Plus-Size Discrimination in the Media - A Big Deal

Kate Moss’ notorious quote, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” has been a common buzz-phrase in the American collective memory for years. Although Americans’ body mass index has risen by leaps and bounds in the past decade, bean-pole thin is still the desire for many modern American women.

This goal of being “skinny” is by no means an accident. Heteronormative ideas of how a woman should act, look and dress in order to attract a man pervade our culture from every angel. Media is literally jam-packed with images of skinny girls with out a fiber of flab. However, this is all starting to change.

The fashion industry, in an unspoken turn of events, has decided to incorporate more natural looking models to promote their products. Although the emaciated “heroin-chic” look may no longer be front and center in Calvin Klein ads, we are still a far cry from actual natural women filling the glossy pages of magazines like Elle and Vogue.

The most memorable example of “real women” being used in advertisements is the Dove campaign for real beauty circa 2004. Dove set out to find beautiful plus-sized women with curves in an effort to shift away from the norm of skeletal models being the object of desire and central focus in advertisements. At first the campaign was viewed as controversial, but fast forward six years and it is considered one of the most groundbreaking and revolutionary ad campaigns in recent history.

Slowly but surely other companies are following suit, but as always, changes in cultural norms are met with heavy criticism and obstacles. Lane Bryant recently released a lingerie advertisement that featured a plus size model in various undergarments with a strong sexual undertone. FOX and ABC refused to air the ad. While the networks claimed the piece in question showed too much cleavage they allowed a similar Victoria’s Secret spot to air. This sends a clear-cut message to the media consuming public: it’s ok to be overweight, just as long as you aren’t sexual. This disgustingly hegemonic and heteronormative ideology still holds a firm grasp on mediated images of women today.

Even if we as a society are ready to move beyond the sociologically imposed standards of women in the media, the media itself doesn’t think so. This rejection of what should be a perfectly acceptable ad should be a cause for conce
and a call to arms. As a collective public we can not stand by as women who have more than 15 percent body fat are openly discriminated against and deemed inappropriate for television viewing audiences. Not only do these big beautiful women deserve to be seen, they need to be. We as a culture can’t afford to be complacent as advertising execs tell us who we can and cannot watch on television. We must demand to be able to see people of every size, shape, gender and creed if we as a culture want to begin to produce a more accurate, realistic and healthy mediated culture.