Just a few days after my last post on the “Mad Men” star and some supposed Photoshopping shenanigans, Christina strutted down the Emmy Awards red carpet Sunday.
While it may have been tough to notice anything other than the ravishing redhead’s um, assets (which are very much real, despite whispers that her “Mad Men” alter ego, Joan is just very strategically padded), many took note of Christina’s dress.
And not in a good way.
I’ll admit, I was put off by the lavender Zac Posen number myself. But you can’t blame the girl. According to an interview with the Daily Record, designers aren’t exactly lining up to dress her curves for the red carpet.
“People have been saying some nice, wonderful things about me,” Christina told the Scottish news source. “Yet not one designer in town will loan me a dress. They only lend out a size 0 or 2. So I’m still struggling for someone to give me a darn dress.”
Seriously? Starring on a critically acclaimed television show and being voted Esquire Magazine‘s “Sexiest Woman Alive” don’t warrant a few fashion freebies?
If only modern designers could take a hint from "Mad Men" and learn to dress bodies of all sizes.
Not if your dress size comes in double-digits, apparently.
“This has always been my size,” Christina said. “I’ve worked on other shows with this same size but ‘Mad Men’ celebrates it and that is nice.”
It is nice, isn’t it? And wouldn’t it be nicer if 21st century designers shared the same enthusiasm for the female form as their 1960s predecessors and aimed to dress bodies, not clothes hangers?
Yes, there are plenty of beautiful size 0s and 2s, and we all know a good amount of them populate Hollywood. But let’s get real. Designers should be clamoring to dress stars of all sizes, especially those that come packaged as photogenically as Christina Hendricks.
And if it’s that hard to craft a beautiful garment big enough to contain Christina’s curves, then maybe it’s time to revisit fashion school.
Christina's curves seem less than curvy in the new London Fog ad.
Poems should be written about “Mad Men” star Christina Hendricks’ curves.
No, really.
The actress has one of those unbelievably beautiful bodies that only Botticelli could have dreamed up. The show’s costume department must have a field day dressing her up in vintage styles that showcase breasts, hips, and butt (all of which she has plenty of, thank you very much).
So why on Earth would London Fog feel the need to touch her lovely, decidedly unwaif-like body with even one click in Photoshop?
Jezebel put some unretouched photos side-by-side with the campaign’s final ad, and it definitely looks like some digital blasphemy has gone on.
The man (un-Photoshopped) curves of Christina's "Mad Men" character, Joan Holloway.
Whatever London Fog’s photo editors did, they managed to pare down Christina’s curves enough to make her look alarmingly like a typical Hollywood starlet.
Can we once and for all leave works of art alone, please? Otherwise, let’s just slap some extensions on the Mona Lisa, fit her with horsey veneers, and give her the Heidi Montag plastic surgery special. Sheesh.
Proenza Schouler's new ad campaign features a model who seems to have misplaced her waist.
Flat abs, lean legs, perky breasts: these fashion industry staples have been mandated so long, you can pretty much expect to find them on any straight-size model. But what’s the newest must-have on the runways? A teeny-tiny, impossibly thin waist.
Obviously, this trend isn’t a new one (ever heard of a corset?), but recent media hype has drawn a lot of attention to the trait.
If you own a TV and have ever found yourself “accidentally” surfing the CW network (Yeah, I DVR “Gossip Girl.” So?!), you’ve probably seen promo ads for the upcoming season of “America’s Next Top Model.”
While it’s never exactly been a stellar representation of realistic beauty (a handful of plus-size girls and a season’s worth of petite ones does not a diverse show make), “Top Model” may have finally gone too far.
In the video below, cycle 15 contestant Ann shows off her unbelievably itty-bitty waist (J. Alexander’s hands successfully touch when wrapped around it). It’s surprising Tyra Banks doesn’t have to wipe the drool off her chin, given the awe-struck expression on her face.
The commercial is only 21 seconds long, but it does a pretty efficient job of planting the seeds of some seriously distorted beauty ideals. Does 6’2″ Ann really have that miniature middle naturally? Maybe. But it’s still disconcerting to see that “regular-thin” is no longer the modeling world’s gold standard. The hosts’ mesmerized gazes pretty clearly convey that to get ahead, it helps to have almost unfeasible body parts. Great.
Jumping on the “oh my god, is that for real?” bandwagon is fashion line Proenza Schouler. In the company’s new ad campaign (seen at the top of this post), a model quite literally disappears when viewed from the side. Too much fun with the eraser tool in Photoshop? An unfortunate angle? Does it matter? Either way, this is the image designers Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez chose to project to the world, and it’s not healthy, beautiful, or for that matter, humanly possible.
