project-pretty-size-blog

[project-pretty-size-blog]

[project-pretty-size-blog]

Mission Statement

For nearly a century, the grand narrative of beauty in society has been thin, petite, and caucasian and women have struggled with this standard since. Selling away their confidence, self-esteem, and self-love to attempt to don an unnatural and false mask of beauty; women have continuously cut pieces of themselves to try and fit into the narrow mold. “Fat” has been distorted from simply a descriptive term into an ugly and hateful insult while “thin” has similarly been morphed into a beautifully desirable compliment. The rise of plus-size models and representation in the fashion industry are finally putting an end to this plague. This postmodernist revolution is fighting against the grand narrative to promote the subjectivity of beauty.

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Phenomenal Woman

Dr. Maya Angelou has lived a complicated life far from the grand narrative, being a victim of sexual trauma, she arose as a voice for those who were silenced and it is clear to see hear beauty from deep within her powerful character. Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman” highlights the beauty in the confidence and pride of a postmodernist woman who does not fit the mold and embraces it! Women envy this woman who is “not cute or built to suit a fashion / model’s size.” (Angelou lines 3-4) because her real beauty is not from her size and she does not need to be petite, feminine, or “cute” like the grand narrative to be be beautiful and envied. In the next stanza, it is shown that the phenomenal woman is also adored by men who admire her confidence though they also notice that she does not fit the “expected” standard of body image or size. The structure of each stanza interestingly provides the view of the world on the phenomenal woman and her view of herself. In the first part of each stanza, different members of society wonder where the woman’s beauty shines from and in the second part of the stanza, she herself explains where her beauty stems from. She explains with confidence that beauty comes from “the fire in my eyes.” (Angelou line 24), “and the joy in my feet.” (Angelou line 28) and “the sun of my smile’ (Angelou 41). 

In the last stanza, the phenomenal woman concludes that she does not need to be ashamed that she does not fit the standard and she does not need to speak loud or draw attention to be beautiful. A set of lines that are repeated at the end of each stanza, “I'm a woman / Phenomenally. / Phenomenal woman, / That's me.” show that simply being a woman in itself is phenomenal and should be a source of honor. Ultimately, self-love and pride in a society that seeks to destroy women’s confidence is an act of rebellion. Dr. Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” is an anthem to all women to realize their true beauty beyond their size of body and have the confidence to flaunt their real and natural beauty.

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Ashley Graham

Ashley Graham, a booming plus-size model, has quickly risen to the top in the fashion world not only as a successful model but also as an avid advocate for size inclusivity and representation. Appearing on the cover of many largely successful magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and most importantly, Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition which previously featured exclusively slimmer models. 

She encourages women to embrace their natural bodies by presenting many unedited and candid photos on social media while teaching women to not only accept but also love the “flaws” that society has taught them to hate. Being a model from a young age, Graham shares her struggle with the term “plus-size” defining her value and career; she explains in her TED Talk, that she was always known as the “fat model, the girl who was pretty for a big girl.” Her statement shows the standards of society in defining beauty and a “fat girl” can never simply be appreciated as beautiful because fat and beautiful seem oxymoronic amongst the fashion industry. 

Graham shares her story and struggle with gaining self-confidence in an industry that rejected her body type, she encourages women to band together to “change the global vision of beauty” (Graham). She explains the dangers of trying to fit into that tiny mould as she herself submitted to many temporary vices due to her lack of self-confidence. Graham works to give young girls a voice allowing them to develop into their own powerful role models full of confidence and self love. Graham represents the postmodern force of change as she fights against the objective grand narrative in the fashion and beauty industry.

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Scars to Your Beautiful

20 year old singer-songwriter, Alessia Cara promotes self-acceptance and self-love in her song, “Scars to Your Beautiful”. The inspiration of the song comes from Cara’s struggle with hair loss as she straightened her natural curls often and experience damaged hair and hair loss as a result. As she explains in an interview with Billboard, "I didn't want people to look at me, I didn't want people to get too close," (Stutz) but her new song explains her overcoming of the insecurity and learning to love and accept her natural beauty. As such, Cara pledges to appear makeup-free in all performances and interviews of “Scars to Your Beautiful”. The song highlights a girl’s struggle with her body image and weight highlighting important issues like eating disorders and the distorted image of beauty that media provides. The song begins with a young girl who wishes she was made more beautiful by God: “She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor” (Line 4). However she fails to see her real inner beauty “deeper than the eyes can find it” (Line 6). As a result, she is blinded by the false image of beauty in the media and suffers with her body image and perception of beauty in silence “'cause cover girls don't cry after their face is made” (Line 9). She continuously compares herself to the “covergirl” which represents the grand narrative of beauty by being perfectly thin, the character in the song strives to conform to the grand narrative as “she has dreams to be an envy, so she's starving / You know, covergirls eat nothing.” (Lines 17-18). She suffers an eating disorder until eventually her essence fades away as she gives herself completely to the disorder and to the grand narrative. Cara reminds the girl in the song that beauty is deeper than just the surface and that she should not have to conform to the false standard of the grand narrative: “And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart” (Lines 12,15, 30, 33, 41 44).The grand narrative embraces one single standard of perfection, being extremely slim. Alessia Cara fights against this grand narrative to eradicate extreme and unhealthy weight loss practices, by enforcing body positivity in her song that embraces imperfection and natural beauty.

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Plus Size Advertising  The Social, Psychological, and Economic Effects

Article: https://www.natcom.org/communication-currents/positive-impact-plus-sized-fashion-models-women%E2%80%99s-body-image

Many recent studies show the positive social, psychological, and economical benefits of featuring plus-size models in advertising which supports the postmodern ideal of the other with research and factual evidence. One study done by professors, Russel B. Clayton, Jessica L. Ridgway, and doctorate student, Joshua Hendrickse at the Florida State University in the School of Communication’s Emotion and Cognition Lab, observes women’s physiological responses to plus-size models, average-sized models, and thinner models to highlight the benefits of plus-size in marketing. 

The researchers compared different women’s heart rate upon exposure to the different images of models and used the self-discrepancy theory and social comparison theory to differentiate the responses. “Specifically, self-discrepancy theory allowed the researchers to understand which models represented the participants’ ideal self. By knowing the participant’s ideal body type, the researchers were then able to make predictions pertaining to which models would result in the greatest or least social comparisons.” (Clayton et al.) The study found that though all the women declared themselves to be normal weight, they all wanted to be thinner showing an “actual-ideal self discrepancy” which causes decreased body satisfaction. As a result, when women were shown the pictures of average or plus-sized women, there was an enhanced sense of body satisfaction and less social comparisons occurred because the images were closer to the participants’ actual body type and further from their ideal body type. This evidence clearly indicates that the grand narrative of thinner models has a negative social and psychological effect on women.  Another major theory at work is an information processing model. “The researchers were specifically interested in assessing how social comparisons, a type of internal processing, influence women’s resources allocation to encoding and remembering content.” (Clayton et al.) The study found that participants’ heart rate decelerated the most when viewing images of plus-size models indicating greater attention and more cognitive resources provided to memory. However the participants’ heart rate decelerated the least when exposed to thinner models as more cognitive resources were allocated to social comparison rather than attention or memory. This factual evidence proves that plus-size models have an economic benefit as well, women pay more attention and remember an advertisement more vividly when a plus-size or average model is used. This study fights against the grand narrative of beauty by proving scientifically that the postmodernist image of size in relation to beauty has much greater benefits socially, psychologically, and economically as well!