My Thursday column at Healthy is the New Skinny looks at the Codie Young controversy, and the latest blow-up over size-zero models: Codie’s Not the Problem. Excerpt:
The modeling world this week was abuzz this week with the story of Codie Young, the Australian teen model who was pulled from the British “Topshop” advertising campaign after complaints that she was too skinny. Newspapers and magazines and pundits debated: was Codie anorexic? Some commenters complained that she was a grossly unhealthy size zero, while Topshop insisted that she was a healthy size eight. (All of this got extra confusing because of the difference between European and American sizes.)…
…The issue isn’t skinny models, or size zero models, or whether Codie Young is healthy or not. The issue is that we don’t see enough body size diversity in advertising, on the runways, and on television. There really are some healthy size zero models (Codie may be one). There are also healthy and beautiful models sizes 12, 14, or 18 models out there – -but we see them so much more rarely.
Our frustration shouldn’t be directed at Codie. It should be directed at an industry that says that girls with bodies like hers are the girls who deserve the most work, the most covers, the acclamation as the most beautiful of all. Beauty and fitness can be found across a wide spectrum of size. And we need to see models representing every point on that continuum.
You see, the thing is, I’m a big fag and you’d think I’d be obsessed with clothes and fashion and appearances, but I’m not and I haven’t really ever been. I went through a brief phase when I was 13 and I wanted to have the cool clothes but I realized in about four weeks it mattered only to me and no one else, then I started catholic school and we wore uniforms and it was good and I was over it. I like nice clothes but I’m pretty functional dresser – I’d guess Hugo worries more than I do about these things – light weight sweaters, bowling shirts, black pants or jeans and I’m good. So at some level I have a hard time undersatnding how someone can look at the models in magazines and think they should look like the models, be as skinny, as boobless or whatever the models are looking like.
As part of sexuality education with our youth group, we have a session in which we look at lots of magazines and put together collages and talk about how sexuality and bodies are presented. I have yet to lead a class in which the girls did not say some variation of “I know these models aren’t ‘real’, I know these models are photoshopped and covered in makeup but still . . . ” And the gusy say something like “Well we don’t expect you to look like models.” And the girls reply, “Well yeah, your the youth group guys. It’s not just guys who think we should look like this . . .”
Around the youth group guys, the girls get dirty, they play in the river, get covered with colors and paint, set up tents, get muddy, and they don’t worry about makeup or clothes. But youth group isn’t “real life” for them either. It’s a sanctuary space where they can be themselves, be silly and absurd and over the top and no one judges them.
But, even at youth group we have to spend time deprogramming kids from thinking their acceptability is dependent on how they look and dress and I think that’s part of being a teen and the messages aren’t coming from models and runways, but they are being reinforced by models and runways.
Great post. As a skinny girl who is always called “anorexic” even though I eat like a horse, I can completely relate to Codie. Thank you for the work you and HITNS are doing!