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the acceptable prejudice
I've done 4 catalog shoots in the past 6 months that were plus size models. They came from Ford and Wilhelmina....absolutely gorgeous models. http://www.fordmodels.com/main.cfm (click '12 Plus' under NY) http://www.wilhelmina.com/2003/divisions.html (click 'Ten-20') As a general rule, they tend to be more beautiful, (facially), and happier people. (probably because they actually eat) Great shoots with pleasant people. Jan 03 06 04:06 pm Link It is true that there is a prejudice, as a former employer though...I can see the other side as well. I've had many obese employees, and I am not real slim myself. Some points that I don't necessarily agree with, but are worth considering. 1. People who are obese (especially combined with age) tend to have more medical problems and higher health insurance costs 2. In sales jobs (that I have seen anyway) people tend to buy more readily and/or more prolificly from those who are young/fit/considered by most to be attractive. It is not that heavy people cannot be attractive, but grooming and attitude have to be spot on. My sales actually went up on the days I had my petite employees working...sad but true even though attitudes SEEMED to be similar. 3. Just getting uniforms that looked decent on larger employees proved to be quite a challenge for me. Jackets and raingear was near impossible. 4. There were lots of stairs where we had one location. My obese employees tended to show up from breaks winded, sweating, and out of breath. Not ready for action. 5. In my experience my large employees had a harder time keeping their energy levels up, especially in the heat. I no longer have employees, but while I would not base my decision on the weight of my prosepctive employees, I would consider their overall health/weight along with other factors. Oh...and I also consider size in hiring models. It's rather simple for my purposes. Every extra inch of skin to cover makes my job harder. Most of the models I take on tend to be short as well. Much easier that way. Jan 03 06 04:30 pm Link William Kious wrote: Because the black person can't change their colour. Jan 03 06 07:23 pm Link studio36uk wrote: A lot of people don't share that point of view. A lot of people view being gay as a choice. I think being gay is part biological and part psychological (what isn't?) but does being gay mean that a man has be a complete "flamer"? Or what about the lesbian who walks around "butch"? Those things ARE a matter of choice - and a large part of why gays/lesbians are bashed. It's okay for someone to "wear" their homosexuality - but not okay for a fat person to just be fat. studio36uk wrote: Some can and some can't. Obesity is a disease. Some people are more prone to being obese than others - and some respond better to treatment than others. It's not all about diet and exercise. There are often deep, psychological factors at play. Of course, that doesn't matter to you, does it? It's just a "choice", after all. Anorexia and bulimia are on the opposite end of the spectrum, but there's sympathy there. Would you say that someone chooses to be anorexic or bulimic? Why is there a difference? studio36uk wrote: We're all slowly and surely dying (and we all stuff food in our "craws".) Why should the world humor you? Or anyone else, for that matter? What if you get cancer someday? Would you want empathy, comfort and tolerance? Or would you want someone to say that it was your choice to get cancer? Jan 03 06 08:16 pm Link Glamour Boulevard wrote: Gah, I ran in to one of those the other day. She was VERY militant about insisting that no one tell her she was too thin, and couldn't seem to understand why she was having issues getting work. Jan 03 06 09:05 pm Link I'm obese !!! and i don't give a damn,im happy being a curvy,"fat",big boned,thick bitch LOL i've had no problems getting work,and i come from a small city in the mountains of va. ,love me or hate me ,i still luv ya ~muah~ Jan 03 06 09:08 pm Link Melvin Moten Jr wrote: On the plus side I guess you don't need as much rope for the skinny ones either. Jan 03 06 09:10 pm Link Absinthe Photography wrote: I have a friend who is plus size and she commented to me that as someone who dates larger women it's my responsibility to try & shift societal paradigms by featuring them in my work, otherwise I am only perpetuating the problem. She understands that larger models are less commercially viable but feels that fighting the stereotypes is more important than success. Jan 03 06 09:27 pm Link A. H A M I L T O N wrote: Hence some of my comments about commercial viability. Jan 03 06 09:31 pm Link Jay Dezelic wrote: But as my friend Siren (who's down to about a size 12 these days) likes to note the fashion biz considers "plus size" to be a 12-14 when women in the US are often closer to 20+. Jan 03 06 09:34 pm Link I think the sick thing is that I'm too fat to be a plus sized model. Oh well, I enjoy what I do and anyone who doesn't want to look at my pictures isn't forced to. Jan 03 06 10:16 pm Link Last time I checked, drug use was a stigma. Both drug users and the obese have those that accept them and their unhealthy life style and those that don't. Obesity is always apparent and drug use is not, though. And yes, I do realize that some people have no real choice with regardf to being grossly overweight, but that remains a minority. Learn to love the diathesis stress model. Jan 04 06 11:24 am Link Rachael (MM#1465) and I are setting up a shoot for this weekend. Beauty and sexiness have more to do with one's mental image of themself than it does a height/weight chart. Certainly there are those who are obese and do not exercise or control their dietary intake. On the other hand, I can spot a person living a healthy lifestyle a block away regardless of their size. That's the person I want to shoot. Jan 04 06 11:35 am Link As a fat kid let me chime in here... It is modeling. So what do we "model". Do we model our current society? Do we model ourselves? NO we model what we want to see. We want to see hot skinny chicks that make us believe we can get some of that if we just buy that widget. Or in the case of a women, we believe that we will be like that model if we can fit into those jeans. The consumer is predjudece. Not the photographer. Jan 04 06 11:36 am Link I'm not a skinny minnie either  however I was for many years... As a makeup Artist / stylist being very overweight can be a problem....I have used larger assistants but I draw the line at a point because of the following reasons 1) we work in tight places, small RVs 2) some of our jobs (many) involve hiking, trudging though sand etc...you have to be able to keep the pace with everyone else and thats a problem for many overweight people. 