Comments on: Link roundup: Picturing bodies

By: slythwolf

slythwolf — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:24:48 +0000

The thing that bothers me about “curvy” as a euphemism for “fat” is that some fat people aren’t. Some fat people are shaped so that the lines of their bodies are pretty much straight up-and-down, and some are hourglass-y, and some are in between. Same with thin people. Curvy is a shape, not a size.

By: Lori

Lori — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:29:53 +0000

I generally dislike posed shots of myself. I think I have an image in my head of what I’m going to look like, and then when the picture doesn’t look like that, I hate it.

I love candid shots, though. I’m always surprised at how I look in pictures that people have taken of me when I didn’t know they were taking them. It turns out that when I’m not stressing about smiling fakely in a way that look natural and holding my body at the angle that is most flattering, I don’t look that bad. I look like the “me” I expect posed shots to look like.

By: iheartchocolat

iheartchocolat — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:21:59 +0000

On #1….this article is awesome. I completely agree that everyone should get their picture taken, not to repair what they think is awful about them in the picture, but just to see themselves in a picture. BUT, most important is to take lots of pics, doing lots of things. Because you’ll see there are shots that make you look amazing, others that are horrible. I used to be incredibly anti-photos of myself. And I decided one day to get over it. That was about a year ago. Now, I love having my picture taken, volunteer to get in pictures with people I know, ask people to take my picture at places. Before I ran away. It’s been a huge relief in the burden of being fatty, fatty.

By: Susa

Susa — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:51:41 +0000

Cameras tell the truth..that is not a bad thing.

Actually they don’t always. A photographer friend once told me that the standard front flash used in most pictures can flatten out features like cheekbones, making faces look rounder than they are.

Portrait shooting uses lighting from multiple sides to counter this.

By: Lori

Lori — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:29:45 +0000

Reading some of the comments posted on the original blog about the formerly “curvy” celebrities, I always think it’s interesting how, if somebody dares to use the word “curvy” to positively describe a slightly-heavier body, some people get all up in arms and start insisting that, hey, they might be thin, but they’re curvy, too! Everybody’s curvy! How insulting is it to act as if people who aren’t fat are made of right angles, when all it is is a euphemism to make being fat sound better!

Well, last time I checked, everybody had fat, too. But I don’t see these same folks jumping up and down going, “Hey, it’s not fair to say fat people are fat! I’m thin, but I have body fat, too!” Somehow it’s terrible insulting to imply that only fat women have curves, but there’s nothing at all insulting about implying that only fat women have fat.

I just don’t get it.

By: SilverSeraphim

SilverSeraphim — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:29:51 +0000

re: the LiveJournal- I started crying when I saw the Boticelli. Seriously. And while reading her follow-up post helped put some perspective on it, it certainly doesn’t make me feel better.

And oh my gods the Hollywood pics….words fail. 0_o

By: littlem

littlem — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:12:16 +0000

LilahMorgan, there seems to be a lot of “ur not doing enuff and neether am i” shaming among conscientious creative women on LJ. It’s something I’ve noticed and it irritates the crap out of me.

I suspect the devolution is part of that in some way — that the original Renaissance art versions (it’s only art, after all, zomg) are so EPIC FAIL because our “current standards” are sooooooooooo much more aspirational.

The analogy that comes to mind is that a more synoptic style of writing would have been tolerated, even celebrated, in the ages of James and Dickens but is seen today as Just So Much Narrative Fail.

I’m not arguing this well because I am so sleep-deprived from watching the AO at bizarre hours. I will try again another day.

By: LilahMorgan

LilahMorgan — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:26:45 +0000

Oh man, so to make the altered art even worse, I’ve seen that post linked in various non-FA parts of LJ (generally sane ones, even) and the comments immediately devolve into how they’re not that skinny and the original versions had a “significant amount of fat.” I can’t handle people some days.

By: Lori

Lori — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:20:02 +0000

There was an essay written a few months ago about how much thinner the cast of the new 90210 series was than in the original. Looking at the pictures of the two casts side by side was shocking. It’s like, just when you think the female body presented to us as the “ideal” can’t be any more impossible for the average woman to attain, it becomes just that much more impossible.

By: Maria

Maria — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:36:46 +0000

As someone who has had photo issues for years, the first snippet went home a lot. I have always hated that when I had pictures taken I would feel happy and think I look good and then feel oddly betrayed when I saw the developed picture. I didn’t want to believe that this was what the rest of the world saw. So, very perceptive post, kudos there.

As for the Coke-Fiend Venus? That just made me laugh – compared to the art it’s meant to copy, it’s just cheap gimcrack, and it looks it. These remind me of the plaster of Paris statues they sell on barrows in Rome for a few euros each.