

14. they're not that big - one of them is a size six

they SEEM big to some folk because they are so used to seeing stick figures on TV and in ads

[blondeatlast]

61. The average model used to be my size--6. Now she is (gasp) 2

--I kid you not. That's the size of an average pre-teen girl with added height.

[China_cat]

21. Size 14 is considered waaaay too big.

Remember, size -10- is now considered a BIG woman's size.

[TimeChaser]

34. Although size 14 is average.

And Marilyn Monroe, one of the most famous sex symbols, was a size 12.

On edit: I've realized a few days ago that I can start wearing some brand's 14s again!

[MildyRules]

50. I bet MM's

Size 12 is today's size 6-8 though.

[LeftyMom]

67. Yep, size inflation is definitely an issue!

I used to wear a size six in a certain brand and cut of underpants. Sometime since I last bought them they resized them and now a size five is too big, even though I put on a little weight. That's just within the last year or two.

At this rate I'm going to have to buy clothes in the juniors dept (which will be loads of fun, since I have hips) or go to the stores in asian neighborhoods because I'm rapidly running out of stores that carry my size. :(

FWIW, I'm 5'3" and 128 lbs, so not *that* small.

[TorchTheWitch]

17. I don't get it

Just an observation from a "real woman" (5'4", 140 lbs, but a size 8, so it's mostly muscle!).

In your first paragraph you ridicule thin women, ridicule the men who are attracted to them, call these thin women "skinnies" (is it ok then if I call you "fattie"?), and praise the men who are attracted to the "plump" women of which you claim to be one.

Yet in your last line you ridicule yourself by insisting that despite your weight you're mostly muscle... why does it matter if you're mostly muscle or mostly fat since you had just said that the better men were attracted to the "plump" women?

Women who are thin and in shape aren't any more or less "real" women than those who aren't. Are we now going to ridicule women who AREN'T heavy and out of shape just because most women aren't? Here's a novel idea... how about we don't ridicule ANY women for their physical appearance?

I'm one of those "skinnies" you just ridiculed. I've worked DAMN hard for this body, and I don't appreciate being ridiculed because I HAVEN'T let myself go. Shame on me for not having big thighs, a saggy butt, cellulite and stretch marks. :eyes:

On Edit - Dove stole this concept of using average sized women in their underwear for their ads out of the novel "Scruples" by Judith Krantz.

[wake.up.america]

20. Witch, Good to hear! You sound like my type of woman. I know...

I know, looks aren't everything.

[TorchTheWitch]

26. If that's so then I REALLY hope

that you base that on something other than my physical appearance... otherwise you've missed the point.

I'm sick to death of women (and men, too) who riducle me because I'm NOT overweight, saggy, lumpy and squishy. Since I look good, I must be stupid, shallow and/or bitchy... surely there has to be SOMETHING wrong with me they can pin-point to make themselves feel better about themselves. :eyes: :mad:

[wake.up.america]

31. OK , I agree.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[marzipanni]

23. Ectomorphs, mesomorphs, endomorphs

http://www.girl.com.au/bodytypes.htm

It takes all kinds....

[Le Taz Hot]

24. LOL!

Oh, my dear, I just had to laugh. I was well into my 30's before I hit 100 pounds and it was amazing the conversations with other women I was forced into having. My favorite: "You're so thin, how much do you weigh, anyway?" Now, what would EVER make them think this was an OK question to ask?

'Course I'm 50 now and I no longer have this problem. But that's cool too. Interesting now seeing all this from the other side.

HOWEVER, "and I don't appreciate being ridiculed because I HAVEN'T let myself go" connotes a prejudice and makes erroneous assumptions as well. Talk to me when you're 50 and let me know how things are goin' with ya -- specifically if anything's sagging yet despite all your efforts.

[TorchTheWitch]

45. I'm already 41

and being 50 or older doesn't preclude anyone from having a good body. I work out with a woman who is 54 and in better shape than I am. One of my neighbors is 68 and has a better body then most men in their 20's. Shame on us oldsters for working hard at making our bodies the best they can be. :eyes:

HOWEVER, "and I don't appreciate being ridiculed because I HAVEN'T let myself go" connotes a prejudice and makes erroneous assumptions as well. Talk to me when you're 50 and let me know how things are goin' with ya -- specifically if anything's sagging yet despite all your efforts.

Oh, so now I'm prejudiced because I devote a lot of time and effort into staying in good shape. Damn me for not letting people use me as a punching bag to make themselves feel better about their not doing the same. :eyes: Surely, I must be in good shape because I'm apparently young... nice assumption there. 41 isn't so far from 50, and if advancing age is the culprit for making parts of me squishy or saggy then I'll just have to work out harder. But seeing as how I know of many other people far older than me that are in far better shape than me, I doubt I have much to worry about.