While it’s wonderful to celebrate all the various eccentricities that go along with having a body, putting one on this high a pedestal can be seriously damaging. No amount of Spanx or sucking in will ever get most women the waist these fashion moguls are fetishizing. And it doesn’t matter one bit. But that doesn’t change the fact that swarms of style-savvy girls will buy into yet another unattainable aspiration.
UPDATE: Tyra Banks sat down with PEOPLE Magazine yesterday to issue a lengthy apology for the new “Top Model” promo.
“The passionate response the trailer has evoked proves that the message to promote and celebrate all different — healthy and natural –- body types has resonated with our viewers and I’m so proud of every one of you who voiced your opinion and participated in this conversation. I have experienced body image scrutiny from one extreme to the next –- as an awkward, extremely thin pre-teen who couldn’t gain weight no matter what I did, to later being slammed by the media for my fuller, curvier frame,” Tyra said.
“Driven by these personal experiences, I am committed to expanding the definition of beauty which includes ALL shapes, sizes and proportions, from skinny to curvy and everything in between. It’s about women telling the world to KISS their –- skinny, wide, droopy, flat, cellulite-covered or FAT -– you know what!”
Told from the perspectives of plus-size models Anansa Sims, Leona Palmer, Julie Henderson, and Lizzie Miller (remember her from the now-famous Glamour nude shot?), the videos are part of a new Girl Scouts initiative to address the image of girls in the media.
As if we needed any more proof that females are constantly bombarded with distorted messages, a survey from the Girl Scout Research Instituterevealed some disturbing statistics. Though almost 90 percent of the 1,000 girls polled, ages 13 to 17, said the fashion industry and/or media place a lot of pressure on them to be thin, 3 out of 4 girls still consider fashion “really important.”
Furthermore, nearly one-third said they have used drastic methods such as starving themselves to lose weight, and more than one-third know someone their age who has been diagnosed with an eating disorder.
Rather than sit back and stare at the startling statistics, the Girl Scouts are doing something major. They’re partnering with the Dove Self-Esteem fund to offer programming for girls nationwide and will focus their core leadership program to address issues of body image in the media and its relation to self-esteem.
And according to a press release, the Girls Scouts have also “been instrumental in the introduction of The Healthy Media for Youth Act (H.R. 4925) to Congress…this bill will work to promote healthy images of women in the media through a grant program that will support youth empowerment groups, media literacy programs, and further research into the effects of the media on women and girls.”
We can’t wait to see where their leadership takes us.
Check out this great article by Lisa Hix on the Collectors Weekly web site, Our Bodies, Our Stilettos. Did you know that “initially, high-heeled shoes helped keep women, who were seen as irrational and frivolous, powerless”? Thank you for this wonderful historical context. Personally, I can’t deal with high heels, let alone stilettos, because
1. I like to walk fast — as fast as men, and if they’re really slow bastards, faster.
2. Sometimes I need to run for a bus, and I’d really rather not be hobbled, stupid-looking, and injured doing that.
3. I’m totally hot without them.
4. I dislike “Sex and the City” and do not want to pay it homage.
5. I find that high heels are modern-day torture devices for women.
I’m not gonna tell anyone else to wear or do, but short girls, I really don’t believe you when you say you have to wear them because you’re short.
Australian supermodel Myf Shepherd arrives in Sydney for Rosemount Australian Fashion Week 2010.
Leave it to the Aussies to come up with another awesome global contribution (you can also thank them for Kylie Minogue and Vegemite).
The Australian government recently partnered with The Butterfly Foundation, an eating disorders awareness and prevention group, to create a body image initiative. Magazines, designers, retailers and modeling agencies will be encouraged to follow a voluntary code of conduct, and will be deemed “body image friendly” if they do. According to Feministing, some of the recommendations from the government’s National Advisory Group on Body Image include:
“disclosing and avoiding the digital enhancement of images; banning ultra-thin female models or overly muscular male ones, in addition to models under the age of 16 to advertise adult clothes; employing a greater diversity of ethnicities and model body sizes; eschewing editorial and advertising content that promotes negative body image through rapid weight loss and cosmetic surgery, and, for retailers, carrying a wider variety of clothing sizes that better reflects the demands of the community.”
Sounds pretty good, right? Celebratory sirens definitely went off in my head when I read the news, along with some grumbling regarding my geographical whereabouts (I really just have a weakness for that Aussie accent).
But then I realized why all this groundbreaking brilliance sounds familiar. It isn’t as groundbreaking as I’d hoped.
In January 2007, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) also formed a health initiative with a long list of recommendations (educate the industry about eating disorders, require models with eating disorders to seek professional help, develop workshops, supply healthy food at fashion shows, etc). A who’s who of industry insiders signed off as supporters of the initiative, including unabashed advocate for all things ultra-thin, Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.