3) We stand 10 hours a day, somtimes without eating...most of the people obese cant do it...they just can't...everytime I see them they are sitting because their feet hurt....and they are snacking because they are hungry... I have had photographers request that I not bring any fat assistants...NOT because they are not pleasant to look at but because he wants people with stamina and guess what...real fat people dont have it, even some thin people dont have it....but its harder with a lot of extra weight. I would like to lose some weight myself, when I was thin I could really move faster and I felt better on those long days....I do work out and so my stamina is good and keeping up with people is never an issue but just 10 or 20 pounds can make a difference in how you get around and so there is a predjudice but there is a practicle reason behind it in some jobs. Is it right? probably not but if I work with someone that slows us down or cant keep up I wont hire them again...fat or skinny but as I said, its usually a bigger problem with the overweight Jan 04 06 11:54 am Link theda wrote: How do you know? Are you qualified to judge how much of a person's behavior is determined by genetics or behavioral modification? How much of the prejudice against the obese is driven by fear? Jan 04 06 11:55 am Link William Kious wrote: The cure for obesity for most is to eat less and move more. The cure for the rest is hormonal therapy. Jan 04 06 12:14 pm Link "My only fear with reagrd to obesity is that an obese person will take up two seat on the train. I hate that." Jan 04 06 12:18 pm Link studio36uk wrote: Thank you. 65% of America is overweight...and I'm sorry, but most of those people don't have a genetic defect....they're just lazy and have poor self control. Jan 04 06 12:30 pm Link Also, most "plus" models are in shape and not considered "obese" by medical standards. Jan 04 06 01:42 pm Link what bothers me is when fat people refer to themselves as curvy. there is scrawny. skinny. slender. shapely. curvy. heavy. fat. obese. i'm 5'10 and weigh over 200 pounds. however, i'm fairly well proportioned, and have a distinct waistline sandwiched in between my hips and chest. i'm on the heavy/fat side of curvy, according to my own scale. however, having one, single, round curve does not curvy make. now this does not make people who are more round than hourglassy bad/ugly/undesirable. i know quite a few people who ONLY date large women. i personally prefer larger men. but let's call a spade a spade. curvy implies a certain ratio between the waist and hips/bust (presumably the good old 1:1.5 golden mean). if your ratio is inverted (1.5:1 waist to bust/hips)... Jan 04 06 01:52 pm Link always remember, Marilyn Monroe was a size 12 and always sooo beautiful. Of course societies values have changed since then, but size has nothing to do with beauty. Shawn Jan 04 06 02:25 pm Link Shawn Kuck wrote: Dress sizes have changed since then, too. Jan 04 06 03:03 pm Link Marilyn Monroe would equal about a size 6 or 7 by today's standards. Most say a size 6 but a 7 would be the largest; her weight flucuated a lot in her career. Today, Americans have a problem--we have a lot more than "back in the day" when you didn't have much of a reason to sit at home so you went out and did something actively. Now we have video games/systems, internet, bigger tvs, more fast food joints, buying food in bulk, etc etc. We don't really have a lot of reason to go outside as much unless it's what we want to do. Oh and that eating like crap thing doesn't help either. Eating things that will clog up your arteries like there's no tomorrow--*shudder* We are in too much of a hurry that we eat whatever is convient and less of what we need to nourish our bodies. Jan 04 06 04:52 pm Link I have been mulling this over for a couple of days now. First of all, thank you so much to those of you who (without being paid, even!) said such kind things about my work. That rocked my socks, and was so unexpected. I was going to write an opus on this. I am, after all, a fat activist and this is what I am about. I was going to talk about the problem with conflating separate issues such as social expectations and medical conditions and genetic predispositions. I was going to reference research that shows just how much conflict and disagreement there is in the medical community not only about causes and cures, but about whether fatness is actually causational, or is just sometimes correlational. I thought I'd introduce you all to the Health at Every Size model for fitness, in which fitness is treated independendly of size - and which is yielding fantastic results to applause from all over the medical community. (Yeah, you can be fat and fit.) I was going to point out that insurance costs are not rising because of fat people, and that there are plenty of chronic problems and high risk people that affect those things. I was also going to mention that I haven't had health insurance since college, and not only don't go to the doctor much, but don't need to - whereas plenty of my outwardly healthy looking friends, family, and colleagues do. My blood pressure, cholesterols, sugars, and other long-term predictors of health are all in the disgustingly healthy range, and always have been. But that would be an mighty lengthy, and frankly I don't have time to write it. Instead, I'll talk about the bottom line, which is that fat people have the right to be treated like human beings. Period. "Fat is Not a Four Letter Word" by S.M. Edwards Fat is not a four letter word. It is not obscene, or inappropriate for minors to hear, or dirty, or uncouth. What it describes is not something only done or talked about in hushed whispers and dark corners. It tells you nothing of my moral fiber, the content of my character, my cute quirks and annoying tendencies. It doesn't tell you anything about my exercise or eating habits, or whether I revel in my body or am ashamed of it. It does not give you insight into my fears and longings, my hopes and dreams. It is not a word that, when uttered, has the power to make me feel small or less than you. I am not. I am large, powerful. I am bigger than life, round with abundance and the fruits of the earth. I relish in my senses â all of them â and find delights of sensation where others find only denial. I live with dignity and self-love, and I reclaim this word, so small, but so densely packed with hatred and fear and loathing and condemnation. I embrace it as fully mine, as part of me, as a harmless adjective that tells you nothing, really, about who I am - except that I am fat. Jan 06 06 01:26 pm Link BCG wrote: Why do the models have to be "people of size"? Jan 06 06 04:01 pm Link |
