Defining Beautiful

My little sister was watching “Say Yes to the Dress” on TLC yesterday when I started to notice something was framed differently about the show. Turns out it was actually “Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss”. It was a specially designed show for “larger” women to help them find their dream wedding dress. Why is it that they need to segregate women that are quote un-quote larger to their own show? Do we really hold that much of a social stigma around size that they need their own show?

I have to say seeing a separate show just for larger women made and still makes me mad. As wrong as it may be is being fat the new dimension by which we discriminate against people. TV keeps priding itself on becoming progressively more diverse and yes while you are showing these women going through the social ritual of marriage (specifically spending way too much money on a white dress) you have put them in their own category of human. They are no longer a bride, they are a “Big Bliss” Bride. By slapping that label on them to me that is as good as not having them in the public eye at all. It is a different form of censorship. It is showing that they are distinctly different and therefore need their own place in the media.

It is bad enough the covers of magazines are plastered with headlines reading “Who’s the Latest Fatty” or “Who Slipped from the Diet Wagon”. And those would be nice headlines compared to the ones you see around bikini season.

I truly don’t understand why the media can’t actually be progressive and inclusive in the end. When I first saw the movie Hairspray come out in theatres it made me so happy that they were showing an image that the “fat” girl can find happiness (even if that happiness is defined as a man). It was showing that everyone can achieve something. But now I look at what is around me and it feels like we have transformed back to the definition of skinny bitches. The Jersey Shore and Desperate Housewives version of femininity. I’m sorry Snookie but from they portray you like on TV, in my mind you are anything but what it means to be an everyday woman.

We need better images of what it is to be a woman. We need to let the world know that a woman isn’t and shouldn’t defined by her size. As for “Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss”, allow those women on your daily airing. They are no different than your other brides, so don’t make them feel different. There is more than one definition of beauty out there, so please can we establish woman as beautiful NOT skinny as beautiful!