the toxic diet culture & fatphobia of early 2000's chick flicks

:)
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faq:
-accent: lived in america when younger, ireland most of my life
-edit: final cut pro x
-study: English Lit & Film Studies, graduated in 2022

[@itslina6500]

seeing anne hathaway's skinny arms flop around as she says she's not skinny is actually revolting. like lmfao its sooo cruel. I cant believe they had the nerve

[@katherinealvarez9216]

Yeah, I never got that. I mean, first they did "Not Like The Other Girls" with Andi and then they don't go into the actual problems in the fashion industry?

[@deprimada3560]

They could have made it so much better by having her say "I know I'm not *as skinny*..." Would that have completely fixed it? No. But it would have helped.

[@FuzzyKittenBoots]

I found that infuriating. In the book Andy (who is the narrator) states that she in normal society is a skinny and tall woman compared to others. She is very very aware that it's just compared to the people at Runway that she isn't as tall and skinny and I think that's a pretty important detail and makes her decidedly more likable.

[@charlotteodonnell8175]

Like I would get it if they somehow managed to demonstrate in the movie that working in the fashion industry during the heroin chic era has warped Andi's view of herself but it was just? Gross fatphobia?

[@aliceramenhead]

@@FuzzyKittenBoots Yes!!! And in the book Andy is clearly not into diet culture. She just temporarily participates in it to adapt to her work environment, but she doesn't actually believe in it. I always thought the diet culture/fatphobia in the movie was ironic/satirical just like in the book, though the book did a much better job at it.

[@jazzclarke7128]

It was always wild to me that they tried to call Anne Hathaway fat when to me she looked like one of the thinnest people in the movie

[@jenissemichelle478]

this!!! like she seems very tall & thin-so basically the standard of the 2000s already

[@olya_17]

I really don't get what that was about.. I mean size 6. That's nowhere near fat. Even back then I wouldn't ever have thought that this could be considered fat.. The movie really promotes a distorted view of bodies..

[@JoeyisDREADful]

@@olya_17 6 is when you're officially too big for even the most forgiving runway sample sizes. That's why they were being that way about 6 in a high fashion setting.

[@user-vw2jq3to5e]

@@JoeyisDREADful THIS - it meant she couldnt fit into most sample sizes. The movie was showing the dark side of the high fashion industry, so this is why the characters were preoccupied with weight.

[@jww6500]

@@olya_17 sadly they considered it fat because sample size is 0 or 2. In the book all the employees were size 0 so Andy felt fat in comparison.

[@aliciabergman1252]

What’s even worse is how movies portray women with ED’s as difficult and annoying. As a sign of being vapid and superficial instead of a sickness. The male romantic lead would make a point out of wanting a ”real” girl who is not afraid of calories (still being thin of course) as it was the same as being genuine.

[@jessicavictoriacarrillo7254]

That's right!

[@sithiboo]

the male romantic lead and all his friends are TRASH lmao

[@emmazele7387]

Unfortunately if you don't want to be fat and away from the date market as a girl, you can't eat the same way you does when you were adolescent. I was thin and a huge binge eater, that cause me to gain weight now. It's kind of strange

[@melisacaceres8740]

Reminds me of Andy from "How to lose a man in ten days". When she was playing the annoying character, she was a vegetarian and super self conscious about her body, even sobbing when her date asked about her meal. Yet, when she was being her cool, ideal, "sexy" self she would eat cheeseburgers and pizza without any regret and remained a size 2 without any workout. I explicitly remember this because the "annoying" character she was playing was quite endearing to me, reminded me of how raw my friends were when their boyfriends weren't around.

[@khushitokas32]

How could women have erectile dysfunction?

[@ChrisBrooks34]

This is why a whole bunch of millennial women had heart attacks and panic attacks when they found out low rise skinny jeans were making a comeback.

[@anni1348]

These Low rise skinny Jeans were literally created to make you feel insecure. People could see every little piece of fat on your stomach and sitting down while having a booty, was impossible without everyone seeing things they are not supposed to see. Thank God High waisted Jeans came around and hopefully stay at the top. 🙂

[@jenkinsjrjenkins]

Being a chubby pubescent kid during the low rise flare jean era (specifically when that was ALL you could find) was an absolute nightmare. All my friends wore their low self esteem on the sleeves of their oversized shirts and baggy hoodies. I remember girls in the locker room got teased about their "cut in line," the line your skinny jeans would indent on your stomach after wearing them all day. I remember _every_ YA novel at the time talking about how "uggo" jeans looked on some girls. Fuck that era, theres no need to romanticize it like these kiddos are doing.

[@lori3670]

I literally died

[@mothma_am]

im a gen zer, and i hate that low rises are coming back. they only ever look like theyre supposed to on super skinny girls (nothing wrong with that ofc), and they're just plain uncomfortable. im pretty thin myself, but ive never been able to wear them just because i have the tiniest sliver of ass

[@zebb9528]

tbh i prefer mid rise over high and low rise. high rise looks like a diaper or oompa loompa pants and low rise shows ur butt crack most of the time.

[@bloop5337]

when ur an early gen z person so u had both heroin chic & bbl bodies as beauty standards in about the span of a decade

[@mastersnet18]

That sounds very confusing. I was already in my 20’s when thick and big butts came in style and was very confused and incredulous. I couldn’t fathom that after a century of women being told to diet, and over half a century of us being told we need to be super skinny, that it could just change overnight.

[@ziggyfox7595]

@@mastersnet18 and even with this trend we still have to be the right proportions of “fat” and “skinny” like big butt & boobs and flat stomach, skinny arms and legs.

[@jaydinj7659]

this is very true. even being born in 2002 for the first 10-12 years of my life big butts weren’t nearly as “sought” after then there was a very quick switch to larger butts and hourglass figures being what was “in”. it’s quite disorienting

[@xrrgr]

thin is still the beauty standard, bbl was a body trend that’s already dying

[@SieMiezekatze]

I was a little kid when they skinny standard was at is high, I have always being petite and being told I am not a real woman because of it since I have no curvea

[@mestyliste4618]

A note on the Devil wears Prada, as someone who worked in a fashion environnement in the 00s, the microagression you see for Andy are very real. I was once asked if I had lost weight because I was so pretty that day, looked up weird because I ate a burger, asked if a ate a whole box of crackers per day when I had one at my day for snacks and had a friend asked if she was pregnant because she had a tummy. It could be better addressed in the movie but I think it wanted to showcase how it is hard to survive in fashion without internalizing anything negative about your body. Everyone hated it back then but no one had the strenght to answer back as theses comments often came from your supervisor. 100% toxic!

[@jlbeeen]

I think we can all agree not to ask people if they're pregnant. Wait for them to reveal that, some people just have different body shapes, or may be bloated, and especially if someone has had a miscarriage, that can be really sad.

[@hang1iderswing]

It's still definitely true today. I have a couple friends who work in fashion and it's definitely very prevalent. I was talking to a friend whose job was running the social media page for a designer. She mentioned that the "sizing" they list for the models is made up. The picture will say "Cindy is wearing size 2" when really the model is wearing double 0 and it's still being held to her body with big fabric clips on the back

[@renatenha]

@@hang1iderswing oh my god! 😐

[@RariettyC]

Exactly. Especially as the movie's ending is all about Andy realizing that she's slowly becoming like Miranda, someone who has perpetuated those standards to climb to the top of the fashion industry. Andy opts to reject that future for herself because Miranda is not a happy person despite her success. The toxic rules Miranda sets (and the ways those rules impact those who follow them, such as Emily) aren't aspirational in the slightest.

[@cjminor9636]

emily’s disordered eating patterns in the devil wears prada triggered me so much on first watch. it’s still one of my favorite movies, but the scenes where she talks abt her diet + anne hathaway is fat shamed always make me so uncomfortable + upset. i could never find anyone talking abt it in reviews, so i convinced myself i was being overdramatic and it’s not a big deal, but it is a big deal, and it’s gross how normal it was and kinda still is to say things like that.

[@UltraViolet666]

Same. I think I was 14 or 15 and hadn't heard much about extreme diets before. When she was going on about all that in the hospital I was like "oh, do I need to be doing that?" I know it had a purpose in the movie, but it kinda never left my mind.

