Through the Looking Glass

Before heading out to work today, John turned on the TV to get a weather update. The news program he flipped to was talking about Britney Spears’ performance at the Video Music Awards. I had heard the speculation that she was drunk, and to be honest she kindof looked the part with her unsure footing and half-hearted lip syncing. But then their conversation turned to how awful she looked in that skimpy outfit. The entertainment editor launched into a lecture about how she just doesn’t have the body to be performing anymore. I would have agreed, if not for an experience that I had at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago…

So there I was, standing in line with my items and the weekly rags caught my attention at the checkout stand. It was the same old stuff — who’s cheating on who, who overdosed last week, what Oprah’s wearing today. But one of the tabloids had a picture of Britney Spears on the cover. I had seen the picture before online — she was wearing a skimpy black outfit and was photographed while on a break from filming her latest video. The photo clearly showed plenty of cellulite along with the rest of her not-so-trim self. The headline was something like “Shocking New Photos of Britney! Britney Balloons Up!”. For an instant, a tiny part of me thought it was funny.

“Ha! A star finally gets what’s coming to her!”

But then I realized that that oh-so-awful picture of her looked like me. Those were my thighs and my not-quite-so-trim tummy staring back at me. For the first time in her life, Britney Spears looks like a real person. Not beautiful and muscular and tiny and air-brushed; but just like a real live woman with imperfect thighs and a not-so-flat tummy. As I scanned the other covers I saw more of the same: “Shocking new photos!!” of many stars. It’s no wonder women have such an image complex; our real life bodies are “shocking” and “awful”. We are all expected to work hard and eat 200 calories a day just to look like those beautiful stars; and the second they instead begin to look like us they are thrown aside. As if looking like the rest of us is a bad thing.

And so I felt some pity for Britney this morning after seeing her VMA performance. The media is tearing her apart because she’s no longer an unhealthy-looking size zero. But by any real human standards, she doesn’t look awful. She’s had two children! Of course she’s going to have thicker thighs and a non-flat stomach. Just like real women who don’t earn a salary of $10,000,000 and don’t have the time to spend 6 hours in the gym every day and need to eat more than sprouts and yogurt. The tabloids will tell you that they’re feeding us what we want. That we want to see shocking photos of stars with cellulite and flabby arms. People will buy it if they continue to provide it — because looking at “SHOCKING!!!” photos of stars makes us feel better about ourselves. But I doubt there would be a very large outcry if the tabloids closed up shop today. Just like a bag of potato chips, we consume it simply because it’s there.

It’s about time some of these publications start exercising responsibility in their print. It’s time that they put an end to this self image crisis that they’ve instigated. Real womens’ bodies are not shocking or awful. They just are.

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