Even though I am the mother of all sons, it still really irks me that the media has such a profound effect on the body image of young girls. Not just young girls, but women of ALL ages. It is so refreshing when someone in the spotlight takes a stand and refuses to allow the media to tell them their body isn't "good enough" just because it isn't perfect and it needs be altered in some way in order to enhance the profit.
Keira Knightley is my hero this week for doing just that! She refused to let the producers of her new movie Duchess digitally enhance the movie posters of her to make her appear more buxom. She has insisted that her figure stay in its natural state. She stated that she is proud of her body and doesn’t want it altered. Hallelujah!
Three cheers for Keira!!!
It's about time that someone with such a high profile start sending this kind of message! I have grown weary of the pressure the media hits us with as women (and our daughters) that we have to have the perfect body in size, shape, and form, in order to even be acceptable. It's a shame we can't love our bodies for the amazing gift that they are instead of focusing what isn't perfect about them.
Yes, Keira has done other things that I don't approve of, and I am not promoting her in any way. I am just grateful that she would step up and make such a bold statement that will hopefully have a powerful impact on today's young girls who have been force fed such unrealistic and impossible stereotypes!
Courtney Martin, author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body, stated, "What she is doing--and it's significant--is reminding us to honor what we already know: namely that the images we see every day on television, in magazines, online, are notoriously technologically-altered and unrealistic. It's not willpower that makes these women's bodies perfect--it's money, money, money, and a splash of genetic predisposition." We have become so used to it that many of us just shrug our shoulders and say that is just Hollywood. Martin's book goes into great detail about how these images nevertheless worm their way into the thinking of girls, teens, and young women...and make us dissatisfied about who we are. Every time a well-known celebrity stands up and says, "I'm good enough. Don't you dare change me or judge me," she chips away at impossible media stereotypes and puts another crack in the artificial facade of how women are 'supposed' to look."
YOU GO GIRL!!!!!
This is a video clip of the segment on Good Morning America. Be sure to watch this! You will have to hit the pause button (far left) on my music play list at the bottom of my blog in order to hear it better.
