Culture of Contradictions
An excellent editorial in the Houston Chronicle highlights the utter confusion that abounds in our culture. Just what is the "right" way to look? (and why should we care anyway?):
Big is beautiful, as long as it's not too big;
you can't be too rich or too thin, but please, honey, don't be anorexic.
Emphatically skinny is still in, but fat has achieved a certain political correctness; it's been redefined as a healthy rejection of the undernourished look. Kirstie Alley boogieing on the one hand, and Mary-Kate Olsen, a scrawny waif whose thrift-store chic is now being hailed as the new hip style, on the other. Talk about the great divide.
It also makes one question our labelling of what is overweight - is this an absolute scale or something relative (i.e. the heaviest 15% of the population)? It seems there is no way to win.
Karen Stabiner, author the editorial argues:
...If girls don't see a more realistic portrayal of themselves on big screens and small, they might look for other ways to occupy their time.
I don't think so. The voracious appetite for celebrity magazines and tabloids - that seem to do nothing but report on people's size and looks - doesn't seem to be declining.
We have the movies and the magazines because we watch them, and we buy them. It's a bit like all the people denouncing the paparazzi when Princess Diana died - many of these folks were the ones buying the magazines in the first place.
I can't see our culture of contradictions changing anytime soon.
Written By J. Foster
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