5’8″ and 88 pounds. Attached to at least one online story about Ana Carolina Reston was an advertisement to lose 10 pounds in 10 days.
UPDATE: The above picture is not of Ana Carolina Reston. It appears that it has been photoshopped; it’s also worth pointing out that the “original” was photoshopped as well. I’m leaving the picture up because it’s representative of what anorexia can look like. If you’d like a non-photoshopped picture of anorexia, feel free to Google-image “anorexia” and you’ll come up with more than a few.
Where’s that image from? That’s insane.
That picture is beyond horrifying.
This is what happens when gay men are the tastemakers. I showed this picture to ten guys who were in the room with me, and there was a collective shudder of revulsion. Hetero men do not like this starving look.
Don’t blame gay men, blame the fact that clothes drape best on a hanger, so runway models have to make themselves living hangers to keep their jobs. That said, the point isn’t that anorexia makes you ugly, the point is that it kills you. If it made you beautiful it wouldn’t matter.
Eshie, what?
Um, yeah, can we not blame gay men? Yikes.
Yeesh, that photo is appalling. Was it digitally altered, or for real?
Also, how bitterly ironic that this poor girl’s first name was “Ana.” IIRC, that’s a code name for anorexia used by its victims.
Yeah. NOT sexy.
OK. I can’t believe I am asking this, but I respect the Feministe community and know you will give me some advice.
I am friends with a person I work with who is a recovering anorexic. I do my best to be a supportive role model, but since I went another way and used food for comfort, I am at a loss as to what to do when she talks about very specific issues. I try my best to be there when she needs to talk. I don’t push food on her, I let her know she is looking good (but not ‘healthy’ or ‘gaining weight’). On one hand, I want to send her a link to this page, but on the other hand I am worried it would be a trigger. She has been going through a really tough time right now. I had seen a link to this article last week (? over the weekend ?), and have wondered about this.
I think I already have the answer to this (NO DIPSHIT DON’T SEND HER A LINK), but I guess the larger question I have is after mulling this over in my brain: How can I help her beat this? Can I help her beat this?
I have a gay friend who continuously tells me that I would be “so pretty” if I went back to my high school days of being a size two and eating nothing. I keep getting into fights with him over this, and his defense has always been, “well, as a gay man, I just prefer women who look like little boys.” I used to think that his statements actually meant something, until I started meeting other gay men – who had nothing in common with him.
The fashion industry is very strange. It’s a ridiculous world. On one hand, you really do have pieces that are basically art, on the other hand, you have all this horrible insecurity and materialism and a complete and utter disconnect with the real world. As a person who likes fashion creations, I nevertheless cannot abide by fashion laws, and the way they bend people to their will.
People have written about the notion that emaciation has become fashionable because it is a status-symbol, i.e. “I’m so rich, I don’t have to eat!” Certainly the fact that so many poor people are now fat (due to the fact that they are only able to afford low-grade food) may have something to do with this.
That said, the point isn’t that anorexia makes you ugly, the point is that it kills you.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with pointing out that it actually has the opposite effect than what is intended. Frankly, young people often don’t exactly have a proper appreciation for “death” or their own mortality, and it’s only proper to point out ALL the downsides – including ones that may seem trivial to YOU, but which may actually get through where the spectre of death does not.
It’s not just heartbreaking, it’s sick and horrifying. The girl in that photo LITERALLY looks like she just got out of Aushwitz.
I don’t know what to do about this societal ill. Mentally strong-minded females can resist this sort of patriarchally mandated self-killing, but not everyone (and certainly not most teenage girls) is mentally strong/informed/feminist enough to say “screw you” to the arbiters of “fashion”.
It can’t just be a feminist issue anymore. Most females don’t identify with “feminist” because they think they will be unpopular if they say they are feminists. Unpopular with guys. Can maybe just EVERYONE who isn’t INSANE try to start a social movement that glorifies a healthy body? (Actually healthy, with fat and muscles and the ability to withstand cold temperatures, and bear children without dying.)
Perhaps it would be FASTER to somehow decree that being overly thin is UNCOOL. Like in the Great Depression, when undernourished people were deemed “too skinny”. (This happened to my Mom in the fifties. Boys wouldn’t date her because she was “too skinny”.)
As long as anorexic girls (and women) get to be celebrities FOR being anorexic, nothing is going to change.
abd_chick, poke around in the tags and archives. I know someone (piny?) wrote a two-part post on exactly this (how to support someone in or recovering from ED).
Thank you, Em. I should have known to check the archives.
Fairly certain that that picture has been heavily photoshopped.
I think classism does play a part in the portrayals of women in popular media, large women are portrayed (if at all) as harkening from trailer parks and the like. Of course, all fiction is based on some grain of truth and fact is, poor folks have a hard time obtaining a thin look despite natural female tendencies to be large.
Also, put in that the fact that healthier food for a family is costly and also that poor folks usually have few legitimate indulgences, one of them being food.
Understandably then, most women fear the social stigma of being seen as fat and what it symbolizes. Add to the mix a disordered personality or a tendency toward compulstion and viola! ED>
This site (which is in French, so I have no means to verify the content) would suggest that the image is photoshopped. (Note, there is some NSFW content on that page at the very bottom, so don’t scroll down if that’s a concern.)
kathy mccarty –
as a “mentally strong-minded” feminist woman who has struggled with anorexia for 8+ years, i have to say that resisting/recovery from eating disorders is about a lot more than telling mainstream media ideals to fuck off. by all means, the mainstream media’s gender & beauty ideals are oppressive, damaging and unhealthy, & absolutely play a role in perpetuating eating disorders & diet culture. but at least in my case, recognizing & educating myself about media imagery, the messages it sends, the cultural values it reinforces, etc. has very little to do with actually recovering. i can recognize that the media is perpetuating values that are anti-feminist & anti-women, values that i don’t believe in, and still struggle tremedously with an eating disorder all the same.
eating disorders are not about food & weight. those are tangible symptoms of a much larger problem. does the media perpetuate and exascerbate this? yes. but saying that the teenage girls (and pre-teens, and adult women, and the many men) who struggle with eating disorders aren’t “strong minded” or “sufficiently informed” or that they lack feminist awareness deems a whole lot of folks as “not strong enough” & ignores the complexity of the illness.
