Good role model?

Whilst doing my customary skim-read of the Times website this morning, I saw a standfirst that really annoyed me:

We caught up with Lily Allen at Chanel’s Paris salon. Here she talks about Lagerfeld, her weight and being a role model.

It seems that there are two massive issues for any young women with a prominent position in the media - her weight and being a role model - and that the two are inextricably linked.

Be too thin, and you will be continually derided for being a poor role model, as if young girls have nobody to look up to but vacuous pop princesses whose every coke-snorting escapade is lovingly splashed across the latest issue of Heat, as if you are directly responsible for the existence of anorexia.

Be a healthy size 8-12 though (no fatter than that, because of course that would be, like, gross!) and you will be lauded as a great role model for young girls and your 'gorgeous curves' will be lovingly praised in patronising drivel that implys that until the reader saw your 'rubenesque' figure in a bikini they were locked in a cycle of hating their figures so much that their only solace was an entire box of Krispy Kremes consumed alone in front of America's Next Top Model.

This immediate assumption that being a role model is part of a celebrity's job generally only applies to female celebrities. You don't see the media going potty every time a male celebrity goes on a drinking binge or loses a few pounds. And yet, this is the same media that goes nuts over single mums, lack of male teachers in primary schools, the fact that not having any men in their lives can be damaging to boys. Whether it's actully hugely damaging or not (I haven't a clue and suspect it depends largely on the individual) the fact is that boys are statistically less likely than girls to have lots of role models in real life. If anybody needs celebrity role models, it's boys not girls.

And then, there's the vacuous nature of the manner in which this role model business manifests itself. It's almost completely to do with weight. It helps if you don't drink or smoke, but basically, in order to be regarded as a 'good role model', it's all about the curves and very little else. The trashy end of the media (which, let's face it, is most of it) will print photographs of a talented actress or musician, but all they will discuss is her weight fluctuations, with finger-wagging accusations of eating disorders, labels of 'poor role model'. Is not being anorexic all girls are to aspire to? It's the media that's creating the idea that no matter how talented and successful she is, a woman is nothing but a body, whether skinny or fat. And that, my friends, is a poor example indeed.

Love the skin you're in

Dove have produced a new short film in conjunction with the Campaign for Real Beauty:



This is a great film and promotes a really important issue - that the cosmetics industry negatively affects young girls as well as grown women. However, these campaigns that try to persuade us to love our bodies, warts and all, really bug me sometimes. Basically, cosmetics companies seem to be using two types of women in their advertisements these days: Models, and Real Women.

The models, those leggy, perma-tanned, airbrushed gazelle-like creatures, have been around for a while. But the Real Woman is a relatively recent phenomenon. The Real Woman is voluptuous, relatively small-breasted and uses few cosmetics. She loves her body and she revels in her cycles and curves. She holds her head up high despite the fact that she is positively gargantuan by Hollywood standards, because she knows that she is beautiful and she loves her body. Well, I'm a size 6, I have E-cup breasts and I own so many sparkly eyeshadows I wouldn't be surprised if I am single-handedly keeping Barry M in business. Am I less "real" than the women in the Dove adverts? It's just another representation of female beauty to which few of us conform, even if the "message" behind it is rather more positive than that of traditional advertisements despite being just a sugar coating for selling us stuff.

There seems to be this assumption that women hate their bodies because of the constant bombardment of unrealistic images thrust at us by Hollywood and the cosmetics industry, and so we all need to learn to love our bodies in order to compensate for it. Fine. But why should I love my body? It's just a body. Men aren't expected to love their bodies. Loving your body makes as little sense as hating it. What we really need, in my opinion, is just to quit being so obsessed with our bodies in the first place.

The reason that loving your body is considered so important is that women's bodies are considered so disproportionately crucial to their worth as human beings. From childhood, women are taught that their self esteem should be tied up in their looks. There's this idea that you can't walk down the street with your head held high if you don't adore every inch of your body. This is bullshit. You don't have to love your body in order to be confident, because you are much more than just your body. I may have the shortest legs in the known universe, but I also have sharp wit, an optimistic disposition, kindness and intelligence. I may have big jugs, but I am also uptight, pedantic and socially inept. I am more than my physical appearance and I refuse to let my self image revolve solely around it.

