One of the reasons why these images frame the conversation around whiteness is because they’re comparing today’s “beauty” standards to those of decades past when the media and our culture’s aesthetic “values” were even more white-centric/Eurocentric. It’d be hugely problematic to post a current picture of a thin Black actress over a vintage picture of a curvier white actress and ask, “When did this become hotter than this?” That juxtaposition would have racist overtones because we don’t live in a post-racial society. Such an image might raise significant points about intersecting forms of oppression (ex. curvy women of color are doubly marginalized, etc.), but it’d still be problematic/racist either in its implication or outright declaration that women of color are “less desirable”.

But then, if we’re just deconstructing the mainstream’s most mainstream “beauty” ideals, then it’s accurate to acknowledge that our society was and IS racist and white-centric. There’s a history behind why all of these idealized people are white. Just to pick a random example, let’s take Nat King Cole. Sure, lots of white women swooned over Cole’s crooning voice, but expressing admiration for or attraction to him was taboo. Cole was physically attacked by three members of a hate group (the White Citizens Council) in the middle of a concert in Alabama; after being attacked and so disrespected, he swore he’d never return to the South. Cole was the first Black television presenter, but his variety show could never secure a national sponsor. (When the show was canceled due to lack of said sponsorship, Cole responded to the situation by saying, “Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.”) His neighbors in California objected to and organized against his presence in the neighborhood. He wasn’t even allowed to touch white female guests on his variety show (though I think he may have broken that rule a couple of times, if I recall correctly); remember, this was around the time that Emmett Till was murdered just for whistling at a white woman. These kinds of injustices were commonplace for celebrities of color until and during the Civil Rights movement. White people felt threatened by Cole’s prestige and by the idea that a man of color – especially a dark-skinned Black man – was handsome and desirable. If Cole was handsome, desirable, wealthy, and powerful, then he posed a sociopolitical threat to White people’s unfair and unwarranted power + privilege. Despite his talents and charm and good looks, can you imagine a white-owned major magazine label with a white target audience advertising Nat King Cole as the epitome of masculine sexual beauty in 1957? There’s no mainstream representations idealizing a person of color from that era to which we could compare today’s celebrities. This isn’t to say that we couldn’t recognize the desirability of old school celebrities of color and name them as examples of sexual beauty, anyway. But again, the “when did this become hotter than this?” meme seems to be critiquing the mainstream media’s choice of idealized “beauty”, which was/is inherently discriminatory.

This history laid the foundation for the ongoing racism informing our culture’s “beauty” standards. Just to focus on discrimination in the media, not even getting into other issues (like Arizona’s ban on Mexican-American studies, the study that showed male Black students are singled out for harsher and more frequent discipline than other students, etc.)… White and light-skinned people are still held up as the most desirable. People of color still have fewer privileges and opportunities in the arts. People of color are still relegated to stereotypical roles in many cases. White people are still acting in colorface and stealing roles that should have been played by actors of color (Jake Gyllenhaal, Prince of Persia, cough). Just look at Viola Davis discussing racism in Hollywood here: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/01/viola_davis_is_this_years_frontrunner_for_best_actress_the_help.html and here: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/01/watch_viola_davis_tell_charlize_theron_she_doesnt_know_what_shes_talking_about_video.html

And the problem within this problem is that we haven’t more fully acknowledged these political realities in the context of our conversation yet. I’d be really curious to see response memes! Like “when did this (problematic/discriminatory beauty) become hotter than this? (marginalized beauty)” Or better yet!! “Why isn’t this person (pic of person of color/person with disabilities/fat person/LGBT person/tattooed or body-modded person/etc.) considered just as attractive and valuable as this person? (insert pic of problematic/discriminatory beauty)” Who and what that the mainstream looks down on do you find attractive?

I want to sincerely thank @Beckysharper for bringing these images to light to begin the conversation. It is a very necessary and important step.

I’m frustrated by talking about a “thin” model or someone who is “too thin.” I want to discuss fatness and race and sexuality. Not in the terms of “real women” with “real curves.” Because there is always a line of demarcation in that discussion. Either you are “too thin” to be a “real woman with real curves” or you are “too fat to be a woman with real curves.” I genuinely want to move the dialogue of what is “too thin” to a dialogue that is about loving bodies, even the fattest bodies, without the lines of demarcation of what constitutes “real women.” This conversation needs to include an analysis of images and identities not represented by the women (or men for that matter) in the pictures above, who are ALL white, thin, able-bodied, class privileged, heteronormative, and young.

In short, I want to explode the boundaries of beauty, using these images as a starting point of critique and change.