Oh my god – the web site with the altered photos was SO disturbing. I can’t help but think that whoever is behind these retouchings *loathes* women.
The models aren’t skinny *enough* for them!
I’ve never understood this reasoning… I thought clothes were meant to be worn, not displayed.
If a fashion designer really wants to show how well a garment hangs, they should use a god-damned hanger, not a starving woman.
As far as I can tell, the retouched photos on that site (including the one in the post) were collected from pro and anti Pro-ana websites. The originals are less disturbing. The owner of that site seems to want to expose the fact that altered photos are being used to make points on some sites somewhere. My French isn’t that great though, so I may have misunderstood something.
I’m not very good at judging this sort of thing, but I have a hard time believing that she’s 5’7″/84lbs in that picture over at the Telegraph. Is it an earlier picture from when she was heavier?
Apparently (I asked a student here to translate the blurb at the top of that page) the site isn’t the manufacturer of the photoshopped images but rather is just putting them on display. The blurb at the top is a disclaimer to say that the site is neither pro nor anti anorexia, but just bringing together those images for the viewer to take as they wish and to perhaps draw attention to the fact that programs are in fact capable of changing images in that particular way and to be aware of it.
Personally, I find it incredibly disturbing that they simply exist but perhaps if viewed as a statement aimed to point the finger at the fashion industry and maybe the media, then they certainly take on a new meaning.
That’s what I’m getting too, Fansler – though my French is very rusty at this point.
Several of those photos had women who were disturbingly skinny before the touch-ups. Afterwards *shudders*, it looked like a fashion show from a concentration camp.
Pigeon, thank you for your comments. I feel very much the same way. I struggled with eating disorders as a teenager and still have disordered attitudes about eating and weight and bristle at the suggestion that I’m anything less than feminist because of what I’ve been through.
“I’m not trying to apologise for pro-ana sites because anorexia is a destructive disease, but certain pro- and anti- anorexia sites use these images to influence the actions of individuals”
“Photos found on different pro- and anti- sites” — “original photos”
“Some photos of Vlada where someone has photoshopped to make her skinnier — the differences are more subtle. Look at the arms and ankles.”
“An oddity — it’s not the same person, but the same position, same clothes, only turned by 180 degrees”
“Addition of a character”
“A last manip” (?)
“Another oddity — Lindsay Lohan is in the same position as Lara Flynn Boyle on the cover of a virtual humour magazine. This technique was used on the original photo (I think). There was a man behind her, but I cut the body.”
Apparently Bony Pink, the woman at the bottom of the page, is real.
Either way, while Column B is less horrifying, it’s not less horrifying by much. Like AC Serrano said, people are supposed to wear clothes, and women, last time I checked, != hangers.
This is what happens when gay men are the tastemakers.
Eshie, this is rank homophobia of the worst kind.
If a man who happens to be gay is involved in this, it’s because he’s sexist, not because he’s gay.
The top line of the site says:
I don’t want to be an apologist for the pro-anoerxia sites as it is a destructive disease, but certain pro and anti-anorexia sites use doctored images to influence people’s behavior.
Fansler, that is exactly the point that the poster is making. Images are being warped by both sides to make their res[ective points. We cannot use a picture if we are looking for the story here. The fact that she had been three weeks in hospital and died tells the tale. An industry that takes that as an acceptable cost is perverted at best and repugnant.
But let us be clear, wanting to look a certain way is only one facet of anorexia, it is a complex disorder and most of us have friends or, in my case, family who are dealing with it.
my stepson was one of the first people in usa to be diagnosed with the new term, anorexia. when i saw that photo, all i could say was yes, that’s it allright. if the photo has been doctored, it certainly shows a true image. this is exactly what it looks like, folks, so if she wasn’t photographed in that state, it was not because she didn’t look that way near the end, it would have been because no one could bear to photograph her. the point is not if the photo was doctored. this image is true.
my son had anorexia when he was 11 years old. he weighed 48 pounds before he turned it around. it can be healed. the person needs a lot of counselling. self hatred is the cause, for any number of reasons. the anorexic looks in the mirror and sees a fat person. if asked to sketch a picture of themselves, they will draw a fat person.
gays are not to blame as a group. no group (of people) are to blame. culture, television, fashion, all play a part, but at the root of the illness is a deep self blame. addictions, alcoholism also share the same root.
if you have a loved one with this problem, seek help immediately.if you fear that your daughter or son might be falling into this disease, seek to encourage them to talk about how they are feeling. be willing to take some flak and to give more support and love, and get help. this is a horrible way to go.
the image is true for the disease.
Was she still modelling at 88 pounds?! She looks horrific. I don’t remember if it was a comment on this site or another but I recall someone noting that models are meant to be human hangers–so gaunt that the fashion hangs unencumbered by their bodies. It’s clearly not about providing clothes that real people can wear.
abd_chick -
When my roommate in college was anorexic, I read “Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia” by Marya Hornbacher and it helped me understand some of the issues she was facing.
As someone who has always been overweight and always eaten what I wanted (usually to spite my mom who once told me she would be happier if I just had an eating disorder like some of my friends in high school), this book helped me understand some of what she was thinking.
And in general, more information about any condition, disease, or social trend (of which I think eating disorders are all three) is good.
So sad. As someone who has been considered at risk for anorexia over the years, I have so much sympathy for her. Rest in peace.
As for the whole thing with gay men, in Mary Pipher’s books Reviving Ophelia and Hunger Pains, she has examples of two girls whose eating disorders were triggered by their boyfriends making nasty comments about their weight. And because I have a naturally boyish figure (although not thin), I’m sick of feeling pressured to fit a curvaceous body ideal because 33-28-33 isn’t a real woman’s body.