To its credit, the CFDA is still keeping the dialogue going, three years after the initiative formed (earlier this year, a group of industry insiders gathered on the eve of New York Fashion Week for a panel discussion titled, “The Beauty of Health: Resizing the Sample Size”).
But let’s be honest—has anything changed? Do you notice a more diverse pool of models in fashion magazines? Are there less visibly protruding bones on the catwalks? Have you seen yourself or anyone you know physically represented in advertisements? Or is it all just a lot of talk?
Will the Australian government put a stop to pin-thin models?
Feministing says the Australian initiative is apparently the first of its kind in the world, unique in its view of “negative body image and associated issues of low self esteem, poor self confidence and eating disorders as serious health and societal issues that need to be addressed in a comprehensive way across our society.” But all these hopeful prose sound suspiciously similar to the CFDA’s earlier assertions.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for some real change from Down Under, but I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath.
Just when I thought they couldn’t get worse, something new and insidious surfaced.
Gawker wrote recently about AA’s looks-based hiring policies, leaking internal documents that discuss AA’s “New Standard”: “Classy-Vintage-Chic-Late 80s-Early 90s- Ralph Lauren-Vogue-Nautical-High end brand.” Their employees are the front line of the brand’s new image, and should represent the company accordingly.
So who are they looking for to help represent the new look? The more important question is (and always should be in cases like this), who aren’t they looking for?
“None of those trashy [black girls],” said one e-mail from corporate. “We’re not trying to sell our clothes to them. Try to find some of those classy black girls, with the nice hair, you know?”
Let me just repeat that for you for a second: “some of those classy black girls with the nice hair.”
Women of color have long been victims of a white beauty standard that others them. Black women in particular are generally represented as animalistic and hypersexualized. AA’s policy plays directly into those stereotypes, defining black women as either “trashy” (good) or “classy” (bad) based on outer appearance, as though a woman’s hair reveals all about her personality, politics, and ability to be a fashionable employee.
We’ve blogged about this before, but hair has always been a huge point of cultural contention, especially when it comes to a white-male-defined standard of beauty. Natural black hair has been seen in the past as ugly, lower-class, and even threatening. Other employee comments on Gawker suggest that when AA says “nice hair,” they mean “natural hair”—two employees were told to stop straightening their locks.
I’m sure American Apparel is patting itself on the back for this, like encouraging black women to wear their hair “naturally” is some kind of slap in the face to oppressive beauty standards. But really, all it’s doing is continuing a long history of white men telling black women how to look and act, lest they be deemed undesirable.
Why does anyone still support this cesspool of a company? Yeah, ethical manufacturing and no slave labor, blah blah blah, but at this point it’s clear that anything AA does for workers is coming not from a place of respect, but of pseudo-liberal principles that allow the company to earn cred with upper middle class white youth who think of themselves as so damn progressive.
AA can print “legalize LA” on as many pairs of brightly-covered briefs as they want, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that people of color, women, and especially women of color are nothing to this company but objects to be played with and adorned as the company desires.
P.S. CEO Dov Charney seems to be none too happy about the buzz this news is generating: employees are now bound by a confidentiality agreement regarding the hiring process. Any employee found giving information to media will be sued for—wait for it—ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
Hey, About-Facers! Remember that action we were planning against American Apparel’s sexist advertising campaigns? Well we did it, and it was awesome.
We assembled and performed our street theater on loop outside of the Haight St. American Apparel location for about an hour on Saturday. The police eventually came to ask us to leave (it’s not a real protest ’til someone calls the cops, you know?), but not before we handed out piles of fliers and got the American Apparel employees all riled up. Overall, it was a success!
Here’s a teaser; check out more photos after the jump! (All photos here are thanks to the awesome Anita over at Feminist Frequency!)
Our reporter asks "Dov" hard-hitting questions as his "model" looks on
Dov engages his audience and gets really excited about press
We ask the hard hitting questions; Dov gets distracted by cameras.
One of our awesome volunteers with the fliers we distributed
It's not exploitation if there's a waiver, right Dov?!
This action was a ton of fun! HUGE THANKS to everyone who helped out, in person and online! We couldn’t have done this without you!
If you couldn’t make it out but still want to show your support, you can. Join our Facebook group, sign our petition, and make your voice heard!
Someone in Portland, OR gets me, man. Photo via flickr.
In a move that comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody, American Apparel has set a new standard for sexually objectifying women everywhere via their “World’s Best Bottom” contest. You’ve probably heard about it: CEO Dov Charney and company encouraged American Apparel customers around the world to send in photos of their butts clad in American Apparel underwear. Visitors to American Apparel’s web site would then vote for their favorite behinds, and the winner would become the new “face” of the company’s latest advertising campaign. The winners were announced recently, which means it’s time to do one of my favorite things: rage against Dov Charney’s machine.
