Hard Out Here

Lily Allen recently came out with a song called "Hard Out Here" and I am obsessed. It is about the struggles and pressures celebrities face every day. 

Lily Allen is bigger than the "Average" celebrity, but by no means fat. She starts the video by getting plastic surgery with her manager yelling at her, as well as a music video of half naked girls dancing around. 

The song basically mocks celebrities and how they are so caught up in their lifestyle. Her manager is criticizing her for her weight and she explains how she just had 2 kids.. So of course she doesn't have the same body she had when she was younger. 

This song got so much attention, and some of it was negative! I think because she mocks so many celebrities, and points out the hard truth that other celebrities ignore. 

In her video she makes words out of balloons which is blatantly mocking Robin Thicks "Blurred Lines" which completely objectifies women. I love Lily Allen even more after this song, she made such good points and finally stood up for what most women don't. 

Using rape to justify behavior? Not ok.

Scandal is a newer show on ABC. Its about a woman who is a "fixer" of problems in the political community. She had an affair with the president, and there have been points of the show where they focus on the president wife and somewhat present her in a way that she is the one we should hate after all of this. 

In last weeks episode, there was a series of flashbacks on the president and his wife's journey to becoming president. We saw the Mellie, the wife was raped by the presidents father. I guess it was to "justify" her behavior and help us understand why she is the way she is. 

At first, I felt sympathetic for her. Having to be married to a man who's father sexually assaulted her, and not ever feel like she could tell her husband. Thats horrible and heart wrenching. It did help me "understand" why she was such a nasty character about everything, not just the affair her husband had. 

But... after surfing through Cosmo I found an article that made a really strong point. Yes- the episode does point out that we shouldn't jump to judge people because we don't know their past, but it's also claiming that being sexually assaulted justifies a women being "tough" and being able to stand up for herself. Thats not okay.The article pointed out how this has happened on multiple shows. 

I mean sure, it's great that these women are able to be strong after everything that has happened to them, but why is it that so many "strong" and "tough" women on TV are sexually assaulted? 

(On a side note, the show posted a warning before an episode where a male character was going to be tortured, but not before the episode where Mellie was going to be raped.) (And yes, it showed no skin, but we watched her get raped.) 

OTH and Anorexia

An episode of One Tree Hill was on the other day. Yes, its a bit cheesy, but it has given some great messages throughout the series. The episode that was on today was showing how different each characters lives had become in the last four years. 

Brooke Davis- who was the "popular girl" and kind of a bitch through high school now had her own clothing line. She was walking through her office looking at their plan for the next months magazine and there was a picture of a size zero girl on the cover. The first thing Brooke said about it was that they needed to change it immediately because "anorexia is a disease not a fashion statement." 

This really made an impact on me because its true. So many girls feel the pressures to look as small as the girls on the fashion magazines because thats what they're shown over and over again. 

As the show goes on I remember Brooke getting a lot of beef for this because she was standing up for what she believed in. Time and time again this happens. It's a shame that there is controversy over something that isn't even that big of a deal. 

It's a pretty well known fact that time changes things. People, our environment, laws, etc. Ideas change and grow to adapt to certain situations. However, one change throughout time has had an insidious effect on people, specifically girls. 

In the 1960's, Time magazine had a woman on the front who would now be considered "plus sized," saying that it was a good thing to have your thighs touching, or to have more "curves." Somewhere along the way, this idea got lost in a flurry of "pro-ana" (pro anorexia) and "pro-mia" (pro bulimia) blog posts, pictures, and mindsets. Thinspiration suddenly became popular, encouraging girls to choose between a snack or a thigh gap, a sweet or hip bones sticking out. This media is most prominent on the social networking site Tumblr, but it's making its way across the board. 

Girls (also boys, but less so) are constantly being barraged by this type of positivity about eating disorders or disordered eating,  and are often falling victim to it. Up to 20 million women and 10 million men will be diagnosed with an eating disorder. There is an innate pressure to be thin these days, to have your hipbones and collarbones sticking out and to have a thigh gap (which is only possible in girls with certain body shapes). 

Sure, people change with the times, but this change in the ideal body type is causing deaths all across the nation. Perhaps it's time for a new change, that promotes self-love and body acceptance, instead of constantly feeling the need to change.