Plus, since gay men are attracted to other men, I don’t know if they’d transfer those ideals to women. I’m a straight girl and the women that I think are beautiful (and, being straight, that doesn’t mean I want to sleep with them) include former Miss Universe Natalie Glebova, Jennifer Connelly, a young Grace Kelly, Rachel McAdams, models Jacquetta Wheeler and Kiara Kabukuru … generally considered very feminine. Whereas by that logic, because I’m attracted to men, I would only find masculine, muscular women attractive.
While in this case, the pressures of Reston’s job probably contributed to her anorexia, other anorexics and bulimics become that way due to a huge variety of reasons *other* than wanting to be beautiful.
First, the photo has been doctored.
Second, it is Colette Pechekhonova, not Reston.
Why was the photo used in this post?
For shock value?
I’m a huge Joan Brumberg fan, and her first book, Fasting Girls, A History of Anorexia Nervosa, at least partially puts to bed the notion that anorectic behavior is always the result of a pressure to be thin and beautiful. I taught a Humanities course on “Beauty and the Body” a couple of years back, and used it.
See also one of my fav books from grad school, Holy Feast and Holy Fast.
Fat-bottomed girls, you make the rockin’ world go ’round!
The solution isn’t to start demonizing skinny people instead of heavy people. People come in a variety of natural body shapes. The problem isn’t that society is telling women to be too skinny, it’s that society is telling women to be different than they are, and to become unhealthy in the interest of being considered traditionally attractive.
Obviously, a perfect world would be one in which women don’t feel the need to change their bodies to aspire to someone else’s ideal of beauty. And that’s a good goal for us, as feminists, to have. But in the meantime, society can at least offer up a more realistic and attainable patriarchally-imposed standard of traditional beauty. Starlets are getting skinnier and skinnier because the skinny ones are the ones who get the good roles; a skeletal Kate Bosworth gets to be Lois Lane, and a curvy America Ferrera gets braces and a fright wig as “Ugly Betty.” And that has to stop.
I remember being so disappointed when I saw Love Actually (although I still loved the movie) because when Martine McCutcheon’s character first appeared in that fantastic pencil skirt and blouse, I looked at her hourglass figure and thought, “Holy crap, there’s someone in a movie who has a body like mine! I do believe this is the first time that’s ever happened!” And within minutes, they were talking about her “huge thighs” and calling her “the chubby girl.” Great message, folks; a normal, healthy body = “plumpy.” Thanks for that.
And just to echo pigeon – Yes, it is possible to be fully conscious of all of these issues surrounding beauty standards and still suffer from an eating disorder. I’ve been bulimic for nine years, and believe me that every time I’ve purged, I’ve thought about the stupid patriarchal aesthetics, and it’s only made me feel worse about it all. Eating disorders go a lot deeper than food and body image.
Here’s a question: why do clothes drape better on the hanger than the body? Seems to me they ought to be designed to drape on the body, and then they hang… however they hang. But what do I know; I’m still railing at the industry for thinking that a size 12 is just a size 2 scaled up in all dimensions.
The clothes only look better on a “hanger” because they’re designed that way. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve tried on that have looked awful on a hanger and great when I put them on, and vice versa. The whole fashion/beauty industry pretty much relies on women feeling bad about themselves. When my mother was young, she was 5’8″ and 98 lbs- not because she was anorexic- but because she was just a beanpole- and in that era, that was considered hideously unattractive, and she envied her sisters curves. She had to make her own clothes because nothing in the stores fit her. Now it’s all switched around- and it’s just as impossible for me to be stick thin as it was for her to magically sprout tits and hips. It’s the same thing as changing what colors and skirt lengths are in style each season- except in a more damaging way. If you feel you don’t have the right body or look, you’ll consume more of their products to try and fit into that mold. IE: It’s the economy, stupid! Basically, women feeling badly about themselves keeps the money flowing.
Oh, but at the same time, I still have more sympathy for people who are really starving (and not on purpose) than I do for anorexic supermodels trying to be pretty. I can’t help it.
Totally! I have way more sympathy for people whose lives are in danger than for people who are suicidal. I mean, suck it up, you know? It’s not like anyone else is holding a gun to their head.
Anorexia is not about trying to be pretty. It’s a compulsion caused by disordered thinking. An anorexic person is caught up in a spiral of bodily abuse that usually requires years of treatment to break, and often doesn’t ever disappear entirely. Anorexics are not irresponsible or frivolous or reckless. They’re dealing with a serious problem.
I am trying really, really hard to offer you a measured, non-hostile response here, Kathy McCarty.
If you can look at another person with an illness and say “sick and horrifying” before compassion kicks in, fine. Someday if you’re ever up close to it, you might get the “heartbreaking” part. These are real people, with a real problem, and it’s not about trying to be pretty or please the patriarchy, at least certainly not once it’s set in. It’s not about fashion. Piny and pigeon said what needs to be said, but really: this is a disorder. It’s not about weak-mindedness or ignorance or anti-feminism for the people suffering from it. It’s not something choose to be or stop being. Yes, it’s a societal ill, and yes, it’s self-killing.
Let’s try not to blame the people hurting while we’re trying to help.
Raging Moderate, when I googled Ana Reston, that photo came up. That’s probably how it ended up in this post.
Also, for those saying that models are supposed to represent “hangers”, a more accurate comparison would be that models are supposed to be walking fashion illustrations. I have had a couple friends in the industry (and fashion instructors) tell me that.
Just FYI, I found the original, undoctored photo:
Colette Pechekhonova
That’s exactly how I found it.
As for the picture being photoshopped, I have no idea. If it was, my bad. But I do know that 5’8″ and 88 pounds is pretty damn thin. Frame of reference: Mary-Kate Olsen, when she was at her skinniest, was about 85 pounds and 5’2″. Nicole Richie weighs somewhere around 90 pounds and she’s probably about 5’5″. This woman was 5’8″.
