Great White Snark: I'm not a beauty queen, I'm just beautiful me.

{DISCLAIMER: This post is a rant. As such, it is long and disjointed. Also, the language might be kind of salty.}

Right. So my mom and I subscribe to Us Weekly for the lulz. Whoever gets it out of the mailbox first gets to read it and write in notes with a Sharpie for the other to enjoy later. This is just kind of a thing we do.

Well, last week's issue came in and this was the cover. No biggie, because celeb trash mags sell pretty much on the premise of either a) embarrassing pics of celebrities doing things like picking up dog poop or having (God forbid!) cellulite, or b) info on how to make you more like said celebrities. Well, this one was one of the former. And in order to be like a celebrity, you obviously need to be built like a celebrity.

But not just any celebrity. You have to be built like the Kardashians or Victoria Beckham.

It just PISSES ME OFF that this magazine had like a 40 page spread of "hot beach bods," and there was NO. VARIETY. Every single girl in there looked like the two on the cover: thin, tanned, with unrealistically large breasts and their bones sticking out. And then people wonder why 24 MILLION people in the US alone have eating disorders.

It's just angering, because there's this crazy unrealistic ideal. According to the National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders, only 5% of American females have what media portrays as the ideal body type.

(See how nice I am? At least I protect the identities of people I'm about to publicly trash.)
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. This is NOT natural! It's not even anatomically possible without the assistance of some major surgery and God-knows-what-else.

And I love it, because like, about a month ago, Us named Jessica Simpson their style icon of the year. And they trumpet around all this garbage about how even though she gets ragged on for her weight, they are accepting and she is beautiful! Was she featured in the hot bodies issue? Hell no, she wasn't.

Women, according to the media have four distinct categories: perfect (see above), too skinny, too curvy, and unhealthy (obese and skeletally ill women). And each of these have their own stereotypical personality types, too. The perfect women? They seem shallow on the surface, but really, they are misunderstood, deep thinkers with a heart and a soul beneath their inflated breasts. The too skinny women, like Keira Knightley and Zoe Saldana, are secretly in denial of their eating disorders. Curvy women, like Adele, Jessica Simpson, Christina Hendricks, and a slew of others, get thrown into this "I'M BIG AND I DON'T GIVE A DAMN" category. They get made into these ridiculous oversexed, overconfident versions of themselves, because it's like the public won't believe that it's possible to not be "perfect" and still be an okay human being. And the "unhealthy" women, the ones who are way too fat or way too skinny, simply just don't care about themselves. They're probably also on drugs because they're just that messed up.

It's NAUSEATING.

Look, just because you're an hourglass figure doesn't make you a sex symbol like Marilyn Monroe. Just because you're tall, thin, and have A-cup boobs doesn't mean you're secretly hiding some kind of life-threatening eating disorder (it doesn't automatically make you serious and into indie stuff, either. Just saying). And some women are just naturally kind of bony or kind of thick. And you know what, ladies? Even though you are SORELY underrepresented on the glossy pages of these sick-ass magazines, YOU ARE OKAY.

While I was fuming about this, I, providentially enough, came across the following video on Tumblr (which even though I don't have one, is probably my favorite website). This girl is HILARIOUS and accurate, and I just wanted to share.
WARNING: CONTAINS INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE. Don't watch at work or in front of sensitive family members.

My only qualm is with the fact that her self-acceptance came with a boyfriend. But you know what, that's real life. Plus, she only tells us this to make the point that we are, almost always, our own worst enemies.

Anyway, TL;DR: the media is crap for showing us only one type of body and telling us it's the only good one.

Kudos to Glamour magazine for being the ONLY one on the market who truly embraces a wide variety of body types. If you're interested, too, I read this book and it truly changed my entire outlook on body image:

Crystal Renn is probably the most famous plus-sized model (I think she's like a size 12...plus? REALLY?), and she wrote this book detailing her struggle to fit into the modeling world, her battle with severe eating disorders, and how she managed to accept herself just how she is and is making more money now that she has. It's really eye-opening (and just a juicy good read), so I definitely think everyone should read it.

Anyway, that's my latest rant on the ever-pervasive issue of body image and media. It's just a load of crap, and as long as you are HEALTHY, you are JUST FINE, whether you're a size 4 or 14.

And now, a relevant picspam: