filkertom | The Female Belly

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.