The whole thing is sad. And what I was trying to point out in the post is that there are entire industries who make all of their profits from selling women the idea that our bodies are flawed and shameful. Stuff like this happens, it gets reported in Marie Claire or whatever “women’s” publication, and then the “concerned” newspapers, magazines and TV stations go right back to selling ad space to The Hollywood Juice Diet.
My thing is, if an outfit only looks good on a hanger, I know it’s probably not going to look good on me. So why would I spend designer-label prices for something I know will look like overpriced ass?
I’m walking by with a public service announcement. There are many resources for treatment of eating disorders. If you are in college, you can ask the school counseling center for an intake interview.
Chicklet:
Darling, it’s a La Croix. A La Croix.
No prob. These things happen.
But why leave it there now that you know it’s not Reston, and that it’s a fake?
It’s not fake; it’s artificial. It’s not meant to function as a documentary photograph, but as a representation of the disease’s effects and commentary on what we demand to see and what we refuse to see.
Why does it bother you that a graphic depiction of anorexia was used in a post about anorexia? Whose sensibilities are you protecting here?
folks, why is it even an issue if the photo was doctored. i have seen this disaese. this is what it looks like. the girl is DEAD. DID YOU THINK SHE WOULD STILL LOOK GOOD WHEN SHE DIED? my stepson almost died whth this disease. except that he was a boy, he looked exactly like this picture.
That’s not what Jill said; she said it was a mistake.
Wouldn’t the cause be better served if the representation of the disease’s effects were an actual representation, instead of an artificial one?
Those who prefer truth to propaganda. Why not just admit the error and correct it?
Unfortunately, this post is proving the point of the site with all the doctored photos; people are using phony photos in an attempt to influence people’s behavior.
Then Jill misunderstood. I and at least a few other commenters–and, I think, most people who saw the image in its original context–did not.
No. I think that this image is an effective piece of art, and I think that it communicates its message very well. I also don’t think that documentary photographs of anorexia are all that uncommon.
I agree that Jill should post an update explaining the image so that no one else thinks that it’s a documentary photograph. I don’t think that the image should be taken down.
Those photos–the ones that appear in magazines as a matter of course–are pictures of real women altered to depict women who cannot exist. This photo is a realistic representation of an extremely anorexic woman in a fashion-model pose. It’s not hyperbolic. If anything, she looks too good: she still has all her hair, her skin isn’t flaking off, she hasn’t developed lanugo, and the picture can’t show her weakened heart and brittle bones.
The “original” picture of Pechekhonova was likely airbrushed as well to make her look less sickly – and probably to make her look skinnier as well. Her thighs look incredibly fake.
This page has a (nsfw) “ribs airbrushed out” picture in the middle.
Fair enough.
No, it is a photoshopped image of an already thin model making her look even thinner. Why not use a real photo to make your point?
Well, yes, photoshopped images do use original images. You have no point here.
Why is it a problem to use this image–which, like I said, is not unrealistic–instead? You describe it as “phony” and “propaganda,” even though it does not mislead people as to the severity of the disease. If anything, describing it as dishonest does that.
I may be mistaken, but I believe that people here have complained about how fashion photos have been doctored to make models appear thinner and to conceal their flaws.
Would the argument that “those photoshopped images came from original images” and therefore the criticism is unfounded be persuasive to you?
It reminds me of the doctored photo controversy during Israel’s latest incursion into Lebanon. Remember the photographer who doctored the photo of a city to make it appear more damaged than it actually was? Did you approve of that, too? Or how about the photoshopped photos of fetuses that anti-abortionists use?
Let me restate my earlier question:
Why not use an undoctored photo to make your point?
Does honesty not count for anything anymore?
Let me restate my earlier point: just like all of your subsequent examples, the doctored photos that conventionally appear in fashion magazines are doctored in ways that take real images and create unrealistic images. They aren’t only unreal; they have ceased to depict potential reality. They misrepresent women’s bodies. Similarly, the doctored photographs of Lebanon misrepresent the condition of Lebanon, and the doctored photographs of fetuses misrepresent fetal development.
This photograph, on the other hand, does not misrepresent the appearance of anorexia. It is a realistic depiction of an anorexic body; if anything, it softpedals some of the more unpleasant physical symptoms. It does not mislead people into thinking that anorexia is more damaging or extreme than it actually is, any more than the realistic illustrations that often accompany articles on anorexia.
Right back at you.
Would you have approved of using the doctored photo of Lindsay Lohan in a post about her eating disorder?
And one more time:
Why not use an undoctored photo to make your point?
Where have I been dishonest? I condemn all who use false images or info to prove a point, not just those who I disagree with.
Jill realizes the mistake in using a doctored photo of the wrong woman in her post, and has apologized for it.
Jill, could you explain to piny why it was a mistake? I seem to be making no headway.
As opposed to the doctored photos of her that usually appear, or the photographs that were carefully controlled so as to present a false appearance of health? That would have been insensitive to Lohan, but it probably wouldn’t have been misleading. As here, people would see it as a graphic link between a female celebrity and fashionplate and her occupational disease.
Because this image is an effective and artistic way to link anorexia and fashion; because, unlike photographs of anorexic women, it brings home the point about anorexia as an important aspect of this woman’s career.
It’s dishonest to imply that this image is false. It is not a false image of anorexia any more than a realistic drawing of an anorexic patient would be. This is a true, honest, accurate depiction of the appearance of anorexia.
Jill apologized for using this photo as a mistaken depiction of a particular woman; she would be right to correct any misunderstanding on that score. She should not apologize for using this photo as a graphic depiction of anorexia, because it is not dishonest to do so.
Let me try this one more time before I settle down to watch “Inherit the Wind” (80 years later and yer still debating this issue – go figger).
Let’s say that there is a website about obesity. They take a photo of an overweight woman and doctor it so that she’s appears morbidly obese.
