Taking a stand.

Last night I saw something very disturbing and annoying on TV, but I need to do some background on the subject. 

I don't know if you've seen Hairspray, but if you haven't it is a musical about loving who you are and giving the rest of the world the middle finger. It touches on weight issues and race and everything in between. The star of this musical is Nikki Blonksy. She's a bigger girl with a loud voice for bigger women. She now is the star of a show on ABC Family called Huge. It's about overweight teenagers at a "fat camp." 

That pretty much brings me to my main point. 

Last night I was flipping channels and I stopped on what I think was Showtime Tonight. I don't know that for sure, though. Anyway, they were talking about how Nikki Blonsky and the show Huge are promoting obesity and saying it's okay. The woman ranting about this said that being okay with obesity is like being okay with anorexia or bulimia. 

I got really heated really quickly over this.

I am 21 years old, 5 foot 7 inches tall, and 120 pounds. I've never truly struggled with my weight, but I'd be lying if I said I was completely proud of my body. Just like every woman, I've been insecure about my looks and even the way I look in a bathing suit (especially after looking at Victoria's Secret models modeling potential bathing suits as I posted before). I've looked at other girls and wondered why I couldn't look like them. I've attempted to wear cute outfits or fix my hair or makeup in ways that I saw in a magazine or a TV show or wherever. I know I'm not the only one who does this either (although I might be one of the few who is going to admit this). You can tell that by fashion trends or even by going into any high school and looking at all the girls (and even guys). They're all trying to be a clone of someone else. They suppress who they really are to be liked by the rest of the world and to be noticed, to belong. 

This woman is bashing Nikki Blonsky for being proud of who she is and for not starving herself and dieting and trying to lose weight. She says she's sending the wrong message. She says that Blonsky is promoting obesity and telling everyone it's okay to be fat. Blonksy is doing no such thing. What she is saying is that it's okay to love who you are. It's okay not to be a size 2. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being happy with whoever you and whatever you look like. Yet people in our society are saying this woman is wrong for going against the grain and loving who she is! 

WHAT ARE WE DOING?! What kind of society is this? 

The woman was also upset with her ad for Huge: 

She thinks she shouldn't be proud of this picture. That she should be ashamed to being in a bathing suit and on a billboard. 

There are some people that are not meant to be small. They're just not. Does that mean they should spend their entire life striving to be a size 0 or size 2? Absolutely not. Yet what are young people supposed to think growing up seeing these following ads:

We see it all the time. Skinny girls in ads or in the limelight. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing those girls. Hayden Pantierre and those Victoria's Secret models are absolutely beautiful (clearly) but I wonder how hard they have to work to stay that way, and if they're truly happy with that. I am, however, bashing the people who think it's wrong that other people who don't have the bodies above to be happy with themselves. How dare that woman get angry with Blonsky for standing up and saying she's proud to be plus-size and will not strive to be something that may be nearly impossible to achieve. That woman giving Blonsky so much crap says that she's sending the message that being obese is okay (so we're automatically condoning obesity AND anorexia), well I personally think that it's the above ads that are causing eating disorders like anorexia. It's making women and young girls feel they are never good enough. Women are mostly sensitive creatures (if only once a month, ha!) and crap like this can't be fed into a young girl's mind (and surround her constantly) and not produce thoughts that make her feel less beautiful than she truly is. I'm a victim of this, and I'm willing to bet there are countless girls who are, too. 

We also see the media bashing famous women for gaining weight. A recent case of this was against Jessica Simpson. They made fun of pants she wore and commented on how she clearly had gained weight. Shame on you, Jessica. How dare you not be perfect all the time! 

There's a quote in Hairspray from the song "You Can't Stop the Beat" that sums up Blonsky's feelings (although John Travolta, as a woman, sang it), "You can't stop my happiness 'cause I like the way I am. And you just can't stop my fork and knife when I see a Christmas ham. So if you don't like the way I look, well I just don't give a damn!" 

So I say all of that to say this: Thanks to Nikki Blonsky for standing up for yourself and loving who you are. I hope that that message can be spread instead of one that says skinny is the only way to be. I don't think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think it's in how you feel about yourself, and if it's not...then it should be because if you love yourself, that's beautiful to me. :) I hope I can learn to model this and hopefully as a teacher (having some influence on young people in the classroom) I can spread this and encourage young women (and even men) to be proud of who they are even if they aren't the picture perfect image of beauty that we are fed everyday.