From left to right on your screen: Viper, Monkey, The Master, Tigress, and Crane
One of the commenters on Ragen's post about Po the Plus Size Action Hero of the movie Kung Fu Panda stated correctly that Po does Kung Fu because he loves it, not so he can have a svelte body like Tigress. However, I had to make one minor argument about her logic:
Heck, Tigress is an in-betweenie. Society wants us all to look like Viper, who would be the equivalent of a supermodel. Even Tigresses have eating disorders so they can turn into Vipers, although Vipers only naturally make up approximately 3% of the population. ;-)
It's true that the "supermodel build" (if achieved naturally--starvation doesn't count) accounts for only about 3% of all women, yet it is what we in this society have been starving ourselves to aspire to and hating ourselves when we can't achieve it for decades. It's sick, it's sad, and the fat hatred has only gotten worse. And...
THE PATHOLOGY AND PREJUDICE HAVE GOT TO STOP!!!!!
I am not asking for the infamous "males in the 18-32 age bracket" who, for some reason, we are all supposed to cater to on every level to look at me and see sexy, sexy hotness. I'm a middle-aged woman approaching menopause. I have gray hair that I don't bother dyeing, I have a "kangaroo pouch" that is covered with stretch marks, and my boobs are not perky. At this point it would have to be my scintillating personality that appealed to a man, and I don't want one of these young bastards in the 18-32 age group. I've already got a son in that age bracket, I am not looking to adopt another one!
Not that men in my age group are much better. When I was still looking, I found more than one of them who wanted a mommy to take care of him. Not into the Oedipal thing, dudes.
I'm so relieved not to be looking any more.
Where I was going with this is that I don't care about being seen as "hot" or "sexy" by anybody, in fact such things make me uncomfortable. What I do want is to be treated with the common respect and decency that we should all have for each other regardless of physical appearance or philosophical difference. That I should be expected to change my body type in order to stop the viciousness and ridicule of plus size people is ludicrous and wrong. Those assholes are the ones who should be changing THEIR tune, and they are the ones who should be being attacked for being such juvenile assholes, not the other way around.
Oh yeah, while we're at it, people who are not of the ethnic group of majority should get on changing their imperfect complexions, and all those damn handicapped people better get on making themselves more able bodied so they don't offend the sights of the so-called ruling class. We can't have any imperfection here, all must be to Hollywood standards!
In my world, there is room for Vipers, Tigresses, and Pos.
You don't have to be attracted to every one of every body type or race or age bracket. But you DO have an obligation as a decent human being to treat everyone with respect and common decency. Sexiness as an attribute is really pretty meaningless in the grand scale of things, and lack of it in the eyes of the beholder is no reason for the beholder to act like a douchebag.
By the way, being a douchebag?
Really, really, really not sexy.
End of rant.
Crew of Douchebags illustrates how Not to be Sexy
It's very hard to fight media influence.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if we start with ourselves and slowly spread the awareness around through family and friends. Perhaps...