posted
I think it's too bad that the discussion is about her style instead of her substance. Which does, amusingly, kind of fit in with what she was saying.
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"I was very disappointed that this woman chose to focus on how much weight I'd lost. In that time period, I had given birth and published a book, both accomplishments I believe are much more important than losing a couple of pounds.
It occurred to me that I don't want my daughters to grow up believing that skeletal thin is an ideal body type, or that their own personal sense of worth should be based upon the ability to wear a size three or not. Every woman, whether she wears a size 3 or 23, has worth and value. We should look beyond appearances and not judge the person next to us based on how big or small they are. The girl that looks anorexic may be recovering from cancer, the girl that is heavy may be facing genetic conditions or be taking a medication that causes her to put on weight. We never know what a person is dealing with, and judgments about their character or personality based on their looks is foolish on our part.
As human beings, we should look beyond the outside and relate to our fellow human beings on a personal level instead of a superficial one."
Now I just typed that off the top of my head, and I certainly don't claim to be as good of a writer as Rowling. I truly, truly belive the woman is articulate enough to make her point without being rude. And I'm disappointed that she chose not to.
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posted
Twinky, what do you think about what she's saying? That she would greatly prefer her daughters strive to be Hermione instead of working (if they are not naturally thin, it will take work) to be very slender?
Dag: It doesn't say she's not slender. In fact, the story she related was on being congratulated for being slender when the last time the woman had seen her she had been pregnant.
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posted
Kat, that should tell you something about the merit of Rowling's choice of rhetorical style.
Do you read OSC's op-ed columns? Watch Michael Moore's films? Do you think that sort of argumentative style is effective for anything other than preaching to the proverbial choir?
quote:Dag: It doesn't say she's not slender. In fact, the story she related was on being congratulated for being slender when the last time the woman had seen her she had been pregnant.
I didn't say JKR wasn't slender. I said she wasn't slender in the manner she described, with "concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms."
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posted
Twinky, it is equally likely it says something about the poeple commenting.
<edited> Never mind. I can't believe I'm arguing this. Not worth it.
Anyway, I love what she was saying, and I attribute Rowling's fury at the elevation of artificial thinness as a virtue above all others women are capable of to her protectiveness towards her daughters and her admiration of Hermione, the character she created.
She said it memorably but perhaps not the most politely. I'd like to think that it's a signal of the seriousness of the issue rather than a reason to dismiss her.
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quote:My view of the piece requires an assumption of good intent on her part.
I don't think either one of our views are inconsistent with an assumption of good intent on her part. If she didn't intend to be insulting then she was careless, in the same way many people have been annoyed with remarks insulting to overweight people made out of carelessness, not malice.
Either way, she was insulting, and she contributed to the same type of hostility that many people were complaining about yesterday with respect to overweight people.
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posted
Oh, I edited it immediately after I wrote it. I'm not arguing about Rowling anymore - I don't see any willingness to give her anything like the benefit of the doubt, and I think the discussion of her style in that one piece is interfering with the main issue.
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posted
There is no doubt in my mind she had good intent. There is also no doubt in my mind that the people offering weight-loss tips earlier in this thread had good intent. They still managed to be offensive to a lot of people. The only differences I see is I think Rowling's piece is more explicitly offensive, and that it is offensive to the non-target audience instead of the target audience.
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posted
*slowly, because she's sitting on her hands* would...prefer...not...to...respond...not...main...issue...
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posted
It was the main issue when people posted the weight loss tips. No one here has stated that they disagree with her main point. What's to discuss?
The way it relates to the thread at this point is the parallel between her blog entry and several posts on this thread.
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posted
I've already said that I agree with her main point, as have numerous others. No one has said that they disagree. Dagonee hit the nail on the head.
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posted
kat, I hadn't seen your post saying you weren't going to respond yet when I posted. I wasn't trying to draw you back into it. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Rowling's piece includes some things that are explicitly offensive, I agree. And were she HERE, I would call her on it. This thread, though, doesn't have anyone -- anyone of US, our group, our community -- saying things like "ew, ugh, skinny people. I don't HATE them, but I wouldn't want to be married to/friends with one of them."
