Picking up a newspaper or magazine from just twenty years ago can be nearly as shocking as taking one from the 1960s. The 60s were longer ago, but it’s clear and obvious, the language, the photos, the products are so clearly old. The 2000s are a whole different story, so similar to our present day, but when you sit down to read what’s there, you’ll quickly be hit with a slew of ideas that are downright unacceptable in the present day.
One Twitter thread went viral recently when a netizen pointed out some examples of ‘00s media promoting and brainwashing people into accepting the most unhealthy and unrealistic beauty standards. Other readers joined in, sharing all the other examples they could think of.
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The ‘00’s tabloids and media had horribly unrealistic expectations for women’s bodies
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#1 Kate Winslet During The Release Of Titanic. James Cameron Famously Used The Nickname “Kate Weighs-A-Lot”
Image credits: imdb
#2 Jennifer Lawrence During The Release Of The Hunger Games Films. In 2012, Jennifer Said, “In Hollywood, I’m Obese. I’m Considered A Fat Actress”
Image credits: Kurt Kulac
#3 They Called Alicia Silverstone “Fatgirl”
Image credits: S0UNDGARD3N
While some might look at these examples and only conclude that things were a bit absurd in the past, the unfortunate truth of beauty standards is that they tend to have long-lasting effects on multiple generations of women. Simply put, there is a direct correlation between the combinations of words and images that these tabloids used and how women and girls feel about themselves right now.
A recent study by Dove found that just 4% of all surveyed women would describe themselves as beautiful. In 2004, pretty close to the time period that most of these tweets are referring to, the number was as low as 2%. This is an abysmally low number, but a direct indicator of just how toxic these standards can be.
#4 Gillian Anderson During The Filming Of X-Files. They Even Had Mulder Compliment Her When She’d Lost Some Weight
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#5 Britney Spears Was Called A “Whale” During Her Performance At The 2007 Vmas
Image credits: MTV
#6 Martine Mccutcheon During The Release Of Love, Actually. In The Film, Her Character Is Referred To As Having “Thighs The Size Of Tree Trunks”
Image credits: imdb
The same research also discovered that 72% of women, primarily young girls, stated that they feel “tremendous pressure to be beautiful,” no doubt a result of being shown individuals who can afford absurd diets and personal trainers, all the while being told that this is what a woman has to live up to. It’s not hard to imagine the psychological difficulties that come from constantly feeling like you aren’t good enough.
#7 Renée Zellweger. A Major Plot Point Of Bridget Jones’s Diary Is How Obscenely “Fat” She Was For Weighing A Whole 136 Lbs And Being A UK Size 14 (Us 6)
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#8 Nicole Richie Being Referred To As The “Fat One” When Photographed With Her On-Screen Best Friend Paris Hilton
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#9 Beyoncé Was Considered Plus Sized 1999-2005 When She Looked Like This
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The omnipresence of these standards in media have been around long enough to become basically internalized, as 54% of women surveyed globally answered in the affirmative to the statement that “they are their own worst beauty critic.” Despite the plethora of information and knowledge about how the body works and what a natural body looks like, the barrage of certain words and images from the tabloids has irreversibly caused self-esteem issues in a lot of women.
#10 Jennifer Lopez, The Woman With The “Biggest Butt Ever” According To Every Tabloid!
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#11 Remember How They Told Us That Geri Was The “Curvy” Spice Girl?
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#12 Drew Barrymore Was The “Chunky One” In The Charlie’s Angels Crew
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The nasty truth is that women never really could catch a break when it comes to what society perceived as beautiful. When we see films set in the 19th century or art depicting people at that time, the women tend to wear massive dresses, all while constricted in unbelievably tight whalebone corsets. Researchers studying the corpses, or at this point skeletons, of women from that time period have discovered the detrimental effects of this fashion trend, including spinal misalignment and deformed ribs.
#13 Jennifer Stone During The Release Of Wizards Of Waverly Place. She Was Typecast As “The Funny, Fat Friend”
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#14 Tyra Banks Being Referred To As Fat When She Was Photographed By Paparazzi At The Beach
Image credits: The CW
#15 America Ferrera During The Release Of Ugly Betty
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Before the Victorians were making women suffocate just to attend a social event, the Chinese were binding girls’ feet to get a specific look and shape. The process, which would take agonizing, long years, would yield feet that did fit some particular beauty standards, although it’s unlikely that any modern viewer would find anything appealing in the process. It’s shocking that girls went through literal years of pain for what amounted to a fashion trend.
#16 They Said Christina Aguilera’s Body Had Been Ruined Cuz Of Her Pregnancy ? And She Looked Like This
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#17 America Ferrera During The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants
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#18 When The Papers Said That Cheryl Cole Had Let Herself Go And Was Fat In 2011. She’s Tiny
Image credits: RussHLR
These foot wrappings are, unfortunately, the perfect example of how ridiculous beauty standards can be at times. There are no evolutionary reasons for this preference, just a combination of powerful cultural forces and the ability of others to dictate to women what they should look like. For those curious, the perfect bound foot would be 10 centimeters or 4 inches. This is not a typo, yes, that small.
Now, humans aren’t the only creatures that do strange things in the name of desirability, for example, the Parotia bird does a long and elaborate dance routine to impress a mate, although how this dance translates to getting food is unclear. Evolutionary selection has also helped breed crabs with oversized claws that only exist to impress mates. However, using these examples for humans is ridiculous for a number of reasons. Firstly, we are considerably more intelligent than a crab and shouldn’t be taking social cues from them.
#19 The Public Treated Lily Allen Like She Was A Gargantuan Sea Monster. She Literally Looks Like An Average Person’s Body
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#20 Anne Hathaway During The Release Of The Devil Wears Prada. Andy Has Lines About How She’s Not As Thin As The Other Girls, And Is Considered Fat By Multiple Characters
Image credits: imdb
#21 Kelly Clarkson Has Been Heavily Fatshamed In 2002
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Secondly, our “standards” of desirability are genuinely harmful and unhealthy. Remember, most Parotia birds can actually do the dance, as it doesn’t pose a risk to their health. Trying to not be “fat” by tabloid standards has made millions of women miserable and caused countless eating disorders from nonsensical diets.
This is why Twitter threads like this are important, as it’s vital to show the younger generation that just because a flashy magazine publishes something, doesn’t mean it’s real, true or worthwhile. Happiness is not really found in the validation of strangers. And it’s not worth destroying your health and mental state over an arbitrary standard that will shift in a few years anyway. If you want to keep exploring this conversation, Bored Panda has similar articles here, here and here.
#22 Raven-Symoné During The Release Of That’s So Raven
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Source: boredpanda.com