[@kseniav586]

I found it very uncomfortable as well, but I thought it was in the line with the setting - the world of high fashion being incredibly toxic so of course they fatshame her. However, I watched it only a year back so that's my woke-y interpretation and not the original intent, apparently

[@megarakadmea]

I know it’s painful to hear that sort of comment, but for some people it could be important to see that attitude from such an objectively gorgeous woman. It might not click for everyone but I think you could realize “wait, if someone I can tell looks healthy and beautiful still hates how she looks, is there a bigger problem here?”

[@realSimoneCherie]

I’m Ngl it was validating for me. It’s always validating to hear the character talk about what she is really doing to maintain a low weight even though it’s just fiction bc I know I could only do so unhealthily

[@definitelynotalizard]

That is the biggest and most harmful difference between the movie and the book. In the book this culture is shown as unhealthy and it's commented on frequently, as Andy only became a size 6 in the first place by getting a stomach bug backpacking and not being able to keep food down. Her weight loss isn't on purpose, it's because she never gets her full lunch break. She actually tries to keep eating foods like the chowder until quite late in the story because she understands these fad diets aren't healthy. Once she leaves Runway I believe it even mentions her gaining back some weight, but I don't remember the true ending as well after watching the movie so many times (I need to read the book again, she full on screams "Fuck you!" at Miranda in a fashion show, no quiet, "dignified" exit and it's so much more satisfying).

[@velvetdawson617]

with the return of y2k fashion and culture, im lowkey worried that early 2000's beauty standards are going to come back,

[@notanoracle2053]

They are already back, but dressed differently. It’s crazy to see how thinner most celebrities(especially actresses) compared to themselves 2 years ago. Sure, they don’t bost about their new restrictive diet(unless they cut gluten or go plant based), but they are making an active effort to get smaller.

[@sydneygraham1470]

Diet culture has never left us only evolved :(

[@VK-pn6rg]

heroin chic is already coming back,,, we're fucked

[@Pink_pr1ncess]

Y2K beauty standards are back but this time it’s the “skinny hourglass look” and “racial ambiguity”. Back in the real 2000s being pale, blonde, with smaller hips, and having really big boobs was considered beautiful

[@lilacfields]

TS honestly i think the white beauty standard of the 2000s is starting to come back too. the amount of tik toks i’ve seen about how we need to “move past the bbl body era” … yeah. i think people are just tired of the whole instagram influencer look and are wanting to push them away but these same influencers are the ones tanning, getting lip filler, and bbls to look more and more racially ambiguous. people starting to step away from the influencer look and body type means the people who naturally have those features are going to get pushed away too.

[@summerschultz6017]

society's ability to 'fat shame' people that are actually very thin...is astounding. perfect example of the fact that the absence of fatphobia would benefit people of all sizes, but fat people are the victim of the system

[@girlwhomustnotbenamed4139]

Yes! I grew up in the 90s and was anorexic for years and when I look back at how skinny women were at the time and what passed for "fat", I'm horrified. Renée Zellweger just looks normal sized in the first movie, we just know that that's not what she usually looks like but if I had just seen her like Bridget for the first time, I would never have thought she needed to lose weight.

[@josephinebournes8212]

Fat people are the victim of our own unresolved issues that causes us to overeat and/or the evil food industrial complex that creates Frankenstein food that wreaks havoc on our bodies.

[@juicywhore]

thats moreso bodyshaming than fatshaming, depending on the insult

[@koza9842]

We should fetishize being healthy not super skinny or overweight.

@@girlwhomustnotbenamed4139 I was a teen in the 90s and I was seeing all these people being portrayed as pretty because they're half-starved thin... I didn't think they were normal, nobody around looked like that, and yet the pressure was so intense that I ended thinking _that and only that, unrealistic & all, it's pretty_ Now I look back and I think they look awful, but in many ways, I'm 30 years too late, the damage it's done.

[@shane_impala]

Interestingly enough I think the hunger games series is the only film series I watched as a tween/teen that showed food as something necessary for survival. It also showed the main characters being disgusted by the idea of expelling food just to ingest more for pleasure. It made young me realise that food isn't something to be taken lightly and not something I could ever go without. Even when I was 14 and crying on the school's bathroom floor over my weight I still sat down and ate lunch that day. I think more films and shows need to portray food in the same light as the hunger games did.

[@elizrebezilmadommdo1662]

I remember reading that part of the second book where Peeta comments on the people at the capitol throwing up their food just to eat more while people in his and Katniss's district are starving. It really puts things in perspective of how crazy our desire to be skinny to obtain beauty in 1st world countries is.

[@ilincabogza]

!!!!!

[@ethanv.o.6455]

the best part of that for me was that katniss specified "no illness of body or mind was making them throw up", which i thought was a really good way to show that eating disorders are very much an illness just like the flu or a stomach bug

[@emjanevlogs4752]

Yes! And Jennifer Lawrence wanted young girls to look up to Katniss as someone healthy and strong

[@leaf111]

the books did an even better job, the movie still pushed beauty standards. like in the books katniss didn't shave but was then forced to by the capitol and at the end of the series she described being glad she could let her natural hair grow again and be free from these practices, but in the movie they threw all that out of the window and catered to these beauty standards book katniss was so opposed to instead, with no hair on her body

[@itsnebi9903]

I also would like to address the way in other teen movies like "Mean Girls" dethroning the queen bee is taking her "hotness" aware by making her look "fat" bc that's less desirable somehow? When Regina's doesn't get fat but wears more baggy clothes and then she's bullied bc of her weight gain, or the scene when she's trying the prom dress on and the worker says they don't sell other sizes... (Sorry if I misspelled something, English ain't my first language

[@cyt8284]

Yeah there was a chain of stores in the 90s that only sold three sizes. 3-5-7 I think. I figured the joke was about that store.

[@aliceramenhead]

Idk, for me Mean Girls functions as a _critique_ of diet culture & fatphobia, not an endorsement of it. Like in the scene where Regina bumps into a girl who's bigger than her and everyone laughs when the girl calls Regina a fatass. We, the audience, can tell that Regina is still skinny (she probably just "gained" a pound or two). But everyone in her school still makes fun of her because even though she's still skinny, she's not skinny enough to fit into her old "hot girl" clothes anymore. I don't think the movie wants us to think that being fat is unattractive or bad. I think it wants to tell us that it's ridiculous that you not only have to be thin, but _really_ thin to be considered "hot".

[@desereetouchet9294]

As a native speaker for 40 years, our spelling is messed up because English robbed several other languages for the spelling of words. I often misspell words, thank goodness there is now the internet where I can check the spelling and double check the meaning of words to reduce the mistakes I make. I’m sure that some still sneak through anyway.

[@ellabiddy4741]

@@aliceramenhead that’s what’s so absurd about these movies and this time period is what they actually called “fat” like that picture of Tyra Banks looking like a normal ass skinny woman. Like having any body fat = fat. By those standards, the Kardashians would be considered obese. We were literally encouraged to be emaciated, completely fatless, aka dead.

[@aliceramenhead]

@@ellabiddy4741 Oh yeah, the heroin chic craze in the 90's & early 2000s was freaking insane. If there's one good thing about the slim thick influencer look that the Kardashians popularized, it's that it at least doesn't encourage starving yourself.

[@elenigalanis3645]

it's honestly so messed up. I still have to actively remind myself that going to bed hungry isn't something I should be proud of

[@CathDaddy]

Oof this hit me in the gut 😅😅😅

[@minim3494]

Starving yourself won't help you lose weight anyway. It puts your body in fat storing mode.

[@chewycarnival]

@@minim3494 That's completely untrue

[@sashamartens2633]

@@CathDaddy same here:D in my hungry gut :DD

[@Sputterbugz]

it isn't shameful either. I simply don't want to wake up with a sore stomach from eating right before bed

[@Shanspeare]

Absolutely brilliant. 10/10. Amazing. Iconic. Love it

[@elleliteracy]

queens support queens

[@emilyrosefunk1342]

Love both of y’all’s channels. Love to see the love

[@jordyjordy]

Shan. PLEASE PLEASE do an analysis of the movie American Beauty. Warning though, it can be quite triggering. But I think it's right up your alley.

[@BudTheChud]

Even in the 70s, I remember watching Grease, confused that everyone said Jan was fat and she wasn’t!

[@jessicavictoriacarrillo7254]

Look up Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore and "Before and After" starring Patty Duke

[@ATwistedWonderland]

the only reason i can think of for this was so that they didn't have to change already written scripts, as supposedly jan was supposed to be played by an actually overweight actress and got swapped out at the last minute... still shitty, though.

