Body Image and Messages from the Media
anni...@my-dejanews.com
and reality -- specifically what message the media has sent to American women
with their coverage of Monica Lewinsky's body image, calling her the "portly
pepperpot" and "tubby temptress."
I would love some feedback on my thesis statement:
"By focusing so indepth on Monica Lewinsky's weight, the media has sent a
message to American women that being fat is worse that having an adulterous
affair with the most powerful married man in the United states."
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paul@
> "By focusing so indepth on Monica Lewinsky's weight, the media has sent a
>message to American women that being fat is worse that having an adulterous
>affair with the most powerful married man in the United states."
Sounds like a good thesis, but you'd better have some darned good evidence. I
trust you could gather it up.
Paul
---
paul@
for email reply change anonymous to hijinx
Gina Marie Wade
>I'm doing research on how the media affects a woman's perception of body image
>and reality -- specifically what message the media has sent to American women
>with their coverage of Monica Lewinsky's body image, calling her the "portly
>pepperpot" and "tubby temptress."
>
>I would love some feedback on my thesis statement:
>
> "By focusing so indepth on Monica Lewinsky's weight, the media has sent a
>message to American women that being fat is worse that having an adulterous
>affair with the most powerful married man in the United states."
>
Thank you for saying this.
I think the most galling statement to come out of La Monica's mouth in
this whole debacle has been her declaration that she didn't do
anything wrong.
Wha? Surely, if she was up enough on current events to get an
internship at the White House, surely she knew that there was a First
Lady.
Gina Marie
Siobhan Perricone
wrote:
>Thank you for saying this.
>I think the most galling statement to come out of La Monica's mouth in
>this whole debacle has been her declaration that she didn't do
>anything wrong.
>Wha? Surely, if she was up enough on current events to get an
>internship at the White House, surely she knew that there was a First
>Lady.
Wasn't gonna say anything but...
First off, having sex outside of marriage is not automatically wrong. We
can be fairly certain that Hillary is aware of Bill's actions, and has been
for years. I refuse to believe that she has not ever known about his
activities because it's so *blatant*. She chooses to stay with him despite
his activities. That, in itself, can be construed as tacit approval of his
activities (though I grant is it far from explicit approval). I refuse to
believe that Hillary is so stupid and/or willfully blind that she doesn't
know about it.
Second, there is no reason to assume that Hillary does not have an
agreement with Bill regarding activities outside of their marriage. This
is something that we will probably never have a straight answer on, but
they are both of an age where such a thing is not so remote as to be
unlikely. Please remember the times during which they were growing up.
There are many thousands of people who have relationships outside of their
marriage with the full consent (and participation) of their spouses. While
there are many people who find this whole concept upsetting or distasteful,
that does not automatically make it wrong.
Only Bill, Monica, and Hillary know the whole story. It's none of our
business, and it never should have been made the public fiasco it became.
It is NOT my employers business to know who I have sex with, how often, and
what I do with my lover(s). Period. Bill is our employee, not our father,
his sex life is his business, not ours. Even more so with Monica. I don't
give a damn who she boinks (or doesn't boink). It's just NOT any of my
business.
Now if Bill is, say, SELLING ARMS TO THE CONTRAS... get back to me. Then
we'll have something to talk about regarding inappropriate presidential
activities.
But if all you have to whine about is that Monica had sex with a married
man and you can't even prove it was without his wife's knowledge (and even,
possibly, her permission), then just go back to peeping in your neighbor's
curtains, 'cos I don't want to hear it.
But let's say it WAS without Hillary's knowledge. She's so willfully blind
that she's told herself for 20 years (or however long they've been married)
that all these women who claim to have had sex with him are just lying,
that there's no fire where there's smoke... Even if that were the case, I'd
go so far as to agree that Bill and Monica behaved badly, but I'd STILL
insist that it's none of MY business. It's none of yours, either.
Sorry, I'm just so bloody sick of all this. Who gives a damn if Monica
thinks she did anything wrong or not? Who really cares? Is your life so
devoid of anything resembling a hobby that you really give a damn if some
idiotic 20 year old (or however the hell young she is) thinks there was
anything wrong with having sexual activity with a married man? Are you
truly so surprised that there are amoral people out there who aren't
impressed by marriage vows? And are you surprised that they are living and
working in Washington DC?
All I really have to say is "What country have you been living in for the
last 30 years? Did you really MISS the 60s?"
Gina Marie Wade
>I'm doing research on how the media affects a woman's perception of body image
>and reality -- specifically what message the media has sent to American women
>with their coverage of Monica Lewinsky's body image, calling her the "portly
>pepperpot" and "tubby temptress."