Would you have a problem with that, or would you believe that it is a “realistic representation of an extremely obese woman”?
I’d find it dishonest.
I dunno.
Seems to indicate that she realizes that using the doctored photo was an error. Hopefully she will explain why she believes this to be so, and we can quit trying to ascertain her motives for apologizing. From the horse’s mouth, as it were.
I’d find it a really weak analogy, probably because you’re working off of the same wisdom-of-discomfort reasoning you’re using in this thread. What does the picture depict? Is this an actual woman? Is this image tied to an individual life or body or diet? What other real images did they use to doctor the photograph?
That’s a different situation. There’s no logistic difference between photorealistic depiction of an obese woman and photograph of an obese woman, assuming that the former is completely accurate. The latter would be controlled by the actual dimensions of obese bodies if that were the case. If that website put up an image that was a photoshopped composite of several obese bodies, would that be dishonest? If it put up an illustration that used several obese bodies as reference points, would that be dishonest?
There is a difference between “photo of an extremely skinny supermodel” and “depiction of anorexia with graphic commentary on anorexia in the fashion industry.” It’s not merely a photoshopped depiction of anorexia used as a stand-in for a photograph of an anorexic body. Like I said: to the extent that this photograph is presented as documentary evidence of anorexia in high fashion, it is dishonest. However, to the extent that it is used to link anorexia and high fashion via effective juxtaposition of fashion model and realistic anorexic body, it is not dishonest, nor fake, nor phony, nor propaganda. It does not misrepresent anorexia. It is not comparable to your bullshit fetus example or your bullshit faked warzone example.
You were perfectly happy to put words in her mouth before I pointed out your conflation of two different issues.
I’m not buying this. I think that the reason this bothers you is that it’s a picture of a severely anorexic woman without the medicalized shield that usually contains those images. This is not a sick woman, but a woman who has been decorated and photographed, a symbol of beauty. This image describes the circumstances of Reston’s death, and the way in which her illness and ill body were normalized, even lauded, by everyone around her. Had this post used an image of an anonymous anorexic body in a medical-journal photograph format, it would have allowed the audience to forget the ways in which her disease was an occupational one, aggravated and reinforced by an entire industry.
What a ridiculous statement. This still happens today. When I graduated high school, I was 5’7 and 95 pounds – naturally. Boys thought I was gross. Girls hated my guts. I was most certainly uncool.
After having my son, I now weigh 115 pounds (I would like to weigh 130). Is 115 pounds cool enough for a bigot like you?
This image describes the circumstances of Reston’s death, and the way in which her illness and ill body were normalized, even lauded, by everyone around her.
I think this is hyperbole and weakens your argument. If it were true, we should be able to find real fashion photos of Reston at that weight. Or any fashion photos of a model anywhere near that skeletal. I’m someone who would be inclined to agree with your basic arguments, but the exaggeration turns me off and makes me distrust the points you make.
Whether or not the photo was doctored (and it was), Ana Carolina Reston is dead due to anorexia. Worse, the fashion designers who hire these malnourished young women continue to ignore their role in this dreadful cycle. Yesterday, Valentino was quoted in the NY Daily News saying the following:
We need to stop buying the clothes that these idiots produce. It’s only by hitting the designers where they live that they might begin to both design clothes that don’t trash women’s body image, and to employ models with healthy/representative bodies.
This stuff happens because we don’t make the link between the costs of the fashion industry, and our decisions as consumers. I’ve made a personal decision….If a designer offers up a narrow and toxic expression of beauty, I’m not buying their clothes or bags. But it’s really the bags that hurt the design houses (leather goods are the most profitable items)….So Boycott The Bags!!!!
Don’t blame gay men. Blame misogyny. Hatred of women naturally manifests in the idea that the best use for us is to shrink until we no longer exist.
Despite RM’s enthusiasm, I find it hard to say that I’m not deeply disturbed they the original. Not everyone is in love with starvation as a beauty treatment. When men like RM express enthusiasm for women who are clearly 30-40 pounds underweight, they reinforce the notion that women are only sexy if they’re about to disappear completely.
Was she still modelling at 88 pounds?!
Yes. She was scheduled for a shoot the week she died.
And I don’t mean that as a slam against naturally thin women. But I think the fashion industry is promoting a sexual ideal that even someone who weighs 115 like drumgurl is a HUGE FATASS. Which is what the fashion magazines what you to believe, that you are not thin enough unless your are not menstruating or able to move very easily.
This is a new angle on it, but isn’t the big idea behind the “gay male designers like superskinny models because they look like adolescent boys” suggesting that gay men are pedophiles? The vast majority of gay men aren’t pedophiles and are attracted to adult men, but you don’t see women who look like female versions of Brad Pitt in the fashion world.
drumgurl – I’ve said upthread that I’m very unwomanly shaped, so I understand how frustrating it is when the a blogger’s criticism of the tyranny of slenderness becomes a springboard for saying only curvy=attractive and skinny=twelve year old boy, ugly, starved, etc. But I think bigot is kind of a strong word for this context – usually I reserve that for the likes of George Allen or Fred Phelps.
tsunami, that’s nonsense. How could you find “REAL” fashion photos of Reston at that weight? No such images could exist because THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN PHOTOSHOPPED. Sorry, but no magazine is going to publish pictures of a model at that weight without altering them, which is kind of the point.
I just read about this on MSNBC and came right here to see if you have covered it. MSNBC has the same picture as the Telegraph – they totally airbrushed out her ribs. I am 5’6″, and I weigh 110 lbs. If I pose like that, my ribs show. You can count them. I’m stunned at the airbrushing.
I am inclined to believe that the pic Jill posted is also photoshopped. Partly b/c of how the clothes hang, but also b/c now that I know models get their ribs airbrushed out, I do not believe that a fashion editor would feature a picture like the one above.