[@trinaq]

Thanks so much for addressing "Love Actually"'s problematic fat phobia. Even as a preteen, I was always uncomfortable by the fat jokes at Natalie's expense, when she's a perfectly healthy size. I realize that it was a jab at how the media viewed Martine McCutcheon's weight at the time, but it's no less cringy and mean-spirited.

[@Disglusting]

Just wanted to say there's no such thing as a 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' size!

[@user-hi3di3zj2z]

@@Disglusting well, technically there is, but people in those situations still deserve love and respect ! And I guess that was the Spirit of your answer but I just wanted to put it out there 😅

[@inessa5923]

​@@Disglusting That's a lie, and not a harmless one.

[@Pink_pr1ncess]

@@Disglusting lmao so I guess obesity and anorexia doesn’t exist right?

[@naufalr.9521]

@@Disglusting so people weighing, like, 300 kilos is okay?

[@SomeoneLikeYou186]

I remember watching devil wears Prada with my parents and I commented that a cube of cheese didn’t seem like enough food. My mom whipped her head at me and snapped “yes it is!” It’s a core childhood memory. Battling a 16-year eating disorder lmao

[@cactiired3140]

Oh god. The 2010s thighgap obsession was one of the things that made me develop anorexia nervosa at 11. I remember looking up "thigh gap workouts" and desperately hoping my thighs wouldn't touch someday. I looked for diets and envied the girls in my class who had "the thigh gap." Hardly anyone else knew what it even was. My puberty just stopped for a few years because of my ED and now I'm short because of it 🥲 now at 18 i still suffer from body dysmorphia and other unrelated mental illnesses but I survived my ED. Sadly the way that I started viewing my thighs back then has imprinted the importance of having thighs that don't touch in my head and I still check my thighs every time I look in the mirror.

[@Chelsea-jv7fb]

Wow, I have never related to anything more. I also still check my thighs to this day, every time I look in a mirror. I’m so sorry about what you had to go through ❤️

[@cactiired3140]

@@Chelsea-jv7fb same to you ❤

[@frankieromulus6126]

Even before the 2010s, I grew up hearing in the early 90s hearing "if your thighs don't touch, you're ok" from women in my family who grew up in the 60s and 70s -- We have generations of toxic trauma to purge!

[@bassymichaelis2244]

It's crazy how we didn't heal completely yet from the actual 2000s, and they're already coming back to haunt us And to torture the new generation 😭

[@NANA-su5ql]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is short cuz of their ed, like my parents are in the 5'8 to 6'0 range and I'm literally towered over

[@amyg8176]

It always blew my mind how women have identified as their size. “I’m a 6.” How can you tell?! There’s never been a single time in fashion that womens sizes have been consistent!

[@alanacrail3244]

My jean size varies based on what brand it is. It's so weird to hear someone say "I'm a size 4". At what store? You're not a size 4 at every store.

[@homosexualamphibian359]

​@@alanacrail3244 Not the point, but this makes online shopping a nightmare

[@ReDuVernay]

I feel like it used to be much more consistent than it is now, but yeah, never 100% consistent.

[@help6691]

agreed. in some stores i fit in a size 8, in some a size 16, in some a size 10, and in some i fit in 12s or 14s. i fit in a 6 once too. nothing is the same and it’s so annoying and i can’t even tell you how shitty i feel when stores only go up to a 14 and i still can’t fit in them. i was shopping at the mall yesterday and most stores only carried 0,2,4, and 6. i almost cried of relief when a skirt that was “one size fits most” was a little too big on me

[@amyg8176]

@Stop IGBT I’m so happy for you!

[@SoVidushi]

It still blows my mind that this was so normalised.

[@greyLeicester]

Duh! You cant judge the past with the eyes and mind of the present. Consider yourself lucky my generation went through this so that you didnt have to 😉 It raised the awareness that you currently have

[@mastersnet18]

I’m glad it seems to strange to gen Z now. It makes me feel hopeful that body image and dieting really has gotten better with all the body positivity movements. It was so normal for decades too. It lasted from the 1960’s to the early 2010’s at least. Several generations of women had to deal with this.

[@vegankibum5975]

It’s still just as normalised

[@shayb8129]

I think one of the reality check moments in Bridget Jones’ Diary (the book) is the part where she hits her “ideal weight” and everyone asks her if she’s feeling okay, saying she looks tired and etc. For me it really confirmed that the rest of the focus on weight is meant to be unrealistic and unhealthy and it definitely changed how I viewed that aspect of the book (which I still find a little triggering tbh)

[@SunnyMorningPancakes]

Thank you for confirming that I didn't dream that chapter. 🙂

[@sydneygraham1470]

I feel like we need to acknowledge how this diet culture is still JUST as toxic as it was back then. It's just evolved to be more subtle and less shocking in some instances, the cycle will repeat and we'll look back horrified thinking we're "better" now :(

[@kseniav586]

Yep we're not starving ourselves anymore we're just eating ~clean~ now

[@estellehowell4414]

Yes! Just because it's not acceptable to call someone fat today doesn't the pressure to be thin is any less. I was in my 20s in the 90s / early 00s and I remember wanting to be slimmer but I never remember thinking I needed to look like a film star. I knew it was their job to look beautiful, and frankly felt lucky my job was based on my intelligence and study and not something as temporary as youth and beauty. Now younger people see a miriad of influencers and reality stars posting heavily doctored pictures on instagram pretending to be fit and healthy and feel pressure to look the same. And it's not enough to be slim, you need to eat clean, eat ethically, maybe be vegan etc etc. I think the pressure is probably worse now with social media, it's just a thin veneer of pretending that the world isn't still fat phobic has been layed over the top. You only need to look at the amount of fuss about Adele's weight loss to know nothing has really changed deep down. She's admitted she was exercising obsessively which doesn't strike me as especially healthy or sustainable but still there was way more press focusing on her "glow up" than her new songs.

[@kahkah1986]

exactly, remember in the 2000s, a lot of people felt they had 'moved on' from the 80s and 90s... although even at the time people were concerned about the 'skinny' culture

[@dontme8174]

Ah yes I got shamed for eating gluten

[@girlwhomustnotbenamed4139]

Yep, it's just now in the form of being ripped and having surgically inflated breasts and butts to go with as the new normal. We need to realise it's about control, primarily of women, always has been. We have to work hard on changing the narrative and truly teach each other and the next generations that we can indeed live our lives differently and we can check out from all this bs. But it's a constant fight bc the system will always have a new beauty standard to throw at us to worry about.

[@nanna4673]

Growing up as a big boned child who always had a love of food, in the early 2000's was... well. Let's just say the culture was really good at building up my self hatred and self disgust. I grew up believing I was worth less because I was bigger than my peers. Now as an actual fat grown up, I love my body and myself so much more, but it took a ton of work to get there.

[@eurekamreum5458]

Same! I was born in 1996 and my elementary/middle school years were hell. I was a bit chubby and got mocked constantly because of my weight, and as I grew up I started developing faster than my classmates so the bullying slowly turned into s*xual harassment. I'm 26 now and haven't been able to fully unpack all of that in therapy (yet).

[@Jarandjar]

You could've just done some exercise

[@nanna4673]

Honey, I don't even know what to say to you

[@Jarandjar]

@@nanna4673 What was stopping you from working out

[@bruhbasics4425]

@@Jarandjar The only thing stopping her, well, was her.

[@choles523]

I'd recommend The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf on this subject - really insightful and comprehensive on how the diet industry, white supremacy and patriarchy all interact to teach women that maintaining a slim figure is a sign of their strength (both morally and mentally) - but ultimately benefits these structures in the end since chronically underfed women are devoting their reduced energy (due to under-feeding) almost entirely on maintaining their looks and not on the things that really matter to them.

[@joanadias5093]

I was thinking of this book too! It's so good!

[@HT-pl8du]

Theres also a book called Fearing the Black Body that I think readers of the beauty myth might in interested in too! It's about how fatness used to equal wealth, but then after the end of slavery, black people needed to be seen as glutinous and incapable of controlling themselves which equalled fat to them. So being fat=being less human

[@aggy8886]

Damn I gotta read that book. I love it.

[@melodye14]

Definitely agree, so many more people should read The Beauty Myth.

[@user-ks9oj7zo4p]

@@HT-pl8du Just learned something today and will check that out

[@pessoinhacansada6900]

"Bottom the size as Brazil" As a Brazilian myself, it would be a compliment in my country, woman with big tights/ass are always appreciated (way too much, I would say) as the ultimate sign of femininity, and skinny girls are often told to eat more, in order to "develop a woman body". I not saying that is not toxic just because tight gap is seen as ugly over here, bigger woman also suffer a lot of fatphobia, but is interesting to see the cultural difference.

