The same old story.

Magazines today are filled with unrealistic and unattainable images of women? Nothing new. Real life women have had ribs removed surgically to look like this:

I can only imagine what women had to go through to be this thin:

(Photoshop has some catching up to do in terms of distorting the female body for the sake of fashion.)

(I know photo manipulation is sneakier than illustration, but illustrations still set an unattainable goal, and women have always dieted and maimed themselves for the sake of "beauty". Today's thigh gap is last century's flat chest or the century before's 16 inch waist.)

(I recommend The Sartorialist etc for the tenth time. Images that are real, of actual—albeit usually thin—people, in interesting clothes.)

Better than Disney Princesses

After watching Arrietty, I have concluded that Disney Princesses are LAME in comparison. Arrietty is adventurous, brave and full of spunk. She is a risk-taker. She's not scared of bugs. Disney princesses are just pretty women with tiny waists.

Image from http://www.arrietty.com.au

This Disney Princesses vs. Hayao Miyazaki Debate is a good place to start. (Miyazaki is the creator of Arrietty and other Studio Ghibli creations). I'll end with a quote from the debate:

Except for Mulan, almost all the actions of Disney princesses still seem to be defined in relationship to their man.

In contrast, Miyazaki’s female leads offer a far more complex picture of what it means to be a person. They often have agency outside of their relationships to men.

Complaint

I brought out the inner nanna and inner feminist in this exchange:

To whom it may concern,

I recently received the September 2011 [DVD Rental Company] brochure in my mailbox. I was disappointed to see an image of a woman with very obvious cleavage on the front of it. It is distasteful, gratuitous, inappropriate and unnecessary. I feel it does not promote a good image of [DVD Rental Company]. I hope you will not be using that image again in any of your promotions in the future.

I look forward to hearing your response.

Kind regards,

Elsie

To their credit, I received this response:

Hi Elsie

Thank you for your feedback regarding the advertising material you recieved.

This partucular image has been used for over 24 months Australia wide (I knew I should have complained the first time I saw it!). Prior to your email we had never recieved any negative feedback directly or through our market research.

We will take your feedback onboard when relooking at our marketing campaigns in the future. At this stage this image has been confirmed for our next few campaigns so please do not feel we are not listening.

Regards

[DVD Rental Company Marketing Team]

Should I say, "hey, thanks for listening!"?

More than a clothes horse

I'd be the first to say that the Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine Middleton, is gorgeous. But it frustrates me that all that the media has to report on her is she wore this! or she wore that! Come on, she has a degree, she's an intelligent woman. Can't we have something of more substance to say about her other than her outer appearance? It feels as if her role is reduced to looking pretty and staying quiet.

On a tangent, don't you feel that the media always wants to make a fashion icon out of nearly anyone who's famous? Why do you have to be fashionable if you're famous? I'd hate to have that pressure if I were famous. If I were famous (God forbid), I'd glamourise dagginess.

Sex sells

Society is in a sad state when women routinely resort to using overt sexuality to sell products (I'm looking at you female pop stars). I'm sure it's not just women who decide to do things this way, but also the men behind them.

It's sad because it makes me ask, "Is that all you have to offer?". How many years of womens' liberation have we had, and yet we still resort to scantily clad women writhing and gyrating in music videos. It frustrates me on so many levels, but have we become so lazy and so uncreative that we just go, "Hey we need attention and we need to sell quickly. Go get a scantily clad woman"?

That's why I find Katie Noonan so refreshing. She has an ethereal voice and bucket loads of talent. She doesn't have to resort to overt sexuality to sell her music - she has herself to offer. Her voice and her creativity speak for themselves. Yet she is still very feminine in the way she presents herself. She may not ooze sexuality the way female pop stars do, but I think there is a very subtle, modest and demure undercurrent of it.