We also need coat hangers that reflect normal human anatomy lest people be traumatized by their unrealistic thinness.
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She also has the ubiquitous âround face, tiny nose, doe-eyesâ currently under discussion in this thread Disneyâs obsession with doe-eyed, button nosed female animated characters
Again, an example of subversion being very careful of not being quite subversive enough to actually turn people off.
Iâm sure those companies that make blood sugar test strips need models, too.
Why would the same things be assumed to turn people off? Wouldnât this be something of a big coincidence?
So, what if those are what turn me off?
Something needs to be a trend first in order to subvert it. If people can manage individual standards of beauty (and anything else) then they canât be subverted to any ends.
Would you shop in a store where the âimageâ of a person wearing the clothes is obese? Because I wouldnât.
As much as I hate to admit it, marketing works on me. If the image theyâre selling doesnât reflect what I want to be, Iâm not buying. I donât want to be obese and it requires constant vigilance. The whole move towards fat acceptance for me is super dangerous because it would be so easy to just let myself go.
Why not idealize the sceanrios instead of the physical aspects of people? Was Rubens not a good artist because of the way he depicted people?
One non thin mannequin coming up.
Granted, you have to go to a different department.
One thing you might notice about Denise Bidot, is that itâs quite obvious that she has a waist. My guess is that this is rather uncommon-- see âcentral obesityâ.
And a lot of the mannequins also have unrealistic waists.
Which leads to this sort of thing:
Even the male mannequins suffer from this indignity.
Of course, many people have different tastes. But in mainstream media, there certainly is a very narrow standard of âbeautyâ that is heavily promoted, regardless of what your or my personal tastes happen to be. If you personally donât care and arenât affected by it, thatâs fine. Iâm responding to the fact that the above photos are meant to be a criticism of that standard.
While the images contest one specific element (thinness), they embrace all of the others (youth, flawlessness, tiny doll-like features, glamour). The message isnât âour standard of beauty is ridiculously narrowâ as much as âhey, plumper women can also look really sexy if theyâre young, super-cute and made-upâ. I just find a bit distracting that theyâre very careful about not straying far from the widely accepted Beauty Standard⢠and selling their message using the exact same âappealingâ characteristics that are ubiquitous in media.
Itâs Cosmopolitan Latina. Really, you were expecting something truly avant garde?
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Alright; to be fair, since it was Cosmopolitan Latina being featured on Boing Boing, my expectations were a little bit too high 
I guess it sounds easy to dismiss this, considering that:
This is more or less what I was getting at. Although I donât believe that so-called âmainstreamâ media is really in any way mainstream, because it is defined by a vast minority of people. Making it sound like it is everybodyâs standard takes away from the obvious and easily-forgotten point that it is put there by the few to sell things to the many.
But does its ubiquity really make it any sort of âstandardâ? Widely accepted by whom? Doing away with the pretense of there being a standard seems more honest and beneficial than striving to replace one bogus standard with another.
Cosmopolitan is like Highlights, they just keep running the same dozen articles in rotation for decades, apparently aiming for an audience of late blooming virgins. The best ones are the absurd sex tips that are along the lines of âRight when your boyfriend is about to have an orgasm, rip out a handful of his pubic hair.â
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Itâs got a â˘, so it must mean something.
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True, but I think itâs important enough a distinction to be explicit about it. People in general seem to instantly forget that the so-called popular culture of broadcast media reality does not actually represent reality for most people.
Slightly undermined by the wind machine, heavy make-up and high heals.
The headline suggests that this is about averages-- yet clothing manufacturers donât much care about means. They care about medians and modes.
Hereâs a paper that delves into the plus sized teens apparel market
Unless you do bespoke tailoring, that sort of variation is a recipe for disasterâŚ
Or for loose, comfortable clothing.
Opinion? What opinion?
This is what absolutely applies to your comment. If itâs not feigned, then the problem is you have no idea what this discussion is actually fundamentally about. It is not, and never has been, âdo such women exist?â
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I think Iâm just drawing a reasonable comparison in attitudes that reflect an outlook on the matter being discussed. Abrasive? Maybe. But not careless.
I also hate to be consistent on this point, but I do think itâs absolutely reasonable to take into consideration the demographics of the people who are very quick to defend the dynamics behind mannequins in far-reaching (i.e. bullshit) terms. Iâve seen just about every defense come out except for something involving a kitchen sink. These are mostly posed by men.
I do think of all the arguments here, the âeasier to shipâ rationale is weakest. If they make the waists a little wider and re-proportion them, I truly seriously doubt that it will add a significant level of volume. At very least, I doubt it was ever considered by the manufacturers in those terms. Itâs not like skinnier mannequins weigh substantially less. They all tend to be hollow or made of fairly lightweight material to begin with. To make them truly easy to ship, theyâd be stackable or be made to expand/be constructed on site. Based on the seams Iâve seen on some of them, I tend to think that may even already be true. But do nipples on a mannequin take up, or save space? The idea that everything is going to get reduced to a shipping decision is preposterous on its face.
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