8

While the “Black and Brown Bodies Under The Knife” article really resonated with me, I had a hard time with “Citizen Profane.” I am in absolutely no way a proponent of the thin obsession – please note that point. However, obesity is a different story. I understand that I should be questioning what gives me faith in a “normal” body, but I think a “normal” body can exist in different shapes and sizes. Actually, “normal” is not a good word at all. I would use “healthy,” but who tells me who is healthy and who is not? Is anti-obesity culture really a hegemonic ideology, or is it just a push away from something that is really, truly unhealthy? I just don’t think the human body was meant to carry around more than 300 lbs or so. Did society tell me this? Or is this my observation of obese people trying and struggling to walk, or watching my friend’s parents gorge themselves to type 2 diabetes?

In the end, fatness doesn’t really matter, because we all die anyway. Right? Or no?

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was how these readings relate to my project, which they totally do. My project is not really centered around race, simply because I don’t have the time to make it as full as it could be, so I’m keeping it centered on definitions and expectations of femininity and how they are played out at Miami – therefore, the readings that I found most applicable to my project were “Black and Brown Bodies Under the Knife” and “Body Image: Third Wave Feminism’s Issue?” Although I did just say that I won’t be doing much on race in my project, the Black and Brown article was a wonderful critique on cosmetic surgery in general, and I will definitely be using excerpts to explore what it means to be beautiful. On page 65 of the article, describes the “ideology of beauty” as one “which commodifies women for an external gaze.” This is absolutely applicable to my project. For my graphic novel, I am going to have a section that asks, “Who teaches us about beauty?” and I have a post up on Facebook for anyone to respond to the question “Who teaches young women about beauty?/Where do young women (or all women) learn about what is beautiful?” I have many magazine pictures cut out to make into collages for these pages and people’s answers to the question. I also plan on using excerpts of Kilborne’s “Killing Us Softly” to support this section, and I will relate this information as it impacts being a woman at Miami, surrounded by what my peers and what others on urban dictionary have classified as “beautiful women” and “rich snobby white kids.”

As for the “Body Image” article, my favorite quotes include, “…we are a pop culture-driven generation. Mention teen magazines, for example, and many young women react viscerally, offering stories of how fat/ugly/ethnic/misfitting/self-hating the magazines made them feel. Even young women who don’t identify as feminists offer heartfelt and complex emotions on the topic” (198). Another one I want to include is, “In the visual world of the late twentieth century, however, the outside counts as well as the inside. We use our appearances – bodies, clothing, style – to express our inner convictions, our pride, our affiliations, our identities, our insecurities and our weaknesses” (p. 198). I think these quotes, along with my own reflections and the reflections of my peers that are responding to my prompts on Facebook, will help me to explore the topics I want to explore, especially pertaining to stereotypical beauty at Miami.