Thursday, January 29, 2009

Distortion

Jessica Simson, the most recent (celebrity) woman to be attacked and accused of hiding her mortal, human skeleton (and soul) behind healthy, beautiful, protective, mortal HUMAN flesh. The names of Jennifer Love Hewitt and Trya Banks (to name a very few) have also appeared on the ongoing and ever growing list of women (particularly celebrity women) who have been accused and attacked for the same dysfunctional society's social crime. I am sure that in this very moment; somewhere in the United States (where our Hollywood standards for women vs what real, healthy women look like are the equivalent to Disney vs the Brothers Grimm . . . worlds apart) a young girl is doing something to ensure she will fit inside the tiny plastic mold of the ideal woman as she grows (but shrinks). And somewhere else in the United States - a young woman is dying or has died from an eating disorder.
And we all must take responsibility for this thinking. Every time a woman strives to live up to these airbrushed, photo-shopped, nutritionally starved, cosmetically altered (NOT enhanced, for enhancing is completely different than altering) . . . every time . . . we give POWER to the image and take the POWER from ourSelves.
Every unnecessary piece of clothing we strip from our bodies in order to expose more and more flesh to the world (for profit and for vanity) - we also strip away at ourSelves and our souls. This may sound prudish to some - but that is only because our standards have bottomed out - we have lost our class and our self-respect. I am not referring to art . . . I am referring to INTENT - the intent behind our actions and our thoughts.
I don't have to say more. Not only because I don't have the words to express my sadness, my anger and my outrage for this modern day 'witch hunt,' but rather because there is nothing more to say. It's preposterous - contrary to nature, reason, and common sense. It is absurd.
I don't want to partake in a society that thinks this way.
I don't want to live in a society that thinks this way.
I am ashamed of this society.
If we, as a society, do not collectively shift our thoughts about body image, and return to love, acceptance and GRATITUDE for our outer shells, our God-given flesh and bones . . . the temples of our SOULS - then I wish not to participate in this ill-minded, man made society.

3 comments:

Erik Donald France said...

I agree with you, & also go with Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth -- choices are about intent, but if you know what you are doing and why, you can dress or undress any way you please.

As for visual thinking, it's probably half hard wiring (for men) and half from cultural arbiting by the fashionistas.

Big Ben said...

I like a women with some meat on her bones. Super skinny girls are gross. We need to stop buying the magazines and stop watching the shows that portray these images.

RK Sterling said...

Amen, Lindy. It breaks my heart that my 97lb sixteen year old daughter thinks she's fat. Nothing I say seems to get through to her - my voice is lost in the cacophony coming from who would profit from the dying.