I'm not foaming at the mouth, I swear .
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posted
So has this thread turned into another discussion on style vs substance?
I realize the two interact with each other, and the style in which information is presented often determines its palatablity or unpalitability. But, if we aren't charitable and get too bogged down in style (either direction) we lose the substance.
I haven't seen anyone (that I remember) actually defend fat as a separate "protected status" with a unique set of rights anywhere in this thread. The only thing similar that I can think of that currently exists on the books are the anti-discrimination and accessibility laws for handicapped people.
The rammifications of actually putting this as some sort of law on the books, are pretty far reaching societally and economically. BUt this thread still seems to be bogged down in the "appearance" issue.
Sharpie, but this thread does have people pointing to what Rowling said and holding it up as great, soemthing that needs to be said. Unless they specifically state that they're not agreeing with the explicitly offensive part, I think it's something that deserves to be recognized and discussed. You can't say it's not worth talking about because she's not here when multiple people are pointing to what she said as good.
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posted
Is that what the problem is? I haven't said that I think it was rude?
Okay: I think she said it dramatically, memorably, in a fury of indignation, and impolitely with a hyperbole that drew attention to itself instead of her point.
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posted
I prefer the way that some comapnies are combating the image of fat=ugly - by using heavier models. Not saying that there is anything wrong with thin models, just saying that they are, perhaps, over-represented. "Of course, they are attractive! Look how attractive these people are, too!"
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posted
As one whose body type is decidedly endomorphic, I cannot find anything to take offence at in Ms Rowling's statement. She did not say that it was wrong to be thin, only that there were far more important things. She is, after all, herself thin.
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posted
kat, you weren't the one who posted it in this thread, or the only one who agreed with it. So no, the problem isn't that you haven't said you think it's rude. The problem is that it's been held up by numerous people as a great thing, and that none of them, you included, had acknowledged that she was building up normal and heavier girls by tearing down thin ones.
Added: The problem for me, of course. Can't speak for anyone else.
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quote:Unless they specifically state that they're not agreeing with the explicitly offensive part,...
Say that 10 times fast
I guess it's also an issue of boundaries. Different people have different thresholds of offence where they will let something slide by or draw attention to it. To me it's a cost-benefit decision every time.
Yes, there's fat discrimination, thin discrimination, ugly discrimination and beautiful discrimination, and varying combinations of the above in varying severites. But again, short of true disability status, don't all of the classes listed above have the same general rights under the law according to the constitution? Do we need any extra laws to say that they should be treated fairly?
(the biggest area I actually see being a problem is health insurance.)
posted
I don't think she was tearing down thin girls. I think she was tearing down girls who have as their primary accomplishment being thin, and she was especially critical of those who applaud them furiously based on that one characteristic. She was idignant about it because she thinks other characteristics were much more important. And yes, I think that point was great.
So, no, I don't agree with your interpretation. I'm not doing that out of stubborness - I think your interpretation is mistaken.
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posted
Except for her first paragraph, I agree with you. Especially about the what the woman said to her personally -- if she knew Rowling had had a child and published a book in that time frame, and how could anyone not know, then the fact that she commented first on her weight says something crappy about both that woman and how our society views weight.
But the first paragraph is incredibly detailed and insulting, and since we don't know who specifically she was talking about in that paragraph, we don't know if that person has, in fact, as her primary accomplishment being thin, or is one of the (admitedly small number of) people for whom visible ribs and stick-like arms is their natural and healthy state. Without some indication that there has been visible public weight loss for that particular person, her comments seem to say that all exceedingly thin people must be ill.
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posted
Okay, that's fair enough, ElJay. But can I take that point to mean that folks who do not explicitly disagree with what some of the posters earlier in this thread have said — that they agree with them? I hope not. I actually hope that most of us DO think that those comments were out of line.