I wrote, “I agree there is a disconnect.” I think it is a disconnect between what body we’re attracted to, and what body we want to be. I think the 50′s women’s bodies were bodies the audience (i.e. men) would desire. The very thin figure in media nowadays represents what women aspire to be. There are still plenty of slightly curvy women on film, especially marketed toward men. But the very thin figure stars in tabloids, runways, and “chick flicks,” all of which are aspirational fantasies aimed at women, where thinness represents achievement.

*I am vastly generalizing because I’m interested in looking at “sex sells.” Luckily for the human race no small amount of people are attracted to all sorts of non-Hollywood-bodied people. And I’m not wanting to dismiss thin women; I’m merely talking about how the idea of thinness is sold.

[trigger warning for discussion of eating disorders and sexual assault below]

@Not Mr. Big – I appreciate that many straight men don’t idealize women who either eat/diet unhealthily or who fall into a minority of women whose naturally very thin body type most people couldn’t emulate without resorting to unhealthy eating/dieting. I’m sure that your reassurance is well-meaning. The problem is that this still frames the conversation around men’s desires and/or what society finds attractive. It a) creates an unnecessary hierarchy between body types and poses the argument in such a way so as to discount the great diversity amongst people’s desires, and b) doesn’t actually help people who are doing unhealthy things to try to change their body types.

Many of my women friends and relatives have suffered through eating disorders. (Quick disclaimer: In talking about this, I’m definitely not trying to say that all super-skinny women like those in the pictures have eating disorders. And in fact, some women who have eating disorders aren’t or don’t become super-skinny for a long time.) Their partners’ pleas for them to stop hurting themselves did little to help. That’s because eating disorders are very rarely about trying to be attractive to one’s partner/people in general. Eating disorders are about control, about trying to have complete control over your body because you’re afraid of having no control over other things (like how people perceive you and how that might impact your social or professional opportunities, or as a way of feeling like you’ve regained control over your body after being sexually assaulted. I’ve known several women who developed eating disorders after being sexually assaulted and they all said that it was an admittedly unhealthy way of trying to reestablish the feeling that they had control over their own bodies.) I’m saying this because I don’t want people to think that telling someone who has an eating disorder that men (or whomever the person is attracted to) prefer a curvier body type will prevent them from engaging in unhealthy, self-destructive, out-of-control eating habits. The way to help is to express concern over the fact that they’re out of control and endangering themselves.

@Not Mr. Big: I hear similar comments around men (interested to hear they’re saying this when I’m not there too, I always suspected it was some sort of awful pat-on-the-head gesture b/c I’m curvy). Anyhow I’d bet that a majority of modern women would also find the retro men’s bodies pictured above more appealing than the modern men’s bodies (though plenty of women are into totally ripped guys). Many women will actually grimace at the near-body-builder male six-pack or humongous pectorals. I’ve noticed many successful porn actresses are not extremely thin like successful movie actresses. I agree there is a disconnect.

This is an odd connection to make but I read that the greatest Olympic figure skaters of the early 20th century would never even qualify for regionals today. Every record set was beat the next time around so that expectations rose every year; also the pool of qualified skaters to choose from got bigger as the sport gained legitimacy and people got access to training, so the best became the best-of-the-best. Now we simply expect superhuman Lutzes or whatever.

The analogy to celebrity looks would be that once an extreme is shown on camera it becomes normal, so you have to find something more extreme. Not only that but these body types, more than the retro ones, are something you have to work at, so it keeps people buying food, gym memberships, and diets, etc., etc., and doing so well into their sixties, at least. Capitalism, I guess. And a million other things, but this comment has probable gone on long enough.

I’ve recently started thinking a bit more about just how hard it is to be a guy nowadays (not to do a ‘what about the menz’…but sort of!). But I do think that a lot of men suffer under patriarchal gender expectations, and most of them (outside of, say, academic circles) lack the vocabulary with which to describe that situation. It is a shame…

I think there’s a disconnect between what women think men think is attractive, and what men actually think is attractive. I’ve never heard guys talk about how hot Kate Moss is, or Keira Knightley, or Nicole Richie, or any of the waif-like women whose pictures you’ve posted. And Heidi…she’s the subject of far more scorn than lust.

Men talk far more about, say, Scarlett Johansen, or Halle Berry, or Gisele, or Brooklyn Decker, Marisa Miller, etc, all woman with real curves. I’m sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority of men consider the Marilyn-style figure FAR more attractive than someone so skinny you fear you may be stabbed by one of their protruding ribs.

following Drahill’s line of thought about discipline, I find it interesting that body discipline may imply the discipline with which someone applies to their overall life, yet the discipline to achieve what can be unachievable (be it ripped musculature, bodacious curves, etc) to my mind doesn’t allow the discipline to act in other areas of development (eg mind, mental health, following passions/ hobbies/, etc)