Saturday, January 19, 2008

Real Women Have Curves

I'm finding this harder than writing every day. Harder in the sense that I have to remember to do it; when I had to write every day I never forgot. This week I was going to write on Thursday but I got caught up in vacation planning until it was time for bed. I also feel that I should write more interesting things than what's going on in my head now that I shouldn't be scrambling for a topic every day.


The other night some friends and I were talking about curvy female celebrities. You know I have a thing for funny-looking Englishmen, but when I think about women I think are sexy, I have a hard time finding them in the media. Granted, I kind of suck at pop culture these days because the only TV I watch is Food Network* and SciFi^. I think Queen Latifah is sexy, bouncy, and I love her smile. But after stating that to my friends I couldn't think of anyone else. One friend mentioned America Ferrera, who plays the title character in Ugly Betty and who I've only seen in Real Women Have Curves (an unusual coming-of-age movie in that it was about a woman), and then our suggestions ran out.


Well, hooray for Google because I searched for "celebrities with curves" and found this USA Today article from a year ago talking about how larger-sized women are becoming more acceptable in Hollywood, New York, and fashion. I also found this discussion about celebrities with curves, listing sexy larger ladies. What I noticed was this: Seven of the fifteen women mentioned in the USA Today story are Latina or African-American. I don't know a lot of the women mentioned in the discussion group but of the ones I do know, it seems many of them are people of color. I wonder if the definition of beauty is being affected by racial demographics? Or maybe it is just coming back around: Marilyn Monroe and Debbie Reynolds were size 12s, and probably so were most, if not all, of these women.


Not that I necessarily think these women are sexy:
* Paula Deen, Nigella Lawson, Rachael Ray
^ Whoopi Goldberg, Marina Sirtis

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