[@victoriagouveia8465]

Brazilian too. I think is actually a pretty messed up controversial culture about women's weight here. You have to have a big bottom and huge boobs, but you also must have a flat stomach (barriga chapada) and skinny arms, chest bones and REALLY SMALL WAIST. Ever since I had 10 years old, the girls in my class who were skinny but "thick" were praised while I was heavily fatshamed to the point I wore sweatshirts in a 37°C weather and almost fainted so I wouldn't be fatshamed because of my belly.

[@pessoinhacansada6900]

@@victoriagouveia8465 É aí gata 💕 Pois é, na gringa eu vejo o pessoal chamando esse padrão de "slim-thick". Upper body "slim" and big tights and ass, and its really toxic too. But in my perception, the "slim" part have a minor importance compared to US/Europe countries, especially if you're part of a "lower income families" (eufemismo do sèculo). Now, in SOCIAL MEDIA nowadays is just "welcome to body insecurity hell". I just discovered things that I never noticed there are flaws, like that "hole"(???) on the hips (hip dip I guess), I just thought that almost everyone had that.

[@s.gabriel2853]

Just to be clear, when Briget Jones says "bottom the size of Brazil" she is saying she feels her bottom looks as big as the country of Brazil, not that it looks like a Brazilian person's bottom.

[@pessoinhacansada6900]

@@s.gabriel2853 Yes, I realize that

[@andrcgs]

@@victoriagouveia8465 Same here in Venezuela :/

[@milaces1323]

I usually look back in utter horror at the things i grew up watching and the toxic notions i internalised. There's no way to build-up a healthy self-esteem when that's the media you consume in your formative years.

[@gravyall0va]

I struggle so much with unlearning this. It feels impossible

[@rosie9651]

Being a curvy girl in the 00s was one of the most gaslighting things ever. In my experience, the worst thing wasn't the media, but our parents' reactions to media. Insecure parents absorb the toxic diet culture and take it out on their kids, and that kind of abuse to children really stucks since it comes from someone we love. And just like you said, a healthy lifestyle meant nothing if you didn't "look healthy" ( = stick skinny).

[@simpleton3781]

I think that another odd side piece of diet culture is the “right to overeat” what I mean by that is the idea that if you are skinny, you don’t have to / don’t worry about eating whatever you want, however you want, no matter the portion. I remember having body and eating issues and watching my thin classmates eat so much and boast about having a fast metabolism. I’d watch them snack constantly and eat nice hearty lunches all the while me (a woc with thick genetics and fuller frame) WOULDNT eat meals and or eat until I was sick on purpose. I think that dieting culture not only critics fat people with fatphobia but then also “”gives permission”” to skinny people to eat what they want as a odd flex and flaunt. Like only skinny people can eat bc they won’t get fat. All the while, in media, they promote the paradoxical culture that skinny people eat nothing. So then there is this confusing narrative that to get skinny u eat nothing but then as a reward for being skinny you can eat more but not too much or else you’ll get fat you don’t want that. Then for me, I was in a horrible limbo of starving myself for a few days to only binge until I vomited ans repeated the cycle for like…. years. I want to say that I’m better but I still suffer from eating and image issues and I’m in my mid 20s and I had these habits from the age of 14-19 (during the early Y2K film areas of the movies listed in the video)

[@amakanzeadibe1732]

I remeber feeling like this in highschool, seeing that my thinner friends would finish their lunch with something sweet while beratted myself for eating at all. I'm still confused by the logic, "if you're fat don't eat." like, why am I only allowed to eat if I'm thin? Wasn't eating what got me here (to my fat body) and wont it make me fat again?

[@simpleton3781]

@@amakanzeadibe1732 EXACTLY!!!! I would eat next to nothing for the fear of “”appearing”” fat all while at a time when I was under weight. It think it’s ironically weird like ?? Skinny ppl can eat bc they “won’t get fat” but fat ppl aren’t allowed BECAUSE they’re fat??? Make it make sense 🤔

[@lauramagid5636]

You are so right! It is all part of fat phobia and thin privilege I guess. I know people in larger bodies, who refuse to eat in public, because they feel ashamed. It's awful! Since you still struggle with disordered eating (I've been there) I just wanted to recommend the podcast FoodPsych by Christy Harrison. It has helped me SO much. Also her book called Anti-diet.

[@simpleton3781]

@@lauramagid5636 thank you very much for the resources. As someone with thin privilege but suffers from body dysmorphia, no one offers me things bc it’s ‘not a big deal bc it’s not like you’re fat’ when the reality is that I have an odd and difficult history with food. Despite not being fat by any means. My developmental years really shaped so many horrible habits that I’ve always wished I could change :/

[@lauramagid5636]

@@simpleton3781 I feel you. Even though we as thin women don't face the same discrimination and judgment from society, we all have internalized fatphobia no matter our own size. So we all need resources like Christy Harrison's or even this video to combat the fatphobia. It hurts us all (to varying degrees).

[@maddyharvey7414]

Natalie from love actually makes me so uncomfortable. She’s an extremely attractive, normal sized woman and they just kept bringing up her weight and made it the punchline.

[@jessa9018]

Miss congeniality is also one of the one that was riddled with misogyny

[@ArushiAggarwal]

yep yep

[@smirkingdog6924]

It’s deliberately misogynistic… that’s the point

[@6ixStringStudio]

That was the point. The movie was highlighting the absurdity of the pageant industry.

[@marshalllemon6089]

También bring it on en algunas escenas

[@monaeckle]

Finally someone is talking about this! Calling Anne Hathaway and a size 6 fat is truly insane! Also hated how Emily basically eating nothing but a cube of cheese a day was so normalised, what the actual fuck

[@ambre4144]

Emily only eating cheese and Andi being mocked because she was deemed « overweight » was something that i thought was used as a satire in the movie. I come from a different culture in which eating « a lot » and having curves/fat goes hand in hand with appearing rich and wealthy. But it truly is devastating that this was the message that was sent to young girls and women for like a decade.

[@maverickbull1909]

It was never normalized. It was not normal in the movie which highlighted how different the fashion ppl were from real ppl like her friends. This is why she leaves that world because it was toxic. Literally the point of the movie. Did you even watch it?

[@Sputterbugz]

fr and I'm size 10 or 12 bc my hips are large even if I wasn't overweight. I'd never be able to wear a size 6. so I tend to think people who say size 6+ are fat is stupid bc to me, I havnt worn those clothes since I was a child. it's like saying if I'm not child sized, I'm fat and ugly.

[@jits8767]

Not to say Bridget Jones was perfect, but having read the books, I think Helen Fielding's goal was to show how incredibly neurotic diet culture makes (or made) women in their quest to find love and settle down before the 'deadline'. It is illustrated by the weird relationship she has with self-help books, and the tension with the intellectualist world of Mark Darcy, which illustrate some sort of underlying class-conciousness. Like, it is implied that Darcy is old money and Bridget is new money. While Bridget is self-made and miraculously independent, she is heavily relient on pop culture to guide her. Darcy is able to transcend pop culture, but it is also made very clear that he is a hypocrite in that sense, while Bridget's main likability factor relies on her sincerity and integrity. In the end I would say the moral of the book is that love and acceptance for women needs to transcend pop cultural neoliberalism, at the same time rejecting the established aristocratic hierarchy that is ever-present in England. You could argue that Bridget's growth relies heavily on the love she receives from Darcy, but I also feel like there are enough points throughout the book series where this point is challenged for it to be redundant criticism. I can see how the immense focus on weight can be triggering, but I think the point is to satirise, and not to ridicule. The immense focus on numbers in the book is at once to show how ridiculously unpredictable weight can be, and therefore how futile it is to keep track, and as to give an idea how dramaticly women are affected, as the books are all from bridget's perspective and just her putting 'im fat' doesn't get the message across that it isn't actually that bad The part where it gets very strange is that the film became pop culture itself, almost turning the message on its head. Just goes to show that any anticapitalist media can and will be turned on its head if it just gets popular enough.

[@jessicavictoriacarrillo7254]

I want to point out that Bridget is from the same background as Mark with bougie parents who throw bougie parties. Her father retired from being an accountant (after supporting kids and a stay at home wife). Also the house her parents lived on in the movie? Sweet property!