I've heard all the talking points before... I must be young or have a fast metabolism, or have more free time then the average person to work out, or neurotic for devoting the time and effort that I do to staying in shape, or I obsessively deprive myself of tasty foods... yeah, yeah, yeah... it's always SOMETHING that some people try to pin-point to make it MY fault they aren't in good shape.

I don't give a crap if other people are fat, squishy and saggy... just as long as they don't RIDICULE me for not being that way and trying to blame ME for their not being in good shape. I have the courtesy to not ridicule people for not being in good shape, and DAMMIT I expect the same in return. If it's rude, tasteless and hurtful to ridicule people who are overweight and out of shape, then it's just as rude, tasteless and hurtful to ridicule those people that AREN'T. There is NEVER a situation where ridiculing anyone about their appearance is acceptable whether it's something they're capable of changing or not. This thread is FULL of ugly remarks about people who are thin and/or in good shape, and it's disgusting.

I'll be more than happy to "talk to you" when I'm 50, and if I'm not in good shape then, I sure as shit won't be fishing for excuses, and I'll put the blame for being out of shape squarely on myself where it belongs.

[K8-EEE]

63. A Little Off Topic But Doesn't Joan Baez Look AWESOME??

Jeez she has the same body as 35 years ago!! Yoga I think?

[LisaLynne]

64. Let me humbly suggest that you might not realize the bias in your post.

"and being 50 or older doesn't preclude anyone from having a good body"

Please, try to read what you wrote with an opened mind. You see, you are saying that those people who are not as thin as you don't have good bodies. What some of us on this thread are suggesting is that people who are not thin by society's present standards do actually have good bodies.

I've met plenty of women who work out and are really strong, but who are not and never will be a size 6, let alone a size 2. I also personally know many women who are what would be considered overweight who are very, very healthy -- to the point of making their doctors angry because being overweight is supposed to make you unhealthy.

People come in all sizes. We need to learn to appreciate the beauty in us all and not make judgements about others who don't fit into our narrow ideas of what is acceptable or not. It's honestly not about "letting ourselves go" or anything. The ideals set forth by the MSM are not healthy images nor are they attainable for the majority of women.

[Gormy Cuss]

27. Body image is our burka

Let me start by asking that you read my entire post before you react because I do not intend to criticize you for trying to maintain a healthy body. I agree that ridiculing people based on body types is just not acceptable or productive in terms of supporting positive self image.

Reading your post, I was with you until your last paragraph, when you slid into the same trap of defending your body shape by saying you haven't let yourself go,
which just read to me like the same sort of silly defense as the 'mostly muscle' statement. Should people with big thighs, saggy butts, cellulite and stretch marks feel shame? I know extremely fit women who have big thighs, cellulite and stretch marks and it's not because they let themselves go and then worked back. In the case of the big thighs, it's structural --- her body type is built like that. I know another woman whose stomach muscles are solid as a rock, yet she has stretch marks everywhere from her stomach to her thighs because she's the mother of multiples, and quite bluntly, one's skin is only elastic to a certain point.

If you are happy in your own skin, and skinny is the right way for your own body, who should argue with that? The problem with fashion and other media images in this country is that skinny has been the only acceptable look for too long and the backlash cometh.

If you find it annoying to be dissed as a skinnie, image that fashion and media replaced all the Lara Flynn Boyle types with Roseanne Barrs and you'll appreciate why the ridicule happens. From the time I was a teen I would check the ht/wt charts in the teen and women's magazines because I need the reassurance that I wasn't fat. I was always in the middle of the weight range for my height, yet needed the constant validation because based on media images I was a cow. By the time I hit 30, I got over it. I realized that what was important was to maintain a healthy size for my body. Screw the media. It's time to shed that burka.

I hope I made my point without ticking you off.

[coda]

33. Elaine Benes and her shoes from Botticelli's.

:)

[ihaveaquestion]

46. A little sensitive are we?

I apologize if you took offense at my use of "skinnies" to describe those anorexics (which who I meant) that some men seem attracted to. No ridicule was meant at all.

Guess I should have used quotes around "skinnies" just as I did with "plump" and "real woman" - which FYI indicates a sarcastic reference.

Geez - some people are SOOO touchy!
:eyes:

[hootinholler]

29. I'm always attracted to grey matter first...

Then nice boobs are a bonus, but, I'm not exactly Tom Cruise either.

:evilgrin:

-Hoot

[MildyRules]

53. So, my wife who is 5'10

135 (all muscle), size 6, is NOT a real woman?

