From "Kiss my fat ass!" to "Tyra's diet secrets revealed!"

In the summer of 2008, Tyra Banks did an episode of her talk show in which she told critics, paparazzi, and anyone putting others down for their weight "Kiss my fat ass!" in response to an unflattering picture taken of her on the beach. She continued to tell everyone how proud she was of her body throughout the season. A year later, however, she did an episode talking about her weight-loss journey and all of her diet and exercise tips. Many magazines will showcase a curvy woman on their cover, yet once you get a few pages into the magazine you are bombarded with ads featuring thin women and diet and exercise techniques. You will also most likely find a story about how so-and-so "lost 100 pounds!" and then a little further you will see another article proclaiming that "big is beautiful". Once you learn to read all of the different types of signs that the media sends you, you may think that the media is just a bipolar hypocrite.

Or it may be that the media is saying "It's alright that you look like this... But you should really try to look like this." During the mid to late 50s and early 60s there were two different women that were idolized by the public, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. Marilyn showed that curvy women are sexy, but it is very likely that most of the women from that era would prefer to have a body similar to Audrey's. Media forces you to take a position. Either "big is beautiful" or "thin is in".

In Susan Bordo's article she writes, "...female bodies become docile bodies-- bodies whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection, transformation, "improvement"." If a person is bigger they may claim to think that curvy women are sexy, but they most likely strive to be thin like the models in fashion magazines. If a person is thinner they may strive to have curves like the women in Playboy so that men will think they are sexually attractive. Bordo writes, "Through these disciplines, we continue to memorize on our bodies the feel and conviction of lack, of insufficiency, of never being good enough."