[@animalunaris]

In England though the class system isn’t just about being ‘bougie’, if anything, middle class social climbers are treated with more scorn than working class people who ‘know their place’, you definitely get the impression that her family are middle class people who have worked their way up, whereas Mark probably has an ancestor who was the illegitimate child of a prince. He is public school, old money, old boys club, his father was an Admiral, his family have been wealthy for many generations. Think how Kate Middleton was treated when she started dating William, her family are millionaires but all the British tabloid newspapers mocked her mother who used to be an air hostess, remember ‘doors to manual’? The English class system draws a definite line between the upper middle class and the upper class although it’s hazier than it used to be.

[@FrancisFabricates]

The first book is amazing and I hate that the movies didn’t show the growth Bridget has with it all. That she has moments where she is asked how many calories are need to survive and she stops and goes.. I hadn’t considered that. That calories are needed to live. You see her progression in the first book and it’s amazing. The first book especially is a really amazing piece of fiction that is still super empowering. The movies only focus on super specific things and really aren’t empowering at all

[@sairaaahmedd1306]

Idk I think the whole point of devil wears Prada was to highlight how toxic the fashion industry is, the fact that someone already as thin as Anne Hathaway was called too fat or Emily’s eating disorder feeling normalized just proves how crazy the fashion industry can be and how impossible or ridiculous some of its standards are that push people to partake in extreme dieting..... so I actually think it was all demonstrated really well in the movie

[@Chelsea-jv7fb]

Maybe, but at the same time when I watched it as a kid I really didn’t catch on to that. I saw that the models were skinny, and therefore were beautiful and desired in the movie. When they said a size 6 was fat, and when Anne’s character celebrated becoming a size 4, my take away all those years ago was that becoming skinny after starving yourself is a reward, and I still struggle with that mentality now.

[@Eltipoquevisteayer]

Tbh the standars were healthy

[@TimeFrost]

Oh I remember being a child watching this, this movie made me not want to be a fashion designer anymore, leaning to game design or civil engineering. Lol It was still a funny movie, watched it again as a teen and it's still funny, maybe funnier now. Was shocked when I found out people were bullied because of their body size. My family is all big bones, except my two cousins, my brother and I. My aunt would say so many guys chase after her, she refuses to find love now. Lol

[@kalync.8232]

@@Chelsea-jv7fb Well thats your parents fault, not the movies. Entertainment is to entertain and tell story not raise kids or make people love/hate themselves. I LOVED this movie as a kid. But if my mom never taught me to not take media serious or not to look up to celebrities, Id probably have ended up like you. Honestly all these movies are well written and very intentionally. Its sad people are so much victims they cant acknowledge it.

[@Chelsea-jv7fb]

@@kalync.8232 I mean, I agree with you that entertainment is for entertaining. My parents weren't using entertainment to raise me and I don't look up to celebrities and neither do my parents. I loved the movie as a kid too and still do today!! It actually made me want to be a fashion designer for a while. I was also taught not to take media seriously, but some things I think you just can't help but internalize as a kid and even now. I might have been too in my feelings when I wrote my initial comment so it may have come off like I was blaming the movie for all my problems, but I definitely don't think of myself as a victim and I wasn't intending to frame it that way. I think after watching the above video I was just kind of realizing/reflecting about how maybe some of the media I consumed while growing up might have contributed to my body issues today, even tho I still adore some of those pieces of media.

[@justaname999]

The fact that Bridget Jones calls herself fat at 140 pounds messed me up so much as a child. The book was big when I was in middle or high school and that was not fun... When you read this at 13 or 14, you cannot identify with the number of cigarettes and drinks, let alone the how to get a man content. But boy can you identify with the being scared of gaining weight and documenting it every day...

[@constantreader1422]

i remember weighing about 120 when i was twelve and my mom (who moved back in with us after sperating for ten years) put me on a diet and constantly talked about my body. i had an eating disorder for years. thanks for talking about how normalized we made this.

[@natasharules770]

I'm a size 8-10 and my mom looks for any opportunity to call me fat despite that she's morbidly obese. I think she she's me as competition.

[@funky58abi95]

I had a similar experience where I distinctly remember going to the doctor at 12 years old, weighing in at 125, and being told “Now if you just stay that same weight for the rest of your life, you’ll be okay.”

[@user-ks9oj7zo4p]

@@natasharules770 That's sick. Sorry you have to go through that.

[@Puddle]

loved this one- great analysis! as a size 20 it's baffling that a size 6 is casted to say "I'm not skinny" like some big revolutionary representation LOL

[@mastersnet18]

What’s even crazier is that the size 6 would be a size 2 in modern sizes, due to vanity sizing.

[@jlbeeen]

@@mastersnet18 Sizing is so strange. I used to get stuff from Sears Outlet before they closed, and I often found I'd fit smaller sizes there, than I would elsewhere. Like their 2 was like a Target 6, or an Old Navy 4. I don't shop at any of those places now, I have mostly thrifted stuff, but even when I bough stuff at Walmart, I fit a 4 in some things, and 8 in others. I wish womens clothes would be sized like mens, by waist measurement. Yeah it's a bigger number, but it's more accurate.

[@mastersnet18]

@Maria Puchała I’m just talking about how a size 2 or 0 from today would be the equivalent of a size 6 from back then, due to vanity sizing. Just like how Marylin Monroe was a size 12-16 in the 50’s, but that would be a size 00-2 today.

[@BlueRoseFaery]

@@mastersnet18 That's not really true, Marilyn had a very hourglass figure and in vintage sizing would have been about a 10-12 hip with only her bust being close to a 14 & her waist being closer to an 8. In modern sizing her waist would be about a 2-4 depending on brand, but her bust would be about an 8 and hips 4-6. Because of this, she often had clothes custom made or bought to fit her bust measurement & taken in, which is why she has a few clothing items that say 14-16, they were bought large & altered & some were European which uses a smaller size chart so her "size" was larger. She was not considered "plus size" for the time.

[@dashingtherouxthesnow4017]

Great to see another video of yours! The fatphobia was wild - remember how people would ask, "does my ass look big in this?" as if it was a bad thing? Whilst I've always loved revisiting trashy chick flicks (especially Mean Girls), I've always found their portrayal of women to be quite problematic - there's the fatphobia issue, and there's also the 'ugly duckling' transformation issue. Hell, there's even the whole subplot in Mean Girls where Regina's fed weight-gain bars so she'll no longer be able to wear her smaller dresses. Let's also not forget the reality TV shows at the time which were basically created for the sole purpose of making fun of overweight people - exploitative "entertainment" at its worst.

[@cherusiderea1330]

How dare you call Mean Girls trashy lol

[@dashingtherouxthesnow4017]

Also I don't know if it was shown elsewhere, but here in England between 2008-2014, we had a show called Supersize Vs Superskinny, which entailed two people with extreme diets (one super healthy, one super unhealthy) and they had to swap diets for a certain amount of time. The show was basically used as an excuse to criticise the people with the super unhealthy diets for being unhealthy + overweight. Gillian McKeith was often a feature of this show (and other British diet shows), and she promoted super harmful detox diets (and has recently been heavily active in the Covid-19 conspiracy movement). From the Wiki page discussing her involvement with Supersize Vs Superskinny: 'During the first series in 2008, one feature involved Gillian McKeith, who tried to find a way to "ban big bums" in the UK. She tested out different exercises to tone the buttocks of different groups of ladies, and made a leader board for the most effective.' I really don't miss this era of TV

[@alepvl8951]

@@dashingtherouxthesnow4017 Didn't Gillian McKeith have a fascination for people's poops and was making health assessments by looking at it? Or I'm misremembering? Also, the super skinny people didn't always have healthy diets, they just ate very little food. It's been a while since I've seen some episodes on KZbin.

[@mastersnet18]

@@dashingtherouxthesnow4017 that doesn’t even make sense with the big butt thing, considering that alone isn’t unhealthy. A big stomach is what is unhealthy.

[@dashingtherouxthesnow4017]

@@alepvl8951 yeah she's literally got 'the poo lady' in her Twitter bio lol

[@kateb2643]

Ugh 2000's media really had me thinking that size 4 = chubby = unacceptable. I was only a size 2 at 16 and still came to the conclusion that skipping as many meals as possible was a reasonable thing to do

[@Retrogradegirl]

Heroin chic was the 90s because of its ties to drugs by the 2000s the same figure ditched the name and became more with 'health'

[@itsastrofloof]

i rewatched sailor moon recently and it was almost unwatcheable with how much literally everyone body shames serena/usagi

[@espeon871]

Thats why manga> anime cuz the anime really changed it a lot to include more of those type of “banter” in an attempt to be “relatable” and manga has less of those weird story lines

[@espeon871]

Seriously it was so shitty especially in the english dub it was so shitty like wtf

[@IlikepurpleXP]

It’s funny bc she’s literally the same size as the rest of the girls on the show

[@frosinicapandispan5534]

Japan has messed up body ideals. I was 50 kg and this little japanese boy asked me if I was pregnant( I'm 1,70 cm)

[@lasshaley]

The Bridget Jones thing is a perfect example of how depiction ≠ endorsement. It’s very clearly a critique. Bridget, in defiance of the internal and external forces telling her she needs to lose weight, finds her own happiness even if she is not completely free from the trappings of the culture that spawned those desires. It’s a very honest depiction of what disordered relationships with food are actually like. It doesn’t matter if you’re thin or not, if you keep receiving messaging saying you’re too fat, eventually you start to internalize it. The fact that the movie showcases her weight gain as unflattering doesn’t mean they are implying she’s too fat in actuality. Depicting the weight gain in a way that portrays how Bridget feels internally about it gives us insight into her character’s struggle. The media definitely misrepresented the actual message of the film, and Renee Zelwegger has every right to express the same feelings of discontentment with her figure as the character herself experiences. To say otherwise is toxic positivity imo. I take issue with the claim this movie is toxic. Triggering for some maybe, but its aim is certain not to reinforce the false promises of diet culture.

[@tahsina.c]

Exactly a lot of people don't understand what satire or social commentary is in these comments...

[@electricpurple4112]

Oh please. Everyone knows that the writers knew it was a cruel story to unleash into pop culture. If they knew it was so wrong they wouldn’t have made the film or written it that way. It’s not a classically good way to do commentary, it falls on its face because today we can recognize it was a mess.

[@sykoelf]

Thank you for this. I first watched Bridget Jones when I was 13 and when I tell you, I saw my future.. oof. I have always been someone who straddled the overweight/chubby/average size line. What Bridget was speaking was exactly what my teenage brain was thinking and would continue to think for a decade. I was putting up photos of models I wished I could look like on my walls before I even saw the movie. It really captured the internal struggle around body image that women deal with. When I rewatch the movie now, as a 30 year old, I don't see Bridget as fat, just as someone who struggled with self image because of all the comments made around her. Just like when I look back at photos of varsity swimmer high school me, I don't see a fat girl, I see a fit teen. I was stuck in that mentality because of everything that was communicated around me in the early 00s, just like Bridget.

[@anna-ie5lk]

Did you watch the video? She said that although the film itself was overall not depicting weight in a toxic way, the promotion of it was, which unfortunately impacts how the film is viewed

[@verybestandmilkyestcow4623]

As a fat black girl (who's always been fat) born in the early 2000s it just really shocked me to see how much beauty standards has changed when I growing everyone mad fun of me for my weight all the way up to 7th grade when the standard started to change around now all the natural thinner girls I was jealous of we're jealous of me wanting to be "thicker" I spent my whole life hating myself and now all of a sudden it's the trend now people love my thighs and my stomach when I haven't even been given a chance to love it myself it's just a really fucked up system that doesn't work and we need just stop all it, and at this point the only way we can fix it is to burn it to the ground rebuild. Edit: I shouldn't even have to say this but the situation I'm describing right now is the popularization of BBL culture. For about the past 5ish years the thicker body has been the goal like Kim Kardashian beyoncé Nicki Minaj everybody wanted to look like that and then the bbls don't even get me started on those. And now the BBL era is over but it just ended so please don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. And also even if you disagree it's personal experience, PERSONAL BLACK GIRL EXPERIENCE I was just trying to share a story about what I personally went through it has nothing to do with y'all. So no I don't care about the two white woman in the comments arguing with me on this chill out. Stay safe and Happy Black History month.

[@Notsoinnocent666]

Sorry I don’t think a think girl would be jealous from a fat girl , we are just trying to be nice , being fat is unhealthy and uncomfortable

[@verybestandmilkyestcow4623]

@@Notsoinnocent666 thank you for the perfect insight into people that you don't know and fat is unhealthy but being fat doesn't always mean unhealthy educate yourself.

[@qsm2978]

@@Notsoinnocent666 whereas being skinny from calorie restriction, purging, and water fasts is totally comfortable and healthy? screw you, you only care if people "look" unhealthy, not if they actually are. we can't even get past "skinny =/= healthy" in 2022, how embarrassing

[@Notsoinnocent666]

@@qsm2978 I am not promoting being extremely skinny or otherwise but it is a black and white thing , fat = unhealthy…. Fat = lazy and no will power deal with it

[@Ana-sj5xx]

Tbh, thick is not even that much of a trend anymore. We're going back to the skinny era, with Y2K style and tumblr girl style. Sucks that body types can be "trendy".

[@Ametcitra]

This is very fascinating. I recently became disabled and gained a lot of weight due to a combination of medicine side effects and lack of movement. This has gotten SO MUCH push back from the women in my family, all of whom I'd argue deal with disordered eating. I get constant comments on my eating habits. Here's the interesting part: my eating habits haven't changed much. I have some sensory issues with food so my diet has always been a bit restricted in the "unhealthy" direction (fast food, snacks etc) and while I was skinny no one said ANYTHING about my diet. At one point I only lived on chocolate bars due to a deep depression stopping my will to eat anything else and no one spoke up or worried about me. But now that I've gained weight suddenly everyone has thoughts on what I should eat. I never reflected much on the disordered eating habits around me growing up until I gained weight because the juxtaposition between the lowest points of my life that were "fine" because I was skinny compared to this part of it where its suddenly not fine cuz I'm not is so odd. I'm not going to lie and say I'm at my happiest, but I'm definitely doing better than I have before and yet! And yet so many older people suddenly are so very "concerned" about my "health" now. It made me realise just how weird and intrusive diet culture is and it's made me question so many parts of my body image growing up. I can't believe we all thought this was normal

[@elikakashani4427]

Hi there, I know i’m a stranger but just wanted to say stay strong! Im sure trying to adjust to becoming disabled and starting new meds is already taking a lot of your energy, and weight gain is not/ shouldn’t be your concern now. I hope things get better for you and you grow into a satisfied and stable self, surrounded by lots of genuine love!

[@Ametcitra]

@@elikakashani4427 Hi, this is such a sweet and kind reply. Thank you so much

[@qsm2978]

the doube standard is nuts--you can be a 106 pound person who smokes a pack of newports every day and skips all three meals, but if you're a 160 pound person eating one burger suddenly you're on a s**c*de mission and don't care about your health even though you're actually healthier than the 106 pound person

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

Can completely relate to this challenge! Meds + impact of chronic illness on ability to exercise + just getting more middle-aged has meant a big change in body shape for me too...? I've been so extremely fortunate in NOT having family or friends who try to feed me toxic messages about it, but the adjustment has still been challenging. I feel really grateful to have already ground my way through a lot of body image issues & confusion around how women are socialized re weight when I was a teen, so although this new illness-related body is not what I'd prefer, I don't regularly beat myself up about it... It's impossible not to be aware of one's diversion from surrounding norms though.

[@treblemaker21]

"Diet culture is being replaced by wellness culture." Preach! I 100% agree.

[@varshini555]

with the egirl aesthetic being the most popular(even though there are a few more popular aesthetics, those too are mostly centered towards skinny white people) and the increasing hatred towards a few fat people with "extreme" values and takes, sadly, the skinny and super skinny trend is coming back I don't think it ever went away but with increase in body neutrality culture where being healthy and glowing up is the focus these days, there's a certain standard that's there for what's "aesthetically healthy" (- 17yo teen who's on the border of falling into an ed but trying her best not to)

[@alannahchambers9367]

Ahh we believe in you! You can do it, it isn’t worth it AT ALL. Believe me

[@varshini555]

@@alannahchambers9367 tysm

[@JulietteKernDiamond]

Hang in there love, just know the Ed voice will never be satisfied. You'll never be pretty or perfect enough for it. I had Ed at your age and still struggle with bdd and disordered eating. Anyway don't give in and work on your inner life being as kind and light as possible. 🙏💕

[@UltraViolet666]

Honestly, when i fell into an ed at 19, I got help very early and it helped me get out. You should do the same, if you can xoxox

[@shakiragini1650]

Heyy an 18yo here if you need someone to talk to I'm here. Been struggling with an ed for a few years already and would do everything to save someone from it.

