So with the title, this post isn't a usual one. I was watching an episode of Sex and the City, and Carrie (who I already despise) said a completely despicable line that just made me furious. At the end of the episode, after screwing up yet another relationship, she said 'if the world's fattest twins could find love then there is a chance for us all' or something along those lines. I couldn't believe it! How can it be that just because of some one's weight they are used as an example of 'well if this person who is so much worse than me can find happiness, than there is a definite chance for me'. I was shocked, if you can't tell that already from my frenzied writing.
This is no new issue, it has been covered over, and over, and over again about how society judges people on the way they look, not just women (although this is more frequent) but men also. As if the only thing that matters in this world and in society is being the same weight as a beanpole, being photoshopped perfect and look something that was computer animated. Shockingly, most legends are not remembered for their weight but for what they did. Example: Rosa Parks - she confronted segregation on buses, and made huge strides in the civil rights movement, she is not remembered in the slightest for how thin or big she was. Another, Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the suffragette movement in the UK, she is not remembered for how she looked, but for what she did. There are countless of other examples of real women, but a fictional example I love is Tracey Turnblad from Hairspray, a big girl with big dreams who is not willing to change how she looks to fit into the stereotypical wants of a shallow society. Even the actress, Nikki Blonsky, managed to snag Zac Efron being the weight she was, and he was attracted to the personality. Not that man-catching is a way to define a woman.
I look at these women, and countless others, who did great things in the world and who are remembered for changing society for the better, and admiring them for this, not for how they looked. But yet, society still remains focused on the weight that women carry and judge them for this. Whether this is a new thing or not is debatable, of course women have always been judged on the weight they carry, but it seems to be so much more prominent with the growing media, women judging themselves against photoshopped images. Even in my beloved Disney, it provides excellent examples of how the good girls are slim, long-haired, perfect features characters. So it really is fed in from a young age to be good you are to be slim.
Now I am not being a hypocrite, I openly admit that I will have my days where I whinge and whine about my weight, moan that things do not look right on me because the fashion is more designed for those who are slim than those who are curvier, but at the end of the day I know that when it comes down to it I will be remembered for what I did and my personality, rather than my dress size. I would hate to be solely thought of as 'she was so pretty and so thin' and that be it for people to say rather than worthwhile qualities. I'd rather be happy eating my own weight in food and being curvier, than being miserable, keeping myself on a rigid diet and exercise regime to maintain a figure that society deemed 'attractive'. People should not be driven to that, driven to the point where they are controlling themselves so much to be deemed attractive by others, living their lives by what others want. That is the point it all comes down to, women control themselves to be a certain image to be deemed attractive by other women and men. Society needs to get some self-esteem and realise that as long as you think you are attractive and realise that you could be hideous on the outside, but a beautiful person, than you will always be attractive to people because that is who you are. Not how you look on the outside, which will change with age anyway.
No one deserves to feel that they are unattractive, and I have heard so many of my friends complain that they have been spoken badly about because of their weight, or they feel insecure in outfits because it shows them badly, and I am one of these I admit. But at the end of the day, when I hear comments like that in SATC it really hammers into me that I, nor anyone else, should judge how good of a person I am or how worthwhile I am by their appearance or weight. I am happy with how I look because my world doesn't focus around it, I don't limit myself to look a certain way, I live my life completely at my own will and not being restricted to do a certain level of exercise or diet myself because I have to keep to a certain shape. Marilyn Monroe is the classic example of curvier beauty, a size 16 in the 1950s (a size 12-14 now) is one of the most beautiful women to have ever lived, but even she was insecure about her looks because Hollywood constantly found faults. It would be better if everyone just lived by what they believed to be attractive to them and not society's view of attractiveness, or even better, focused on how to be a good person rather than how to look good. Surely it would be better to invest the sheer amount of time people waste worrying on how they look, but on how good of a person they are?
I know thin girls and girls bigger than me, but I don't look at them and think only of the way they look and how well they are going to do in life because of that, I look at the person. I leave you with this quote from The Twits by Roald Dahl, a rule everyone should live by and one I am definitely going to remember when I whine about my weight or spotty skin:
"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