Or, alternately, they reinforce the notion that women who are 30-40 pounds underweight are sexy. Speaking as someone 30 pounds underweight, it’s kind of a refreshing change from the clamor of voices telling me I look like I’m about to disappear completely.
Frumious B. – 5″6 and 110 lbs is 30 pounds underweight?!?! I have no idea what you look like or how big your frame is, but that sounds definitely within the range of acceptable weights to me.
Using the BMI alone, 5’6″ and 110 pounds is about 4-5 pounds underweight for someone who isn’t a professional athlete and has an average frame.
Exangelena, 5’6″ and 110 lbs. corresponds to a BMI of 17.75. The healthy range is usually 20-25, but even the lower end of that seems fairly unhealthy for people older than college age. You can be healthy with that BMI – I’m healthy with a BMI of about 18.5 – but you’re still underweight.
Ah, Nerdlet beat me to it. But 5’6″/110 is more than 4-5 pounds underweight; a while ago, Ampersand had a post about how the effects of obesity are a lot worse when compared to a baseline of 21-25 or even 20-25 than when compared to a baseline of 18.5-24.
RM, the “original” is itself a false image, having been heavily photoshopped before any of us ever saw it. We can only speculate what the original looks like. It probably looks more like the image posted above than the “original”, but that’s speculation.
It’s either naive or disingenuous to accept a fashion shot as a “true” image while kicking up a fuss about the dishonesty of presenting an edited version of same.
exangelena – “bigot” may be a strong word. But what else do you call someone who thinks women’s bodies should be deemed cool or not cool? If we’re talking about being healthy or even attractive, that’s different. I don’t think “cool” or “trendy” should be words that describe a woman’s body. We all have our personal preferences, but gee whiz, how can a woman’s *body* be out of style?
I want to point out too that there are different types of models. I modeled at 95 pounds, and that was too skinny to do most swimsuit modelling. I would have had to weigh at least 110 to do swimwear, so I did mostly fashion shows (although sometimes that did include swimsuits). Runway models tend to be much thinner than the ones featured in Victoria’s Secret or swimsuit issues. I don’t think the super-thin runway models are portrayed as sexy. But they are portrayed as trendy.
That’s it! I’m boycotting Valentino!
I can’t afford his clothes, but I had liked a few pairs of sunglasses under that label!
Well, screw that!
The “fat girl” that Valentino is referencing is undoubtedly Velvet D’Amour, who was put into the Gaultier show in bordello-inspired lingerie while the rest of the models wore clothes from the actual collection. She wasn’t used as any kind of representative body, just as a sideshow or a comment on the BMI floor for the Milan shows. But I’m sure in Valentino’s thinking, if you can’t have half-dead anorexic models stalking the runways, your only choice is plus-sized models.
5 pounds would bump me from underweight to healthy weight, but just barely. I would have to be about 140 to be in the middle of the healthy weight range. 140 would also be closer to the weight of most women who I know who are my height.
BMI calculator here http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
Yuck. I hate high fashion. It seems like it is from another world, not this one. 5 10 and 88 pounds? That seems completely impossible.
Auguste’s Law:
[Due to the completely understandable strong feelings involved], As any blog discussion about weight continues, the likelihood that the patriarchy will be forgotten in favor of infighting approaches 1.
Augueste! Can I use your law? I wanted to make a law book for feminism on my blog. Also, while I’m here I’m 105 pounds and 4’11,while we are discussing what weight we are. All hips, no breasts
I forgot to say that if you support independant designers you can often get awesome clothes for much less and that actually fit your body.
shannon: Feel free, of course, but as Matt Drudge might say, Must Credit Auguste.
:)
If you are 5′6″ and 110 lbs., you’re not 30 pounds underweight. You’re like 2 pounds underweight. Believe me, I wasn’t trying to reinforce prejudice against naturally skinny people, but starvation weight isn’t really natural to anyone. In fact, I weight 125 pounds and am 5’7″, which is right around the target weight for someone of my build, and I get called skinny by people who expect women to be a little more corn-fed. And that’s rude, I get that. I’m all for diversity, etc.
But what we’re talking about here is an attempt by RM and others to normalize the idea that they only women that are sexy are significantly underweight. My grandma is off-base when she tells me I need to eat more, but if I wanted to be a fashion model, I would have to lose over 20 pounds. Just to get in the door. To make that a stringent standard that all women are to long after is sick and, yes, I do think it’s a big time contribuing factor to eating disorders.
In other words, to most people you are thin, Frumious. If you tried to get a job modeling, you’d be told to lose 15 pounds. Now, that’s the standard we’re fighting.
I think you’ve got me confused with someone else. I’ve never expressed enthusiasm for women who are very underweight.
I agree with what you’re saying, Amanda, and I didn’t take offense. I just don’t understand why someone would want to be that thin. Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, and all the other celebrities considered to be beautiful aren’t that overly thin. I would guess they are in the 120-ish range.
For me, gaining 20 lbs. has been a guy-magnet. Hell, I got hit on more when I was pregnant than I did when I weighed 95 lbs. Do you think they are doing it just to get modeling jobs? Or do you think they start out just wanting to lose a little weight, but in their quest to do so they engage in dangerous behaviors that lead to something more serious?
^– But images of those women are carefully planned so that they look like they’re thinner. In movies/tv, they’ll be carefully shot in such a way that you’ll never see any of the “folds” that people who have any fat at all on their body get when they’re in certain positions and you’ll certainly never see the cellulite that most women and even many skinny women get sooner or later. For photo shoots, such things will be airbrushed out totally, and the women usually will be airbrushed to look skinnier and have larger breasts on top of it. Some women may only* want to look like certain skinny actresses who may be 5’6″ 120, but they’ll still be frustrated and want to be skinnier if they reach that weight because, hey, look at the folds! And the cellulite! And the bra fat! Those women don’t have that!
Many women still have no idea what women’s bodies look like, in short.