And I’m sorry if I seemed to imply that anything wasn't worthy of discussion! These are important subjects, and Rowling is a powerful, influential person. If we don't fight ideas that we think are worth fighting — no matter who says them — then we are contributing in a small way, and sometimes in a large way, to their spread.
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posted
The other thing I hate is that unusually thin women are more likely to succeed as actresses than normal women who have to diet and exercise severely to meet Hollywood's ideal. So women like Calistra Flockhart and Lara Flynn Boyle, who from what I've seen probably really are naturally that tiny, face accusations in the tabloids that they're anerexic while Mary Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie are celebrated for losing weight until their sickness gets bad enough that they have to get professional help. It's completely wack.
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quote:I whiled away part of the journey reading a magazine that featured several glossy photographs of a very young woman who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder (which is, of course, the same thing); anyway, there is no other explanation for the shape of her body. She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray! Another couple of ounces gone!), but her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms tell a different story.
She doesn't mention that this young woman was previously at a greater weight. This could very well be Kiera Knightly she is referring to. She says that this woman is underweight, so she has an eating disorder and is ill. She judges the young woman about as harshly as possibly, based solely on her underweight appearance.
This is despite the fact that the woman on the cover specifically claims otherwise. Rowling also says she's a liar. We are supposed to give Rowling the benefit of the doubt, assuming that the young woman is a liar?
Rowling is clearly saying that the only way someone could have the qualities of being underweight which she describes (and which twinky also holds) is if they have an eating disorder. No style debate, its as clear as anything can be in the English language. It’s now content. It’s content which does not change the overall intended message, but it’s content nonetheless. Offensive content.
quote:I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones.
Here she is associating the qualities: "empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones" with being underweight.
Imagine someone saying this:
quote:I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this food-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be obese, lazy, slovenly, disgusting pigs.
And then several people post their support for the article which had this quote. Imagine that some of the people supporting the quote were the exact same people asking for empathy for their own, opposite problems.
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quote:Originally posted by Sharpie: Okay, that's fair enough, ElJay. But can I take that point to mean that folks who do not explicitly disagree with what some of the posters earlier in this thread have said — that they agree with them? I hope not. I actually hope that most of us DO think that those comments were out of line.
If the posters refer to the out of line posts and say "I like what poster X said," then I think it's fair to at least point out the offensive parts and ask them if they also agree to that portion. Which is all twinky initially did about Rowlings post, I believe. But if someone is just posting in the same thread and not commenting one way or the other about the offensive posts? Then I think it's too much of a reach to assume they're agreeing with them.
posted
ElJay, this may be horribly "engineer" of me, but I think truly the "camera adds 10 pounds" effect, does make a difference, when filming and translating from a 3 dimensional scene to a 2 dimensional medium, particularly with all of the lighting and stuff they do now, and especially with the quality of color cameras we have now.
Now I think it's become a downward vortex of selection towards the naturally thin and the elevation of thinness into near idolatry in some cases, but I do understand the need for having someone unusally thin in order to have them look normal on camera. Problem is now you have to have someone who is "super-thin" IRL in order to look "thin" on camera.
It was greeted with approval, and, other than Dagonee and myself, no one voiced criticism of it until I explicitly asked for responses. Nobody said "I really dig her main point, but..."
Saying "I love what she wrote" when what she wrote included invective against thin people is obviously not the same as writing invective against thin people yourself. However, it's similar in a loose enough sense that the double standard -- approval for Rowling's piece, immediate dogpiling for erosomniac, MrSquicky, and BaoQingTian -- really struck me, especially since we'd just talked about being rude toward thin people within the preceding two pages.
That is to say, the people who had just finished saying that it wasn't okay to belittle thin people mostly didn't say that JKR was rude in her piece. It made me wonder whether their recently-stated committment to impartiality was really just lip service. Thankfully, Katarin in particular addressed that concern of mine a page or two ago.
Ordinarily, you're right, I wouldn't take silence for tacit approval just on the face of it. I should hope not, otherwise people might think I agreed with, say, starLisa about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because I don't talk about my view of it here. However, in this particular case, when we'd just come off talking about being nice to skinny people as well, I fully expected the things that people had said in the preceding pages to be put into practice. Instead, I had to explicitly ask about it.