Let’s run through what we already definitely know about American Apparel: their advertising is demeaning, at times straight-up pornographic, and often has undertones of sexual violence. [We linked so we don't assault you with these ads. Click to see them.-Ed.] Their hipster following and too-cool-for-school aesthetic shroud American Apparel’s objectification of women in a language of sexual choice and freedom: these girls want to take off their clothes, right? So who cares? No one was forced to enter this contest, so whatever, and those of us who have a problem with it are just uber-PC party crashers out to ruin everyone’s fun!
In a pre-emptive response to those objections, I say this: I’m not out to shame anyone who submitted a photo to this contest. I’m not saying women shouldn’t think their butts are fly, or that we shouldn’t find bodies (or even specific body parts) attractive. What I am saying is that objectification is objectification with or without the consent of those being objectified, and that when one woman’s body is objectified in the media at large, it becomes much, much easier for other women’s bodies to be objectified in a similar manner.
When American Apparel invites people to vote on “ideal” bodies, it is contributing to a culture where women constantly evaluate themselves in terms of other people. Not only are we expected to compare our bodies to the bodies of other women, but we’re actually being encouraged to ask others to join us in making that judgment.
Just because the bodily ideal being promoted by American Apparel is more “raw” or “edgy” or “authentic” than other idealized bodies in media—American Apparel ads don’t look anything like Calvin Klein ads, for example—doesn’t mean it’s OK. It’s just a dressed-up version of the same old advertising trickery, where we’re made to feel like we’re just not hot enough or cool enough or sexy enough–and now, not “cool” enough because we’re not ok with being objectified.
And how do we get sexy? How do we get cool? By sending pictures of our butts to Dov Charney? By buying a $12 pair of underpants and walking around in them and only them all day? By “ironically” putting our bodies on display and thinking we’ve outsmarted the system because we’ve chosen to adorn ourselves in this way? By asking people: Hey, am I sexy now?
Those things don’t work. Objectification isn’t cancelled out by irony or intent. If you need proof, just look at the way the voting worked: both men and women entered the contest, but the top 10 winners were all female. In order to “balance” the results, American Apparel (in conjunction with BUTT, a Europe-based magazine for gay males) selected two male winners. If this were a contest about celebrating bodies or celebrating underwear or celebrating bodies in underwear, then there would have been at least one male winner in the top 10, right? But there wasn’t, because men’s bodies are not objects like women’s bodies are–and all the slick pseudo-liberation in the world isn’t going to change that.
Do these American Apparel models convey similar messages despite their age difference?
When it comes to children, it can be very difficult to distinguish what is exploitative from what is innocent. If a certain pose signifies sexual provocation amongst adults, must that pose have the same meaning when created by a child? And how does this increasingly blurry territory affect how the judicial system defines child pornography?
This issue came up while I was searching for a scandalous, though not X-rated, photo on the American Apparel web site to include in our Gallery of Offenders. While there, I noticed that the web site had a children’s section, and out of curiosity, I decided to see how their children’s photos compared.
Most of the children’s photos were age-appropriate, cute, racially diverse, and positive overall, but there were a few that caused alarm. If I had seen any of the questionable photos in another context, I wouldn’t have given them a second thought. However, because they were from American Apparel, a company notorious for their pornographic advertising, I deemed them inappropriate.
Some of the children’s photos were disturbingly familiar. Here’s what I mean:
All photos were found on American Apparel's web site and pasted together.
In context, they look pretty bad. Whether the children were posed that way, mimicked the adult models, or were simply caught in a random position that we have given a sexual meaning to–does it really change the fact that these photos are the ones used to advertise clothing?
What complicates the situation is that adult women often mimic the innocence and playfulness of young girls as a way to flirt or behave in a sexual manner.
These American Apparel ads each show models in childish poses.
Basically, women are imitating girls in order to look young and innocent, and girls are in turn imitating women in order to look more adult and sexual.
This issue reaches far greater than fashion advertisements. Pedophilia and the sexual abuse of children are serious problems that are no doubt getting worse, due to the increased sexualization of little girls. But are we unable to separate the harmless from the harmful?
A photo from the parents' alleged collection of child pornography
A few months ago I ran across the San Francisco Chronicle story Are bath-time photos child pornography?, and was shocked to learn that parents faced child-abuse charges for the bathtime photos’ “sexual exploitation” of their daughters.
In more recent news, the U.S. Army charged a soldier serving in Afghanistan with child pornography possession after the soldier’s mother sent him photos of a young relative playing in her swimsuit.
Why does our culture both try to protect children from sexual abuse (sometimes without reason), yet recklessly perpetuate pedophilia by sexualizing childhood? Why can’t we just act our ages and treat and view others in an age-appropriate manner? Or is the concept of “age appropriate” too ambiguous to define?