*For me, being 120 at 5’6″ seems like a complete impossibility without harming my body, and does seem like an extraordinarily skinny weight even the BMI still technically rules it as okay. I’m aiming for 130, but even if I continue to exercise every day and watch what I eat for the rest of my life it’ll be really hard to maintain that.
This, of course, doesn’t apply quite so much to professional models in fashion shows, more to the general “someone.” Still.
hey guys — can we *not* post our weights and heights and talk about whether it’s too skinny or thin but healthy or whatever? different people are healthy at different weights, two people of the same height may need to be at totally different weights to be healthy based on body type & all sorts of other factors.
posting stats like that bothers me on a few levels. first off, as comment threads on the topic of eds have revealed, there are a lot of readers here who have struggled with eating disorders. posting height/weight, even to make a point, can be triggering. it’s just like when one woman loudly complains about the size of her thighs — suddenly every other woman in the room is looking at her own body, and for most women, not through the kindest of lenses. it just perpepuates the cycle of self-consciousness and criticism we as feminists are trying to break down. secondly, weight is beside the point. there are lots of women with eating disorders who are not emaciated who are facing deadly health problems all the same.
ana reston died from anorexia at a terrifyingly low weight. but she could have died even weighing ten or fifteen pounds more than she did. most people who die from eating disorders don’t die of starvation, technically speaking, but from things like heart & organ failure. things like potassium deficiency can kill you at any weight. so it doesn’t really matter whether at 5’8 ana reston’s healthy weight would have been 120 or 150, and it doesn’t really matter whether or not that photo was doctored, or to what purpose.
what matters is that another woman died, after weeeks of hospitalization, due to health complications caused by an eating disorder. what matters is that nearly one in ten of the millions of women suffering from eating disorders will die from it too.
as far as i’m concerned, that is the real feminist concern, and why we started talking about this to begin with. we can talk about eating disorder, the media & the role of high fashion without talking numbers.
I would think that someone who could be triggered would not even be reading a post with a picture or subject like this, but I agree that everyone saying “I THINK this weight is good/this weight is too skinny” etc tends to lead to unpleasant things. (For the record, I didn’t intend to participate in that, I just intended to use an example I have first-hand knowledge of, but I suppose I participated anyway.)
I feel like apologizing.
OMG, so like it’s been hours since the credible info that the example photo you’re using on this article has been altered in a Fark kinda way and you still have failed to add a disclaimer? Who do you think you are, the New York Times? Perhaps Pravda on the Potomac can get away with a one column inch correction a week later but as a pseudonymous blogger, I’ve always tried to hold myself to a higher standard than that. Corrections beyond spelling and grammar, for me, go right in the original blog post, with a bold “Update”, not buried under 60 odd comments.
If I wanted to see feminist Fark-like photoshopping, I’d go see egalia place.
Re: Whether or not this photo should be captioned
A discerning reader would READ THE FUCKING COMMENTS and FIGURE IT OUT. No, Jill is not the New York Fucking Times, Feministe is not the NYT, and maybe your kindly bloggers are too busy having a life, perhaps a family even, outside the blog to write about whatever the fuck it is Teh Internets ™ think they should be writing. You know, it’s Thanksgiving, and I’m willing to bet that Jill is nowhere NEAR a computer. Cut some slack. Hate on your family. That’s what the holidays are for.
Srsly.
Because if it is, someone owes me back pay and a few appearances on the Sunday-morning talking heads shows.
Just sayin’.
Re: a disclaimer — I’ve been on a bus to Washington DC all day today, and indeed, not near a computer. I put up a post or two this morning, but haven’t read any of the comment threads in more than a day. Chill out. It’s a holiday weekend, and as Lauren said, I’m not the NYTimes, and this blog is not my 24-hour-a-day job. I’ll put up a disclaimer now. And if you’d like to pay me for my blogging services, I’d be happy to check this more often.
Yeah, that photo is an outrage. I mean, what, are we to believe this woman died of anorexia or something?
Lauren: A busy reader might not dig down to the comments. Many mobile devices will take the full text feed, but will not scrape the comments. Putting a correction in comments is just like a tiny correction in the op-ed section of the papers.
piny: Accept my apologies if y’all have a strict no-edit other people’s post rule. The thing is that I read comments 47, 48, 50-51, 53-61, went to sleep, went to work, hit the crowded grocery store, came home, started making Hunan pork pot-stickers for the turkey-day thing, got about half way through, reloaded the page and still didn’t see a disclaimer.
zuzu: Feel free to go to a subscription based service like Salon. Whether or not I’ll subscribe depends on terms and content. You could also generate some income with ads. Apologies if you are already running ads, I’m using the standard ad-blocking mischief to not see any.
Jill: Point taken, although you are really selling yourself short if you are setting the bar somewhere below the NYT. I compare (quality) bloggers to modern-day pamphleteers. Biased, yes, but not pretending to be un-biased; I feel I get a better grasp of the issues if I read a broad range of blogs across the political spectrum. I trust everyones familiar with recent MSM distortions, simplifications, and screw-ups that I need not cite any examples.
Don’t apologize to me. I’m angry about what you said to Jill.
But for future reference, of course we don’t edit each other’s posts.
Also, you got that everyone here wasn’t so much offering real options as telling you that you were being kind of an asshole, right? Or should we post little disclaimers in our comments, too?
Being an asshole is kinda bad, but those hunan pot stickers sound good.
Apparently not.
Heh, yea. For agreeing with Raging Moderate, plus working in an observation/complement that Feministe is where we discuss serious feminist business, and ought not to look like the Onion, I get jumped on by the four of you. Awesome.
Y’all are cute when you’re angry ;)
Oh, and the pot-stickers were awesome too. I use to just steam them, but found that I could get them to come out right if I cooked them up in a cast iron pot. Yum.
That’s generally considered a faux pas around here.
Oh, please. Take your persecution complex elsewhere. SM was being told he was acting like an asshole because he was acting like an asshole — in the way that Lauren spelled out. Get over yourself.