>
>I would love some feedback on my thesis statement:
>
> "By focusing so indepth on Monica Lewinsky's weight, the media has sent a
>message to American women that being fat is worse that having an adulterous
>affair with the most powerful married man in the United states."
>
Thank you for saying this.
I think the most galling statement to come out of La Monica's mouth in
this whole debacle has been her declaration that she didn't do
anything wrong.
Wha? Surely, if she was up enough on current events to get an
internship at the White House, surely she knew that there was a First
Lady.
Gina Marie
Stacey K.
> "By focusing so indepth on Monica Lewinsky's weight, the media has sent a
> message to American women that being fat is worse that having an adulterous
> affair with the most powerful married man in the United states."
I guess I really don't think that this "message" is necessarily from the
press-- I think that's *Monica's* attitude, which the press is
reporting.
Those of you who saw the Walter's interview and/or read "Monica's Story"
can perhaps answer this better, but... judging from what I read in the
Time cover-story article and hearing tidbits of hype from the news, it
seemed to me that Monica seemed MORE devastated by the fact that the
public and press were "outing" her as "a person with a weight problem"
than any other invasions of her privacy. I found it rather sadly amusing
that she seemed more comfortable admitting to affairs with married men,
detailing her sexual proclivities, describing her utter inability to be
discrete ("for me, telling only 10 friends is being discrete"), than she
was admitting that she had gained a few pounds and couldn't fit into a
certain dress for a while (i.e. the "call me a slut, just don't call me
fat" attitude).
So, is the press' focus on her weight just accurate reporting of
Monica's own viewpoint? Seems like weight was such a central "issue" in
her life... or does it just seem so because of the press reporting bias?
--Stacey
Eva Whitley
average. What kind of culture do we live in where the average woman is "fat."
--Eva Whitley (posted and mailed)
anni...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> I'm doing research on how the media affects a woman's perception of body image
> and reality -- specifically what message the media has sent to American women
> with their coverage of Monica Lewinsky's body image, calling her the "portly
> pepperpot" and "tubby temptress."
>
> I would love some feedback on my thesis statement:
>
> "By focusing so indepth on Monica Lewinsky's weight, the media has sent a
> message to American women that being fat is worse that having an adulterous
> affair with the most powerful married man in the United states."
>
Red Ermine
> >I would love some feedback on my thesis statement:
> >
> > "By focusing so indepth on Monica Lewinsky's weight, the media has sent a
> >message to American women that being fat is worse that having an adulterous
> >affair with the most powerful married man in the United states."
> >
Hmmm ... I've always wondered if the fact that the most powerfull man in
the world chose someone who is *ugly* by this society's current ideals of
beauty, says something about this societies current ideal of beauty.
Do ya think Clinton could have had sex with Cindy Crawford or Pamala
Anderson? Possibly, after all Kennedy had an affair with Monroe. But
instead he chooses a chubby no-body. Hmmmm... Do you think he couldn't do
"better" if he wanted?
Red Ermine
Who wonders what the average american man must think of this. The guy who
*could* get all the hollywood babes he wants goes after an "ugly" girl.
Has Jackie factored this into his theories? :)
Patrice
>>even smaller than average. What kind of culture do we live in
>>where the average woman is "fat."
A very, very F'd up society! I just never got the "Monica is fat"
thing. The famous blue dress was from The Gap, for Pete's
sake! Go to The Gap sometime and LOOK at their clothes.
There is no way a fat person could wear clothes from The Gap.
I doubt Emme or Kate Dillon (who are far from fat) could wear
clothes from The Gap. I'm not a fan of Monica, but she is
not fat.
Yohimbe
Eva Whitley <ewhi...@qis.net> wrote in message
news:36F2FF64...@qis.net...
> Okay. How about...she's not even fat. She's averaged size, maybe even
smaller than
> average. What kind of culture do we live in where the average woman is
"fat."
I think we were all born one hundred-fifty years too late. You ever seen
the pics of those saloon girls from the Klondike Gold Rush? Very voluptuous
ladies. I guess they knew how to keep those prospectors wram on freezing
Yukon nights!
Beth Garfinkel
>I found it rather sadly amusing
>that she seemed more comfortable admitting to affairs with married men,
>detailing her sexual proclivities, describing her utter inability to be
>discrete ("for me, telling only 10 friends is being discrete"), than she
>was admitting that she had gained a few pounds and couldn't fit into a
>certain dress for a while (i.e. the "call me a slut, just don't call me
>fat" attitude).
