Wednesday 4 March 2009

Quick hit: Thank goodness for Michelle Obama's arms

Tracey Barnett's column in the Herald today is quite hilarious, and skewers the focus on women's appearances as measures of their worth:
Uh-oh - Oprah is fat again and we're all screwed.

If there is a true gauge for the entire Western world's psychological pulse it is Oprah Winfrey's body mass index. The New York Post declared: "Bloated, depressed - as O goes, so goes the nation."

Baring a photo of her skinny self next to her 200-pound (91kg) body on the cover of her magazine recently, Oprah said: "I'm so embarrassed. All the money and all the fame and all the attention and the glamorous life and the success doesn't mean one thing if you can't control your own being."

Let me attempt a translation here. One of the most powerful, self-made media forces in America, a woman whose presidential endorsement arguably helped sway millions of voters away from a female candidate to a black one, a woman who merely mentions a book recommendation on air and the author makes bestseller lists worldwide, a generous benefactor to the needy - this woman believes that her success doesn't mean anything unless her body is the right size?

...

It must be written in some imaginary contract for women in the public eye that when you are diced into physical pieces on a regular basis, you start to believe your parts are the value of your whole.
Click through to read the whole thing.

I too cannot recall the last 25 outfits John Key has worn. And frankly I don't want to think too hard about it either.

2 comments:

Anna said...

Sigh. It doesn't help that celebs go about their weight loss with almost religious zeal. I remember Oprah prosletysing (sp!) about all her various weight loss methods, and I thought she was setting herself up for a terrible fall if/when her body shape changed, as women's bodies do over the course of our lives. That's what happens when you attach so much moral value to being skinny - putting on weight is tantamount to announcing that you're a failure.

Paul said...

What profiteth a celebrity if she gains the whole world and loses control of own BMI? Surely, Oprah's public struggle with her weight is to her benefit: her fans can identify with her plight. Never mind that she is rich and famous. She is just like them, overweight and unhappy.