How much weight does she have to gain to be a real woman???

[fasttense]

11. Those women look beautiful but

it just goes to show you what good make up and camera angels can do for someone. Those anorexic women would look disgusting if they showed their shallow skin, hairy cheeks, black rings around their eyes, ribs bulging, hips bones jutting further than their boobs. At least the adds are trying to show real women.

[Orsino]

12. Hey, Roeper...

...buy your own damn posters, or rent the ad space yourself, if you need your fantasy on display.

[Skittles]

16. he generalizes what men fantasize about

studies have shown most men PREFER SOME CURVES

[theHandpuppet]

18. Says a lot, doesn't it...

... when a man fantasizes about what amounts to an androgynous body (almost akin to that of adolescent boys) devoid of the natural curves that make women WOMEN.

[peekaloo]

19. yes it does

;-)

[seabeyond]

22. lets remember the women present today, even the most gorgeous

isnt good enough. they are "fixed" with computer imagining and plastic surgery. so the most beautiful women dont even fit into a catagory of being beautiful enough. women are now competing against a made up woman

[tblue37]

25. Have you ever heard the saying that

making love to a skinny woman is like falling on a pile of coat hangers?

(I am not at all skinny now, but I was until I was about 45, so honestly, I am not prejudiced against skinny. I just think it's a funny line.)

[Samurai_Writer]

28. Even the 'thin beautiful models' aren't good enough!

Check this site out -- "The Art of Retouching"... click on a photo, then move your mouse away from the photo, then onto the photo again, to see the before and after photos. All of these are conventionally 'beautiful' models... but obviously not beautiful enough for the advertising and marketing industry.

http://glennferon.com.nyud.net:8090/portfolio1/index.html

Personally, I love the Dove ads... although those girls are not 'fat' by any means. They are just normal! I think they look better than the anorexic fashion models we normally see.

[chalky]

32. The real irony is that in some of those retouched pictures

the retouching was done to make a butt look larger and curvier and to add enough flesh to hide those bony clavicles.

[Samurai_Writer]

44. You notice in the one where they enhance the butt...

that the STILL reduce the waist/stomach area and enhance the breasts as well? If you move the mouse back and forth over some of these photos, it looks like they're breathing, because of how much they've reduced the stomachs. And their stomachs weren't fat to begin with! They are making them CONCAVE. That's just completely unrealistic. ALL women have a LITTLE bit of a belly, unless they are athletes or work out obsessively. Women are MEANT to have curves!

[Lorien]

38. Fascinating site!

Amazing how much work was done on Tyra Banks. Not too much for Halle Berry, though.

A good friend of mine was a supermodel in the '70s. She said that every model she worked with was bulimic, and most used drugs to keep their weight down. She still wants us to visit Paris together someday because she was so "out of it" when she lived there that she can't remember it!

[Samurai_Writer]

40. Have you ever seen the movie "Gia"?

It's with Angelina Jolie, a true story about supermodel Gia Marie Carangi. Angelina does a great job in portraying her realistically, and the makeup effects really do show her as a drugged-out, nearly anorexic model near the end.

You can find photos of the real Gia online. She died in 1986 at age 26 of AIDS (from using dirty needles - she was a heroin addict).

[Scout]

36. silly boys

don't they know, there's lightnin' between those thunder thighs!

:evilgrin:

at least that's true of mine!
:blush:

[Cats Against Frist]

41. Roeper can take a flying fucking leap.

I've been, in my lifetime, an overweight kid, a thin adolescent, an obese early 20-something, a 5k per day-running athletic rock late 20-something, preganant, post-pregnant obese, and FINALLY -- after years of this bullshit -- a nice, mid-sized, slightly overweight, but healthy 30-something mother who finally, after years of therapy, necessitated by people like this Roeper FUCK, can love her body, for what it is.

The most disastrous and tragic moment of my life, thus far, was when I was 26 years old, and I was just about to participate in a drunken hotel room orgy, and the person who was "seducing" me, said to me: You're too pretty to talk to.

It was like my life went in rewind, flashing through all the dieting, puking, starving, compulsive exercising, self-hatred, shame, guilt and anger -- in reverse -- to my fifth grade classroom, where I clearly remember a boy, on whom I had a crush, who said to me, You're the best and smartest girl in the class, and if you were just a little bit thinner, you could be my girlfriend.

The person who said that body image is our burka, is exactly correct. I honestly believe that if no well-meaning mother or doctor had put me on that first diet, at NINE YEARS OLD, that I wouldn't have had to struggle, for the next fifteen years to understand that it didn't really matter that I would eventually become a size eight, with big breasts, and waist-length blonde hair: that I would feel the same as I did, when I was fat. Completely dehumanized. Some might find me to be exaggerating -- but it was, and sometimes still is my own private Treblinka.