And so it was foretold. . .sometime in my teens (the late 70's and early
80's), I saw a humor collection called _The Book of Guilt_ or something
like that. One of the entries in it read: What do you call a
conscientious dieter? Someone who goes out to dinner at a fancy restaurant
with a married man and eats alls sorts of fattening foods for dinner,
goes to bed with him, and feels guiltier about the food
than the sex.
Beth
--
"Under the green wood tree/Who loves to lie with me/And tune his merry
note/Unto the sweet bird's throat/Come hither, come hither, come hither/
Here he shall see/No enemy/But winter and rough weather."
--William Shakespeare
Yohimbe
> And so it was foretold. . .sometime in my teens (the late 70's and early
> 80's), I saw a humor collection called _The Book of Guilt_ or something
> like that. One of the entries in it read: What do you call a
> conscientious dieter? Someone who goes out to dinner at a fancy
restaurant
> with a married man and eats alls sorts of fattening foods for dinner,
> goes to bed with him, and feels guiltier about the food
> than the sex.
>
owners should worry about.
It's the surfer dudes with the glazed eyes. Shaggy and Jughead Jones have
just entered their establishment.
Nancy Ann Crosby
having adulterous sex with the most powerful man in the world"
> Wasn't gonna say anything but...
>
> First off, having sex outside of marriage is not automatically wrong. We
> can be fairly certain that Hillary is aware of Bill's actions, and has been
> for years. I refuse to believe that she has not ever known about his
> activities because it's so *blatant*. She chooses to stay with him despite
> his activities. That, in itself, can be construed as tacit approval of his
> activities (though I grant is it far from explicit approval). I refuse to
> believe that Hillary is so stupid and/or willfully blind that she doesn't
> know about it.
I think I must have read the thesis statement differently than most of the
other people responding. They have commented on whether or not Monica's
actions were right or wrong.
But to me, the thesis statement says something else:
Supposedly, this society has what it calls "moral" standards. Not everyone
will agree, but the uproar was because, according to these supposed standards
(that not everyone in society holds, granted), Monica had done "a bad thing."
That was the justification for impeachment of Clinton, and berating Lewinsky,
that supposedly, they had violated some standards of societal morality.
yet by focusing more on Monica's weight than her actions, the thesis statement
is saying, society is actually unconsciously acknowledging its REAL standards
of what is appropriate for a woman. Society, as a whole, may *claim* that
actions such as adultery may be the basis for moral judgement, but the real
basis, in this case, is because of her weight - she dares to violate the
societal standard of "beauty" and in this sense, then, society reveals that its
overt moral standards are really only words, and its real standards are based
on physical appearance/weight - in other words, being fat is the really bad
part, even though you violate some spoken moral standard, the unspoken moral
standard is weight, and it's worse to violate that standard.
Had Monica been some tiny little thing, I wonder if there might not have been
more "sympathy," with the view that she was "used" and "taken advantage of" by
a powerful man. There seems to be this notion that really thin women are
incapable of making this decision for themselves, that they need to be "taken
care of," while fat women are "dangerous" and "temptresses. This is not
really surprising, I suppose; the sexuality of fat women is not a topic that
the media or many parts of society are comfortable with. It has been condemned
by those who try to enforce the notion of only one type of female beauty as
the ultra thin type.
I am not weighing in one way or the other on the "morality" of the behavior of
Clinton and Lewinsky. That is a separate debate. The point I was going for,
in my rambling way, is that the thesis statement is addressing another issue,
the stated values of society, and the actual underlying values, and how those
are revealed in such media portrayals focusing on Lewinsky's size.
nancy
>
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For me, it is far better to grasp the ++
+ Nancy A. Crosby Universe as it really is, than to +
+ nan...@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu persist in delusion, however satisfying +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ and reassuring -Carl Sagan ++++++++++
Evie64288
thesis
>statement
>is saying, society is actually unconsciously acknowledging its REAL standards
>of what is appropriate for a woma
> but the real
>basis, in this case, is because of her weight - she dares to violate the
>societal standard of "beauty" and in this sense, then, society reveals that
>its
>overt moral standards are really only words, and its real standards are based
>on physical appearance/weight - in other words, being fat is the really bad
>part<
Nancy, if you visit chatrooms where the scandal is discussed, you see this over
and over. "Clinton goes for fat pigs", yada yada. This is stated especially by
young men. The focus is entirely on Monica's appearance. The liberals, when
attacking, attack Tripp's weight; the rightwingers attack not only Monica's
weight, but Hillary's "fat legs". Our society's REAL values? Go figure.
