The Female Belly

[filkertom]

huskiebear alerts us to some absolute ludicrousness involving Dresden Dolls singer Amanda Palmer, who:

... has been forced to search for a new record label after Roadrunner refused to promote her latest single, video and album. Why? Because she refused to let them remove shots of her “fat” belly from the video for Leeds United, and is therefore “uncommercial”. This comes from a metal label where, I have it on good authority, “you can count the number of women on the fingers of one hand and most of the people on the label are decidedly chunky hairy dudes”. Amanda’s fans are quiet rightly outraged by this shoddy, sexist behaviour and have begun a Rebellyon, posting pictures of their own bellies on fan forum Shadowbox and sending them to Roadrunner in protest:

This issue is not just about Amanda Palmer’s belly. This issue is about all the bellies of the world: big, small, hairy, stretch-marked, scarred, pregnant; every single belly. The aim is to reclaim the belly, to promote a healthy body image for everyone (not just females) and to protest against the “barbie dolling” of artists by record companies and the media.

Okay, first: I watched that video carefully, and I think Amanda's got a lovely tummy. A tummy that just invites you to run your hand over it affectionately. Assuming she lets you. I'm hard-pressed to think of a woman I've ever been involved with that doesn't have that kind of tummy.

Second, what is it with these thin-freak nutbars, those in the media who have taken it upon themselves to determine the appropriate size for a human being and make us all follow along? They thought Kate Winslet was fat. They apparently think America Ferrara is fat. I guess they think the women in Frazetta paintings and the elf princess in Everquest are fat.

If you like sulky anorexics with the physiques of nineteen-year-old boys... maybe you should just date nineteen-year-old boys, y'know?

Yeesh.

ETA: to clarify that I'm not ripping on skinny women, but on those who have decreed that skinny women are what we should want/want to be.

Comments

[the_rck]

I bet most nineteen year old boys have better taste than to date these bozos.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Wordy word. Nobody ever cut themselves on my shoulder blades and I never got any complaints in the hubba-hubba area either.

[ericcoleman]

I have said many times that the media view of female beauty is a girl who looks like a teenage boy in a pushup bra.

I am also reminded of a woman I knew a few years ago. She worked at the place that had the best open mike I have ever been to. Most of the women who went in there were the skinny type. She was all curves and hips and belly and breasts. She would walk through the room and every eye was on her. The media would say she was fat. To make matters worse, she was smart and funny too.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

If they think Amanda Palmer is fat, Beth Ditto must be a frequent visitor to their nightmares...and all of Beth Ditto's fat was taking the breeze on the cover of NME a while back.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, must not EVER see any hint of a woman actually looking like a woman. That might be *gasp* sexy!
Numbskulls.
These people are why we are still talking about sexism and the need for actual equality. *sigh* I might be more coherent later.

[pjhandley.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. I've heard more men complain about "breakable skinny girls", but very few men complain about curvy lush women.....

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

We have at my house a slideshow screensaver that runs through a rather large collection of nude photography. It's not uncommon for either kitanzi or myself to remark "Boy, I'd really like to.....give her a sandwich."

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

Hell, I worry about breakable skinny boys! Not that I'm actually in a position to possibly break them, but I've always been more attracted to men that are "sturdy". So help me, the question I ask is "Would they break if I were to shove them against a wall and then shove my tongue down their throats?"

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Remind me not to do that label's execs' drugs. They're wacked; she's gorgeous.

(Thanks for the nudge; I have meant for a while to check out the video for one of my favorite songs, the DDs' Sing. And, as it happens, the search also yielded a vid of them doing Science Fiction Double Feature)

[brmj.livejournal.com]

This is ridiculous. Yet another way mainstream culture is broken, I guess.

[singlemaltsilk.livejournal.com]

I understand and agree with your disdain, Tom; however -- and I say this as a woman of ample proportions -- taking swipes at the other end of the spectrum of the female form ("sulky anorexics with the physiques of nineteen-year-old boys") cheapens your argument.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No.

Sorry.

Every once in awhile, someone on this board says, "Embrace the power of 'and'". Steams the heck out of me. It seems very condescending. It's an attempt to make me, and whoever, think about what their saying, about acceptance tolerance blah blah blah.