One in five nine-year-old girls has anorexia, and it is because of those billboards, and the self-hating mothers who the billboards got to years, before, and the men who the billboards got to, and the fathers who make this dehumanization clear, either through their use of pornography, or skirt-chasing, or trading up. Our obsession with thinness, in this culture, IMHO is every bit the disease as the obesity epidemic. They are, in fact, two symptoms of the same disease -- partners, if you will. The results of both excess, and the human as capital, and the human as object.

There can be a wide range of healthy weights, despite what Met Life, the medical establishment and Madison Ave. want us to think. I think that the cure to obesity is to accept the body, to not diet, to promote healthy foods and exercise and to show realistic images on television. And for all of us to think outside the burka.

[wake.up.america]

42. My apologizes if I said anything out of line. I hope I did not...

say anything rude.

[mongo]

48. Thinking outside the burka

There can be a wide range of healthy weights, despite what Met Life, the medical establishment and Madison Ave. want us to think. I think that the cure to obesity is to accept the body, to not diet, to promote healthy foods and exercise and to show realistic images on television. And for all of us to think outside the burka.

Right on! It's about feeling comfortable inside your own skin. And it is such a common problem. Selling lingerie, I hear negative self comments on a daily basis.

The one contention I have a problem with is placing the blame on Madison Ave, porn, TV - like this is some new sort of occurance.

Back in Victorian times, (rich) women wore corsets so tight that they were a health hazard. I am no expert on the subject, but I have a hard time with the notion that our standard of beauty was invented on Madison Ave, in order to sell the latest diet pill or hair product.

The Dove commercials are a healthy trend in the advertising industry. Let's hope that they catch on.

[Cleita]

43. Well, living on the coast, you see every variety of women

and men on the beach in scanty clothing. I always have to laugh at movies and television who show svelte, youthful people on the beach, a la "Baywatch". It isn't like that in real life.

[devilgrrl]

47. Interesting... notorious sexist Bill Maher stated that all the women...

in the ads were "do-able." So far, he not looking as shallow as Richard Roeper.

[AspenRose]

49. I also remember Maher saying something similar about the women of

the movie "Waiting to Exhale": He said something to the effect of 'even the plump one's cute!'

Cats/Frist, I applaud your post. Well-said.

Edit: How tacky: 'The only time I want to see a thigh that big is in a bucket with bread crumbs on it'

x( tacky, tacky, tacky...what about people who don't HAVE legs or thighs? Aargh...

[Glenda]

51. Here's the picture

[AspenRose]

52. They look fine to me....

:shrug: Then again, I just had a baby; what do I know?

[Glenda]

65. WHen I first saw this pic, and knew about the campaign..

I thought, "where's the fat on these women?" They look like they're in pretty good shape, as if the type you would see at the gym.

:shrug:

They look normal, and if "normal women in decent shape" is grotesque, then I don't know what to say...

[Straight Shooter]

54. OMG, they don't look like starving refugees. Cover them up now!

:sarcasm:

I'm 5'5" and I weigh 128 pounds and I wish, how I wish, oh, how I wish I could look like one of those women.

As for "men" like Richard Roeper, I would tell him not to get so pissy just because he ain't man enough to deal with that much woman.

[txaslftist]

56. Damn. Those girls are hot. That's Hollyweird for you.

Whoever would think these girls aren't fine is either gay (no offense to gay guys out there, but its sort of ipso facto that you aren't into hot women) or anorexic.

I can't think of a single male friend of mine who WOULDN'T want to date these girls.

[scarlet_owl]

55. This ordinary big gal says fuck Richard Roeper.

[blondeatlast]

57. Dove figured out something Madison Ave mostly misses: the market is WOMEN.

I'd much what a beauty product can do for an ordinary woman than on an anorexic 18 year old who is pampered and preened daily.

The hair ads are real women too. I LOVE that.

Look, I'm a size 6 by nature, but my absolute favorite movie of the last few years was "Real Women Have Curves."

[Nikki Stone 1]

62. EXACTLY! The ad campaign is directed toward its customers: what a concept

Roeper wants to matter but he just doesn't. The ad isn't FOR him. Maybe that's what upsets him.

[crispini]

58. I'm going to write Richard Roeper and tell him off.

Anyone got an email addy?

[anarch]

60. this Roeper guy sounds like a total jackass.

[NMDemDist2]

66. i think it's a reasonable topic of discussion, but I doubt all our members

will be reasonable x(

[Technowitch]

68. Locking

The flammability of this particular topic has been proven again and again and again...

-Technowitch
DU Moderator