Nancy Ann Crosby
>>overt moral standards are really only words, and its real standards are based
>
>>on physical appearance/weight - in other words, being fat is the really bad
>>part<
>
> Nancy, if you visit chatrooms where the scandal is discussed, you see this over
> and over. "Clinton goes for fat pigs", yada yada. This is stated especially by
> young men. The focus is entirely on Monica's appearance. The liberals, when
> attacking, attack Tripp's weight; the rightwingers attack not only Monica's
> weight, but Hillary's "fat legs". Our society's REAL values? Go figure.
I haven't seen the chat rooms, but I believe it; you get this message
everywhere: "fat" is "immoral." No matter what the stated values of society,
like, "people are valued for who they are, and what they do," and "job
performance not appearance is the basis of promotion" and so on, the REAL
message is that, at least for women (I don't know if it's true for men or not),
being fat is the worst thing you can do. People want to believe that fat
women are not only "less attractive" by some arbitrary standard, but that fat
woman are bad, less competent, etc.
So to be a "good" woman, to have societal approval, not just to be
"attractive," you have to be thin, or at least willing to undergo any
torture, no matter how ineffective or damaging to your health, to at least
"try" to not be fat. It's kind of hard not to be a bit defensive! And
why? I ask myself? I have heard some ideas regarding a relationship
between the degree of perceived female "independence" in a society and the
strength of repression based on physical/appearance "ideals." In other words,
expecting women to conform to an unrealistic and unnatural standard is a way
of "controlling" them, when they are perceived to have a high degree of
political and economic freedom.
Makes for interesting study, although I don't know how you would go about it.
BBBWDiva
Would the following Hollywood actresses of the 40's 50's & 60's get movie roles
in today's Holllywood?
Marilyn Monroe
Jayne Mansfield
Sophia Loren
Jane Russell
Rita Hayward
Ann Miller
Lana Turner
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Taylor
Annette Funicello
To be fair, let's include the following men:
Oliver Hardy
Lou Costello
Raymond Burr
Orson Welles
Bob Hope (no, he wasn't that thin)
Director Alfred Hitchcock
Desi Arnaz
Thoughts? IMO, I would say no, because the
women would be pressured to lose weight (can you imagine MM being asked to lose
30 lbs., & then asked to get a boob job?)
Society has got to get a clue and accept all types of people. Glamour comes in
all sizes!
ChrstnDaee
Okay. How about...she's not even fat. She's averaged size, maybe even smaller
than
average. What kind of culture do we live in where the average woman is "fat."
THANK YOU THANK YOU
I felt that way from the beginning -- a slut -- YES -- fat -- no
beh...@my-dejanews.com
I agree with what your saying in general but alas you've made a teeny
error. Marylin Monroe DID have BREAST IMPLANTS.
Patrice
other day (at 8AM, it was the best thing on out of the 88 TV
stations I get on my cable). The episode revolved around Miss
Jane Hathaway and the secretarial pool. Most of the secretaries
were quite buxom and curvy and got all the attention from the
men. Jane Hathaway, OTOH, was flat and very thin with the
"Olive Oil" type figure. She got no attention from men and
the script portrayed her as being rather desperate for a man.
And it occurred to me how times have changed in the last 30
years! Today, Jane would get all the attention from men and
girls like Ellie Mae Clampett and the buxom secretaries would
be called "fat" and encouraged to lose weight.
I also watched part of "Titanic" last weekend. I STILL don't
get the "Kate Winslett is fat" thing.
Contessa
gaining weight - how ridiculous! I hope the pendulum swings back in favour
of the more fulsome woman some time soon.
<beh...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in message
news:7f13ln$akk$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
spect...@my-dejanews.com
Well, let's not get tunnel vision when it comes to "boob jobs".
Marylin would have been asked to lose weight and to get a breast
*reduction*.
Deacon B.
wrote:
>I'm with you guys on that. Mariah Carey is being made fun of for allegedly
>gaining weight - how ridiculous! I hope the pendulum swings back in favour
>of the more fulsome woman some time soon.
Are accusations of wrongdoing being alleged? I don't think Mariah
Carey "allegedly" gained weight. I think she has just started looking
healthier.
And "Fulsome" means aesthetically, morally, or generally offensive
I think the work you are looking for there is "fat" - you know,
meaning full in tone or quality, well filled-out, being substantial
and impressive, richly rewarding or profitable.
The editors of dictionaries know the pendulum has already swung
back....
deke