I work very hard to be as accepting and tolerant as possible. But I have watched pretty much every woman in my entire life trying to somehow make themselves thinner, because then they'll be happy. Or they'll be attractive. Or they'll be something. I really don't know what.

I have a huge problem with my mom going off for five minutes on how her newest diet doesn't work, how she can't exercise enough, how little she eats sometimes, how she hates the way she feels, and then, "Tommy, you've got to lose weight!" Gee, Mom, thanks, I never thought of that. I'll get right on it.

And the "sulky anorexics etc." are not the other end of the female spectrum. They are too frickin' skinny, unhealthily so. And we as a nation have been conditioned to want them, to want to look like them, to spend billions of dollars to try to become them, to starve and torment ourselves to become them. I'm not swiping at them, Marty; I'm swiping at the swine who tell us being that skinny is the only way to go.

I mean, have you ever seen Gigi Edgley? I don't know where the hell she puts her internal organs.

You are a lovely woman, Marty. Ample? Try extremely huggable. The thinnest women I know still have a little extra on them, in very nice places I might add. At least one of them frightened the hell out me, years ago, by saying she was trying to lose weight. If she'd lost six ounces, you could've seen through her.

If it is cheapening my argument to call out the unnatural body type that these insane people want us to go for, then I guess I've got a cheap argument. But I find a wide range of women very attractive, and they're not the ones in Maxim.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

If you like sulky anorexics with the physiques of nineteen-year-old boys... maybe you should just date nineteen-year-old boys, y'know?

It's actually worse than that, I'm afraid. Based on a number of tests done with quite rigorous rigor, it was found that the current model of 'commercial beauty' more closely resembles a *prepubescent* male body form.

Ew. Just, ew.

[devospice.livejournal.com]

Every time I see one of these ultra skinny chicks all can think of is The Simpsons where Lisa was complaining about the body of a mannequin. The guy setting up the mannequin agreed and then started singing

Planing down the thighs
Planing down the thighs
I make 5 bucks an hour
Planing down the thighs

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[enegim.livejournal.com]

In her time, Marilyn Monroe was considered the sexiest woman in the world; by today's standards, she's the Goodyear Blimp.

Oh, indeed. A couple of years ago, somebody interviewed one of the "supermodels" and reported that she looked at a picture of Marilyn Monroe in the famous flesh-colored dress and said, "If I were that fat I'd kill myself."

(I am trying hard to remind myself that the model in question is probably ill-tempered and not quite sane due to semi-starvation. I am trying to feel compassion for someone whose livelihood depends on conforming to that mold. But gee, it's hard not to say "good riddance.")

[ladyotterfae.livejournal.com]

*watches* wait, what? I mean, I was confused, because I'd never seen a single shot of her that looked anything other than "slender" to me, so I was thinking maybe she'd put on weight, and I was surprised, given the kind of energy she puts into a performance and all...no, she looks just the same. Slender, high-energy, sexy, somewhat dangerous.

Dear media - I know I'm fat. Seriously, I'm completely aware of it. Treating women who have slender healthy bodies as if _they're_ fat just because their bellies don't happen to form a cavern on film? That's not going to make me any less fat, and certainly isn't going to make me feel any better about my size. So please don't make any assinine arguments about doing this so as not to present fat as being healthy. She isn't. I am. I know it's not.
Also, if it's all about selling stuff - you'll sell more food if you make big beautiful again. :P And frankly, her fan base would prefer to see more of her body, not less. Just sayin'.

*grumblegrowl*

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Ah, no, you're missing the point. The way things are, they can sell food that makes you fat, and then food that is supposed not to but does and tastes like crap and doesn't satisfy, and then more food that makes you fat most of which will get thrown away in a fit of remorse, and then quack remedies for obesity, and round we go again. Keeping the majority of the female populace feeling guilty and resentful and scared and confused maximises the profits, and also takes up brain space that would otherwise be utilised in seeing the multifarious wrongnesses in the system.

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy--there isn't some sinister organisation behind it. It's just the way corporate demons do their business, and they all do the same because it works.

[sazettel.livejournal.com]

All together now:

I am an important woman. I am queenly. I am imperial. I encompass multitudes. You could discover worlds in me.