[@beth-bi9yv]

The preoccupation with weight is so pervasive in society. I was anorexic at 15years old and you would not believe the number of strangers who complimented me on my body when I was at my most unhealthy weight. this just reinforced that my worthiness was tied to my weight. I am not anorexic anymore but I still struggle with being confident in my body now and I know so many other women around me share these struggles.

[@taylorgayhart9497]

For me, when I think about the early 2000s in diet culture, I definitely think about the tabloids you would see in the grocery store, with covers of beautiful women, but with every single pound of fat and imperfection circled and highlighted. I distinctly remember one cover that was covered in celebrities with the “Worst Celeb Bodies of 2005”! It was all relatively fit and healthy people, but god forbid they had a tiny bit of cellulite.

[@yagirl1014]

The line in Devil Wears Prada calling size 6 the new 14 always makes me cry because im a size 14 and ill NEVER be a size 6. And Anne Hathaway calling herself fat in this movie makes me so redicioulsy mad she is very underweight.

[@32fps]

Hey, don't sell yourself short. I was a size 12/14 all my years growing up. Then in my mid-20s I developed an autoimmune disorder and dropped down to a size 4/6. Now everyone who knew me before compliments me, going "oh my gosh you look so good!" and I get to reply, "Thanks, it's because my body is trying to kill me" 🙃

[@kirstedock77]

I remember reading that the actor who played Natalie in Love Actually had been on a popular TV show. She had had an illness (or possibly injury..) that had caused her to gain weight and the tabloids had dragged her for the gain. The calling out of her weight and the constant push back that she isn’t was a choice to respond to what she was going through in real life. She’s the woman that two of the most powerful men in the world find incredibly beautiful (although Billy Bob’s POTUS is sooo cringy) and that seems to make a statement all it’s own. I will say when this film came out, I loved her character so much that I got a red jacket and white angora burette to look like her.

[@elisehopkins9260]

To my friends in recovery please do not take the trigger warning at the start of the video lightly. This video features pro ana pictures that are extremely triggering. Don’t ignore the tw. ❤️

[@celestedray4096]

One moment that has always stuck with me is a scene from the first Sex and the City Film where the three of the main girls outright body shame Samantha for putting on a marginal amount of weight on her stomach and this is the first thing they do her after not seeing her for months. I internalised this so much that still to this day if catch up with someone I haven’t seen in a while, I’m paranoid they are going notice any weight gain on me right away or worse, feel the need to comment on my weight 😔 These movies, as much as I love them, really have done some serious damage on us all.

[@diabloakland]

I remember this! And think about it all the time! She literally looked great

[@LookItsTy]

The early to mid 00's and the idea of diet culture and weight back then was why I suffered more than ten years with an eating disorder. It's even sadder now looking back on it and hearing just how skinny people expected to women to be. Also now that I have transitioned the body ideals for me have completely changed and the male/masculine side of ideal bodies is just as bad. Just awful. Really awesome video! I love using my noggin while I get through my day.

[@sam02082]

The term "heroin chic" was associated with the 90s, but yes this was such a toxic era! So thankful for our body positivity emerging nowadays, we need more variety in our media

[@SevenEllen]

Which eras WEREN'T toxic? This is all about money, not people. The beauty industry doesn't give a damn about people's health, happiness or how much respect they give to themselves and others.

[@zyanyaruelas6636]

Growing in the 90's - 00's meant facing very hostile and cruel media towards us.

[@user-ks9oj7zo4p]

And as a female POC especially.

[@Ashtree28]

Genuinely thank you for this video. As a chubby kid who grew into a chubby adult, I have always had really intense body image issues. Having not watched these movies since I was a kid/pre-teen, I had forgotten how pervasive the fatphobia was, and it makes me so angry to realise that so much of the media I was consuming had these damaging ideas that undoubtedly affected my hatred of my body. And don’t even get me started on the teen magazines of that time that basically primed us for diet culture - as literal children! I am so fucking mad!

[@aminadiouf1113]

I also noticed how they often make the love intersest (like in Love Actually) look sort of righteous for having the incredible courage that would take dating a woman that's a size 40 ! (irony of course). Like "look at how nice and incredible that man is for not caring how much his love intesest weights", like what the hell ? Litteraly giving applause for a fish swimming.

[@oliviadauber2150]

A totally random thought, but I find the number amounts that people give for weights in stories are often incredibly inaccurate to what those people may actually weigh. I was looking at Renee Zellweger, not knowing exactly how tall she is, but knowing if she's any taller than 5'2," that's not what 130 pounds looks like. I remember reading a description of a 5'9", absolutely brutish and hulking woman... nearing 160 pounds! Which, forgive me, is fucking ridiculous, because I'm that tall and I know what 160 looks like on me and it's 15 and lanky! Really quite thin! (Haven't even that low in a while now, admittedly.) Just a thought.

[@emilyglass6625]

I remember reading a mystery novel once that made me SO SAD, in several ways, but not least bc part of the point was that the detective duo were supposed to be these very compassionate and kind characters. But the narrative, through their eyes, could not stop fixating on the disgust they felt at this one teenage girl’s body. Within the context of the story, she’s an abuse survivor, and they know this, but they can’t stop picking over every detail of her body that grosses them out. And they come to the conclusion that she’s gained a supposedly ridiculous amount of weight on purpose as a way of protecting herself from her abuser. Which, last I heard is very sketchy psychology about fatness, but even if this does happen in some cases, the sad part of the story is NOT that now a detective thinks she’s ugly, and that’s very hard on him! Oh, and I believe the girl, who is also very tall, is described as 14 stone. Which, I learned by looking it up, is not even AT ALL heavy for a very tall woman.

[@CathDaddy]

You are absolutely right!! 160 on me is my skinny weight 🤣🤣

[@LeahInTheRye]

I'm 27 years old now, and literally only just realized that this accounts for a lot of the issues I've always had with my self image. I'm a big girl, never like the girls I saw on TV and much bigger than the women who were classed as 'fat' on TV. There was an obsession with perfectly flat stomachs - something I've never had. I grew up MISERABLE and truthfully I still struggle with this to a large extent. I understood that my entire worth was limited by my weight. This video is so important!!

[@mysticalpineapple7263]

2000’s diet culture is creepin back..

[@migaish_]

So I had to google what 136 pounds is (Aussie here), and that's only 61 kilograms. That's 10kg LESS than the average weight standard for women in Australia and the UK 💀 This vid popped up my recommended and I really enjoyed it! Very good analysis

[@emilyglass6625]

I’m glad Mark Darcy loved Bridget just the way and the weight she was. But as a plus sized young woman watching the movie, I could not take for granted that it wanted to include me within the range of women who might feel insecure sometimes but are lovable just as they are. I specifically remember the publicity around the movie obsessing over how brave it was for RZ to gain weight for the role and be seen “that much bigger.” I also remember early 2000s objections against impossible beauty standards often taking the form, “My body isn’t even that big! Beauty standards that exclude my size are just too much!” It wasn’t about justice for all bodies, but about moving the goal posts… a little. Bridget Jones felt like a story that was asking if this one girl, “almost too big to be allowed!”, could count as one of the acceptable bodies (provided she was also very charming, feminine, pretty, and relatable). In my case, this huge degree of suspense over a barely medium-sized body really sent me the message that I was out of the question, not that I also deserved respect and love.