I agree with X's very recent post above mine.
KMB:
I agree with you. In Toronto this spring there was an ad campaign (for moisturizer, I think) that featured a group of models standing around in matching underwear. The models were of various ethnicities, but all of them were a lot heavier than the models you'd normally see on a billboard, and they weren't airbrushed all to heck, either. There were love handles and wrinkles, and boy, did those models ever look great! I'm glad I wasn't driving the car the first time I saw one of the billboards. It was heartwarming.
Some people didn't like the campaign because the models were in their underwear and they didn't like to see people in their underwear plastered all over the city. That's a valid criticism (of many advertising campaigns), I guess, but it didn't bother me.
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quote:That is to say, the people who had just finished saying that it wasn't okay to belittle thin people mostly didn't say that JKR was rude in her piece. It made me wonder whether their recently-stated committment to impartiality was really just lip service. Thankfully, Katarin in particular addressed that concern of mine a page or two ago.
Ordinarily, you're right, I wouldn't take silence for tacit approval just on the face of it. I should hope not, otherwise people might think I agreed with, say, starLisa about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because I don't talk about my view of it here. However, in this particular case, when we'd just come off talking about being nice to skinny people as well, I fully expected the things that people had said in the preceding pages to be put into practice. Instead, I had to explicitly ask about it.
To be perfectly honest, I had skipped over the Rowling piece until you asked for reactions to it. Sorry.
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quote: I agree with you. In Toronto this spring there was an ad campaign (for moisturizer, I think) that featured a group of models standing around in matching underwear. The models were of various ethnicities, but all of them were a lot heavier than the models you'd normally see on a billboard, and they weren't airbrushed all to heck, either. There were love handles and wrinkles, and boy, did those models ever look great! I'm glad I wasn't driving the car the first time I saw one of the billboards. It was heartwarming. [Smile]
Some people didn't like the campaign because the models were in their underwear and they didn't like to see people in their underwear plastered all over the city. That's a valid criticism (of many advertising campaigns), I guess, but it didn't bother me.
See, while I approve of that ad campaign on principle, I don't like it because in a situation where the appeal is supposed to be 100% cosmetic, I do not want to see a typical sampling of human beings in their underwear.
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posted
Bzzzzt! The scrawny models are real people too. The Dove ads are just a wider spectrum of real attractive people.
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posted
What is unattractive about them? They are not even "fat". They are probably size 8 or 10. Nothing morbidly unhealthy about them.
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: ElJay, this may be horribly "engineer" of me, but I think truly the "camera adds 10 pounds" effect, does make a difference, when filming and translating from a 3 dimensional scene to a 2 dimensional medium, particularly with all of the lighting and stuff they do now, and especially with the quality of color cameras we have now.
Now I think it's become a downward vortex of selection towards the naturally thin and the elevation of thinness into near idolatry in some cases, but I do understand the need for having someone unusally thin in order to have them look normal on camera. Problem is now you have to have someone who is "super-thin" IRL in order to look "thin" on camera.
AJ
This is true, BTW. In my experience, people who don't look particularly thin on camera look much thinner in person.
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posted
By "on camera," do you mean photography, film, or both? I'm curious to know if I look thinner in person than in pictures.
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posted
Twinky, some of both, probably slightly more in film than in stills. I've noticed that people who seem as heavier in film, sometimes look much thinner in stills. Happens with the haute couture models too. The don't look as thin when you see them in TV runway shows, but they look much thinner in Vogue.
AJ
(rephrased in edit, and not sure still if it's exactly right)
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posted
I meant film. And likely TV. When I meet actors they tend to seem much smaller in person. Shorter, too.
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If you ever see me in a swimsuit or something in person, let me know if I'm skinnier than I look in the pictures you've seen. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Definitely shorter. There's hardly a leading man in Hollywood that I couldn't pick up over my head and heave a good ways.
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