How DARE you suggest I should be made SMALL?

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Consider the possibility that the stated reason for not promoting her video and the actual reason may not be the same.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Ooookay.

Having never heard of her before I followed the link. She's not even chubby. Granted, my tastes may differ from the perceived mainstream. There's a lady in my building who my coworker thinks "She's attractive, but too chunky." She makes my knees wobble when she walks by.

[sweetmusic-27.livejournal.com]

Dude. She's tiny! WTF?

I mean, I agree it's superficial and stupid, but I could get them being antsy if she was cupcaking out of her trousers while bending (even chicks with no body fat do that in some of the low-rise pants nowadays) or if she was jiggling in the wrong areas while dancing at the end, or if there were long camera shots with clearly visible belly.

But there isn't. You can barely even see it under the baggy dress suit and jacket, and I'll admit there is one point (at four minutes and eleven seconds, for approximately half a second, if you have binoculars and squint, on this video) at which you can tell, because she bends and the shirt isn't in the way, that there might be an ounce of her that isn't bone and muscle. But how many people (before this debacle) were going to look at that bending and notice the slight curve that briefly appears and go, "Hmm, unattractive, I don't like this now." Seriously, how many? Fifteen, out of a million?

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Oh, my God, you're right! I saw a hint of convexity! She could be, (gasp) human! Burn her!

What do you do with body fat? Burn it? What else do you burn? Wood! So what is body fat made of? Wood. What else does wood do? It floats! and what else floats? Very small rocks?

A duck!

And so if she weighs less than a duck she must be fat!

That masters degree in physics has made me wise in the ways of science!

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Pretty soon I expect the media to be complaining about fat skeletons. Not just complating abouf sketal models being fat. I haven't watched the video in question yet, but the photos I've seen make her look both attracive and if anything a little thin.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Jesus fucking Christ. The Dresden Dolls are NOT Britney Spears. Has Roadrunner LISTENED to their albums?!? God, I wonder if they'd drop Slipknot for similar reasons...

-=ShoEboX=-

[dement1a.livejournal.com]

What he said... srsly, DD fans are not going to suddenly stop liking them because Amanda Palmer looks like she might have some internal organs and a BMI > 11.

I have to wonder if umbran is right, and this was just some bullshit reason they came up with to ditch DD.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

They thought BRITNEY FUCKING SPEARS was fat, for Chrissake!

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

I mean really - 2 kids, a seemingly months-long booze/drug(?) bender, a highly public meltdown, and several trips in and out of the psych ward/rehab and people were making snide remarks about her *weight* at the '07 VMAs? And they wonder WHY celebrities go batshit crazy sometimes...

[pandoradeloeste.livejournal.com]

First thing I'm doing when I get home: getting my fiance to write SUCK IT ROADRUNNER on my stomach and taking a picture of it.

[naomi-de-plume.livejournal.com]

>>If you like sulky anorexics with the physiques of nineteen-year-old boys... maybe you should just date nineteen-year-old boys, y'know?

Dear Tom, even if all your other amazing talents dry up into dust, for this line, and this line alone I will always consider you wonderful.

[poltr1]

What you said. Real Women Have Curves!

[pandoradeloeste.livejournal.com]

While I appreciate the sentiment, I severely dislike that phrase because it implies that thin women are somehow fake, or not women. Body-shaming goes both ways, and it hurts everyone.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I agree with the sentiment. When I was working in Chicago's Loop a few winters ago I remember a lingerie company posted ads of women of normal weight in their products. The editorial comments were outrageous. The attitude was that men didn't want to see normal looking women, they wanted to see fantasy women. Men wanted to delude themselves into thinking that those uber-skinny models would somehow be interested in them. I say if you want fantasy women, look at fantasy art. If you want real women, at least know what real women look like.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I want to clarify something I said. I don't mean to demean women who are skinny, as long as they look that way naturally. I think women who get cosmetic surgery to look beautiful aren't as "real" as women who don't or women who get cosmetic surgery to fix scars, clef pallets, and other injuries. IMHO if you pump you're body full of silicone, botox, and have parts of your real body removed willingly to look better you've lost a bit of humanity and taken a step towards becoming an object. And I say that's contemptible.