Heh, yea. For agreeing with Raging Moderate, plus working in an observation/complement that Feministe is where we discuss serious feminist business, and ought not to look like the Onion, I get jumped on by the four of you. Awesome.
What zuzu said. It was more about how shocked! shocked! you were that we would assume readers would either (a) look at her freaking upper arms and figure it out for themselves or (b) read the comments thread and learn it there. It’s a really minor problem, and hardly cause for a Serious Feminist Business Meeting, or an OMG! from you. You were the one in the adorable li’l snit fit, dude. And it only got better when you swallowed the deadpan like, well, those yummy little potstickers.
Also? Compliments don’t look like that, so much. Not on this planet, anyway.
for the record, here’s a pic of Reston.
she doesn’t look so bad in that photo; but who knows when it’s from, or how much it’s been doctored.
cynically, i keep thinking that really the only thing that’s gonna reverse the super-thin-as-in ideal will have to be some major change in the culture and especially the economy, for better or for worse. as it stands, that particular rail-thin yet sort of muscle-toned look that’s really considered “hot” (as opposed to the doctored image above) is only availably to people with a certain baseline of resources, paradoxically enough. if the economy in this country ever crashes to the point where just filling your belly -at all- is an issue for a great many people, why, I expect that being comfortably padded will suddenly become more desirable. meanwhile, it’s basically star-bellied sneetches, with sixpacks.
alternately, i think a more genuinely egalitarian society would pretty much by definition not be so relentlessly focused on such unattainable goals as a “perfect” body, however it’s defined.
To add to what Belledame says, I’ve read somewhere (I don’t remember where) that cultures with widespread malnutrition regard plumpness as a sign of prosperity and hence as beautiful.
Oh, and agreeing with Raging Moderate is only a faux pas if you don’t know how to do it right. Not getting flamed on comment threads is a surprisingly intricate art that has very little to do with your real views on things.
[...] for women in film, TV, and on the runway. First, Jill at Feministe writes a couple of lines about Ana Carolina Reston, a model who just die [...]
piny says:
Maybe I need to brush up on teh internet speakage, but I thought OMG was the universal code word for “I’m not phrasing this in a serious tone” and “let’s be excessively dramatic”. Maybe I should have added a “z” (i.e., Omgz!!) ?
I beg to differ, and as evidence to back up my argument, I like to submit posts from yourself (48, 51, 54, 56, 58, 60 and 61) where you argue that the disclaimer was NOT needed. That’s a lot of writing for a “minor problem”. Shall I do a word count?
Is the problem here really that after all your effort, Jill (perhaps reluctantly) , ended up agreeing with Raging Moderate and myself, and this is perhaps misdirected anger? If so than that really shows a high level of maturity.
And in the lager sense, are men who are pro-choice and who wholeheartedly support equality under the law, yet don’t subscribe to every plank on the feminist agenda welcome here and are felt to have something to contribute in comments, or are we somehow barely tolerated? I must mention here that every single one of my comments, even when I strongly disagree with the consensus, have all shown up, eventually (and that’s a Good Thing, at least in my book).
Where did I end up agreeing with you and RM? Piny argued that the picture should stay up because it’s representative of anorexia, and I agreed. Other commenters felt that the picture was dishonest. So I added a few lines to make it clear that the picture wasn’t of Ana. It’s not a matter of picking sides, although for the record I was nodding my head in agreement at every single comment that Piny made.
I’m not sure what you’re asking for with this comment. A welcome wagon? Some cherry pie? A big round of applause? We argue on threads all the time. I had no idea whether you were male or female until this comment. But if your idea of feeling “welcome” is to be coddled by people who disagree with you, then you’re in the wrong place. That said, if you disagree with us and want to engage in civil, on-topic discussion without attempting to shut the conversation down, then of course you are welcome to be here.
Maybe I need to brush up on teh internet speakage, but I thought OMG was the universal code word for “I’m not phrasing this in a serious tone” and “let’s be excessively dramatic”. Maybe I should have added a “z” (i.e., Omgz!!) ?
No. I’ve seen it in earnest. I think your sarcasm meter is a little off, given the way you reacted to our sarcastic comments.
I beg to differ, and as evidence to back up my argument, I like to submit posts from yourself (48, 51, 54, 56, 58, 60 and 61) where you argue that the disclaimer was NOT needed. That’s a lot of writing for a “minor problem”. Shall I do a word count?
What are you talking about? I argued that the picture should not have been taken down, and that Raging Moderate was wrong–and in a pretty problematic way from the perspective of an ED survivor–in calling the picture dishonest, fake phony propaganda. That’s an entirely different issue, and one that I do consider very important. I did not ever say that no disclaimer was necessary; in fact, let me point you to one of my early comments on the thread:
I agree that Jill should post an update explaining the image so that no one else thinks that it’s a documentary photograph. I don’t think that the image should be taken down.
Is the problem here really that after all your effort, Jill (perhaps reluctantly) , ended up agreeing with Raging Moderate and myself, and this is perhaps misdirected anger? If so than that really shows a high level of maturity.
Is the problem here that those potstickers didn’t agree with you after all? Because if so, you should really take your MSG issues somewhere else, pal.
No, I have a problem with your little freakout, which didn’t sound sarcastic at all, and whose follow-up comments weren’t sarcastic. I have a separate problem with Raging Moderate’s take on the meaning and importance of this photograph, which we aired out–like you do–on this comments thread.
And right now, I’m annoyed with you because you can’t read for content.
Finally, “agenda?” I’ve heard that word in a lot of other contexts, and it’s never a Good Thing.
piny said: Finally, “agenda?” I’ve heard that word in a lot of other contexts, and it’s never a Good Thing.
Or as piny mentioned on another thread, the “feminist hivemind”.
I’m not sure about why we have to specify equality as equality UNDER THE LAW. Can’t we just have equality for equality’s sake? (And although most feminists are prochoice, prochoice doesn’t necessarily = feminist).