There's also the uncomfortable truth that it's much easier for some people to love their bodies than others, whether from genuine attractiveness or the extent to which they fit some sort of media 'ideal'. If I do love my body, it's probably because it happens to be relatively close to the 'ideal' plastered all over billboards rather than because I actually have sky-high self esteem. And I realise that in an image-obsessed society in which women are regarded primarily as decoration with their worth measured by how fuckable they are, this makes me extremely lucky.

This pressure to love your body is just that: more pressure, on top of the pressure that women already feel with regards to the way they look. Loving your lardy arse is just as self-absorbed as punishing it with cellulite cream. You are only truly free of the beauty industry and the airbrushed standards it promotes if your lardy arse is not an issue in the first place.

The Campaign for Real Beauty, whilst coming up with some great films, totally skirts the issue. Although 'Love Your Body' is a big step up from 'You Need Cellulite Cream' the issue that would really be helpful for them to push is, 'Your Body Isn't Actually That Important'. But then, that won't help them sell any body lotion.

Barbie through the ages

First ever Barbie commercial - 1959
Bleargh!


Barbie Meets Ken - 1961
Barbie manages two years without a boyfriend. Ken seems to have changed quite a lot in appearance since 1961 - he looks positively ancient in comparison to the blond Prince Charming figure that I grew up with.


Color N Curl Barbie 1965


Superstar Barbie 1976
Whatever that girl's on, I want some.


Super Hair Barbie - 1980s
"Glamorous" jumpsuit? I beg to differ!


Great Shape Barbie - 1983
This is absolutely revolting. Really, really worrying. Is it any wonder that the girls who were in the target age group in 1983 are now paying extortionate gym memberships and devouring creepy women's magazines instead of carbs? You're looking good, Barbie!


Olympic Skater Barbie
The first advert I've come across on YouTube for a Barbie who does anything not directly related to improving her appearance.


Dance Club Barbie


Glitte Hair Barbie - 1994


Teacher Barbie - 1995
A Barbie that does something non-gender specific. Hooray!


Splash & Color Barbie - 1996


Olympic Gymnast Barbie - 1996
1996 was the year that the US gymnastics team won the Atlanta Olympics. Here, Barbie embodies the American Dream...


Barbie Hair Highlights - 2006


Top Model Barbie - 2007


And finally, the whole Barbie theme is subverted in this 90s advertisement for Cool Shaving Ken. Look how ridiculous it seems when the Ken doll is subjected to his own beauty regime...


Something that really strikes me is that in advertisements featuring children playing with the dolls, the children themselves seem to have got older and older. In 1965, they look about six - around the same age as the target audience. In that 2007 commercial they look about fourteen. I wonder what's happening here - if Mattel are trying to expand the age range of their customer base, or if they're going for an even more aspirational theme.

I was never allowed to have Barbies as a child, but boy did I want them. It wasn't just about peer pressure - I wanted a Sega Megadrive and a BMX bike because of peer pressure, but neither of them had quite the same delinquent appeal. I think a lot of the time, particularly with the children of parents who disapprove of this sort of thing, part of the appeal of Barbie is that girls know that there's something a bit naughty about liking something that's just about being pretty. Mattel know damn well that what little girls want is not Nuclear Physicist Barbie, or UN Diplomat Barbie, or Human Rights Lawyer Barbie. What they want is Pop Idol Barbie, Glamour Model Barbie and Botox Barbie. Barbie has always been presented as a vacuous model with an IQ inferior to her waist measurement because that's what consumers want from her.

I think if I have daughters I'll be inclined to let them have Barbie dolls if they want them. I see no real harm in them in the context of a relatively gender-neutral upbringing and besides, banning things just draws attention to them. I think once a child wants a toy, any damage associated with it has already been done. Banning after school television makes much more sense than banning the toys advertised on it.

Seeing that Great Shape Barbie commercial really brings home for me how far we've come in the last twenty years. I really don't think that a commercial such as this would be tolerated now. I'd like to live in a world in which six-year-old girls aren't encouraged to be obsessed with dresses and make up, but I'm glad that I no longer live in a world in which six-year-old girls are encouraged to be obsessed with the circumference of their thighs.