Crossposted from Tumblr with minor edits
Jan. 14th, 2023 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
obstinatecondolementContent warning for body image talk and discussion of how media representations influence self image for people who are underrepresented in that media or who are unlikely to see people who look like them depicted positively or at all.
It’s so weird that the images we’re shown, over and over, most often are of people who represent a very tiny minority of the population in terms of the bodies they have (let’s say approximately 99th percentile for height, 1st percentile for body fat percentage, almost exclusively white people, people of color are disproportionately light skinned, almost exclusively people without visible disabilities, disproportionate representation of people who do not wear glasses, disproportionate representation of people who do not have male pattern baldness... and even then it is their Literal Job to maintain a diet and exercise regime that no one who was not being paid to do it and who didn’t have a team helping them could maintain and then on top of that have frequent botox and other cosmetic procedures of a quality that is not going to ever be available to the vast majority of people so that they Age Gracefully) and then, quite naturally, people who grow up surrounded by those images end up thinking that their own bodies are not normal, because they never see anyone who looks like them represented as beautiful or desireable, if at all.
Like… I was just thinking the other day that I don’t think I have ever seen an image of a person with an outie belly button except in a few celebrity maternity photoshoots. Otherwise, I have only ever seen them in real life. And (based on a cursory Google) around 10% of people have navels that stick out instead of in. That is more than five times the number of natural redheads that exist worldwide, but Hollywood is too fucking craven and cowardly to show me a slightly different kind of body to the one that it considers ideal.
Literally every kind of body is a normal body and every kind of body is weird (and wonderful), but you wouldn’t know that from the movies, where wearing glasses is a character design choice and not something 64% of the adult population of the world does and if a scene includes two people whose heights are very different that that’s supposed to be the point somehow and usually it’s supposed to be a joke about how one, or more, of these characters’ bodies are not normal.
And like… let’s expand that a little. How much worse is this alienation when you are not white? When you have a visible disability? When you are visibly trans or intersex or otherwise have secondary sexual traits that are not considered the norm for people of your gender? When you are elderly? When you are fat? When you have scars?
I’m obviously not breaking any new ground here, but sometimes it strikes me just how deeply ironic it is to hear people talk about how movies are obsessed with gritty realism these days, when every mainstream Hollywood movie seemingly takes place in world where 99% of human variation doesn’t exist.
It’s so weird that the images we’re shown, over and over, most often are of people who represent a very tiny minority of the population in terms of the bodies they have (let’s say approximately 99th percentile for height, 1st percentile for body fat percentage, almost exclusively white people, people of color are disproportionately light skinned, almost exclusively people without visible disabilities, disproportionate representation of people who do not wear glasses, disproportionate representation of people who do not have male pattern baldness... and even then it is their Literal Job to maintain a diet and exercise regime that no one who was not being paid to do it and who didn’t have a team helping them could maintain and then on top of that have frequent botox and other cosmetic procedures of a quality that is not going to ever be available to the vast majority of people so that they Age Gracefully) and then, quite naturally, people who grow up surrounded by those images end up thinking that their own bodies are not normal, because they never see anyone who looks like them represented as beautiful or desireable, if at all.
Like… I was just thinking the other day that I don’t think I have ever seen an image of a person with an outie belly button except in a few celebrity maternity photoshoots. Otherwise, I have only ever seen them in real life. And (based on a cursory Google) around 10% of people have navels that stick out instead of in. That is more than five times the number of natural redheads that exist worldwide, but Hollywood is too fucking craven and cowardly to show me a slightly different kind of body to the one that it considers ideal.
Literally every kind of body is a normal body and every kind of body is weird (and wonderful), but you wouldn’t know that from the movies, where wearing glasses is a character design choice and not something 64% of the adult population of the world does and if a scene includes two people whose heights are very different that that’s supposed to be the point somehow and usually it’s supposed to be a joke about how one, or more, of these characters’ bodies are not normal.
And like… let’s expand that a little. How much worse is this alienation when you are not white? When you have a visible disability? When you are visibly trans or intersex or otherwise have secondary sexual traits that are not considered the norm for people of your gender? When you are elderly? When you are fat? When you have scars?
I’m obviously not breaking any new ground here, but sometimes it strikes me just how deeply ironic it is to hear people talk about how movies are obsessed with gritty realism these days, when every mainstream Hollywood movie seemingly takes place in world where 99% of human variation doesn’t exist.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-14 07:08 pm (UTC)ETA: I should clarify that I meant it can be more diverse in terms of race/gender/sexuality than what some people are seeing. In terms of your original post about how it totally over-represents thin, attractive, young bodies, I think that totally holds no matter where people are.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-14 07:17 pm (UTC)