[@mmps18]

I was just talking about this!! It was so weird how in the 2000s having a booty was supposed to be so unattractive. It was a strange and not good time to be an adolescent seeing that media 😅

[@mastersnet18]

Yea it was a bad time to be pear-shaped

[@FrancisFabricates]

Something that makes me deeply sad is that Bridget Jones’s diary the book (the first one) was ridiculously important for calling our diet culture and how toxic it is. If helped me understand I had and ED. The movies didn’t show any of that and I hated it. The book has an incredibly powerful moment when someone asks Bridget ‘how many calories per day do you need to survive’ and she stops and realises she had never even considered that. They had only ever been something she felt she had to fight. That food was the enemy and not something that was needed to keep her alive. That nourished her. The first book is really progressive and I wish people would read the damn thing. The movies are a cop out. She also has an amazing moment when she hits her ‘goal’ weight and everyone is shocked and worried about her. They are asking if she is sick and she starts to spiral because ‘this was my dream, this was what I was meant to be look like why is no one congratulating me?’ You really see the pain she feels and the way her mind shifts towards a healthier place because of all of this. It’s an intimate and important honest journey of someone who has disordered eating. I wish more people would pick the book up. To this day those moments from the books help me with my own journey with my ED,

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

It's really sad that more intense critique of dieting crazes didn't make it into the film!! 😔 Wouldve been super-valuable esp in contrast to the prevailing culture at the time. As the video presenter notes here there is a degree of satire around how female weight is treated in BJD, but so much of it get played for laughs that it actually IMO veers off into mocking the character's struggles? And the impact of dieting on holistic health really doesn't ever come up, even though the impact of weight gain on mental health definitely does. I always struggled with how Bridget and Natalie's characters were framed as "plump", but it's particularly horrifying to hear the stats quoted here re how skinny they already were in relation to averages for their demographic? 😱 The films definitely did NOT make that clear and the publicity around the movies was just frankly sickening & misogynistic in the extreme...

[@FabalociousDee]

Wooow, that sounds beautiful. It really hints at Bridget showing growth on her own rather than needing Mark to do it.

[@angryowl5972]

2000s diet culture didn’t just affect women. Children were given “kid food” and then were fat shamed for eating the food that adults fed them. I think older GenZ folks are very much aware of this and continue to suffer from really messed up relationships with food and their bodies.

[@voillardg666]

it's really painful, isn't it. when people only see you as "the fat one". when they smile and spend time with you and it's all in good fun, but when you're not around all what's left in their minds is "the fat one". because it's easier to explain to others! because that's the first thing everyone notices and they never look past it.

[@agstinacueva1673]

Truth is fat people are still beautiful. Its just thin people wanting to have the light on them 24 7. I grew up being the fat friend and nowadays suddenly guys want thick girls 🙄

[@moonflower6607]

​@@agstinacueva1673 can't speak for everyone but i think because it's a fetish? (the saying for it being "when you're fat there's just more of you to love")

[@charischannah]

The only time I was "thin" as an adult was after I'd spent nine months throwing up due to extreme morning sickness. Right after my daughter was born, I was at the "ideal" weight for my height. And I felt like crap. People complimented me on how healthy I looked, but I didn't feel healthy, I felt miserable and sick. Once I could eat again, I regained the weight I had lost. And while I'm currently trying to implement a regular exercise routine for myself because it's good for my overall mental and physical health, it's not about losing weight.

[@lils2721]

the ‘thigh gap trend’ in the 2010s really ruined my body image as a child

[@AragornElessar]

same. I was a teen in the 2010's and my body image was not okay.

[@ValenchuuDirectioner]

since you're bringing it up, your analysis of fatphobia within the devil wears prada towards anne hathaway, reminds me of that interview around the time she was doing press for oceans 8. she recalled a time where she felt insecure due to post pregnancy weight gain, but went to work anyways, and was so surprised she was instead complimented by her co-stars. im heavy, and while i resent the heroin chic phase for making me think i was so fat when i was in a much comfortable weight, i dont blame women who were poster girls for this era. they were victims too, even if they hurt others with their statements. im not familiar with the scale system bridget jones uses to inform us of her weight, so on my initial watch i missed the part where she ends the movie heavier and happier. so thank you for pointing it out, it changes the film a lot for me in a very positive way.

[@carolinpurayidom4570]

I don't mind her trying to go off cigarettes and alcohol as those are actually unhealthy but she is only doing it for losing weight.

[@helvete_ingres4717]

being overweight is also unhealthy...

[@peace1112]

Exactly, actual health is not about having a thin, toned, 'glamorous' body

[@hellobecky84]

You highlighted so well things that I grew up just glossing over, particularly in a movie like 'Devil Wears Prada,' which I enjoyed and watched so many times. Cannot imagine how damaging these images were to so many girls and women.

[@lisabelw7782]

I read the Bridget Jones's Diary back in 2006 when I was only 13 and subsequently started documenting my weight and food intake. As a slightly chubby 13-year-old I must have missed the point that weight doesn't matter.

[@jif635]

Honestly, I don't trust my eyes anymore, as a kid consuming all of this media, if the narrative said the character was fat, I believed it! So I remembered these characters as thicker and "unattractive". Now I look at them and think, what the heck was wrong with my perception?? They're all thin!! (Especially Bridget Jones, that one shook me.)

[@BellaSwan18]

Thank you so much for making this video. I struggle a great deal with body image and internalized fat phobia, and I am challenging these narratives as I go through therapy. It’s encouraging to see others tackling it and breaking it down and talking about how it can be so pervasive in everything.

[@verycoolperson9713]

Also this is coming back, in the ballet core aesthetic if you aren’t skinny you aren’t achieving the aesthetic. I’ve done ballet since birth and I’m not the waif thin girl, I have 100% been turned down a role because my legs touch each other.

[@lexismith8325]

Hmmm, I disagree slightly on The Devil Wears Prada. I think it was clear that calling Andie fat was ridiculous, and the audience was supposed to feel “wtf” the first time it was mentioned. It was showing a juxtaposition between the reality of high fashion, and our reality. Plus, with Emily, she was hit by a car and didn’t go to Paris, highlighting how toxic and frankly unnecessary her extreme weight loss methods were- in the end, her weight didn’t matter, and neither did Andie’s. Andie went to Paris because she was next man up. At the end, Andie did shed some of the runway-esque look, but did keep nice clothes, better haircut, etc. She had more pride in herself which was shown through her appearance and how she carried herself. Just my thoughts, others can disagree.

[@lexismith8325]

I also don’t think there was any indication that Andie was starving/eating less on purpose.

[@goostiel4379]

I blame my body dysmorphia diagnosis on the toxic diet culture that was so prevalent when I was growing up in the early 2000's. I don't think I would have ever developed a disorder like this if it wasn't for the culture I grew up surrounded by.

[@auntyamelia6906]

I'm so sorry

[@JulietteKernDiamond]

Same 😭

[@Ariannagxo]

I grew up watching this woman complaining about being 135 pounds and getting ridiculed by everyone around her then wonder why I get insecure about weighing 170

[@sarahellis7252]

Glad to see you're back! I absolutely love your videos. I'm glad you took a long hiatus. Sounds like you needed it. Have you heard of Maintenance Phase? It's a podcast that focuses on debunking health fads. Your final comment about how diet culture has been repackaged as wellness culture reminded me of it. That is one of the topics they explore the most. I think you'll really like it if it's something you're interested in.

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

Ooh, recommendations for good podcasts (esp ones with a sociological bent)... my catnip! 😁 Thank you for the tip!

[@aldogrof6700]

12:20-12:35 but remember the film is from Bridget’s perspective so when she interacts with other women she could have skewed pov of those experiences since she has completely internalize her weight anxiety.

[@styxthistle497]

Even if a film is critiquing a toxic environment, just hearing a skinny person get called 'fat' is crushing. What's also really bad is how we internalise the need to be thin, then risk hurting the people around us when we verbalise that we're not thin enough, because they could internalise it too.

[@phoeberose2429]

I remember thinking that Natalie was chubby purely because it was implied by every character but then rewatching it recently i was like what the hell she's skinny

[@JustJen1386]

Love this, it was really helpful to hear how pervasive these messages and images were while I was growing up, and so it makes sense why I have so much trouble looking at myself in the mirror since I’ve gained weight

[@elisedeplantes9948]

It’s crazy because I read the Devil Wears Prada not that long ago and though weight is mentioned heavily when Andy refers to other ppl working at Runway she’s not intentionally starving herself to fit in. She likes to drinks sodas and soup unlike her peers but she’s always almost starving because she doesn’t have much time to eat during the day due to overworking and stress. It is mentioned at the end of the book tho that she is slowly gaining weight and eating more after she left Runway

[@TheEtherny]

19:12 I feel we've been overcorrecting the "not like other girls" trend so hard that now anything deemed "girly" is seen as good just because someone said we've been shitty towards it for long enough, and while I agree we should let everyone be...no, fashion, altho fun and impactful, should never be compared to journalism which can actually make changes around the world other than "heeey, mom jeans are cool again and big butts are still trendy! What do you mean our models are still too thin? Surgery? Never heard of it"

[@pastelcloudpainter]

Yeah I'm glad someone brought this up, since one of the things that bothers me about critiques of the Devil Wears Prada where they criticise Andy for her internalised sexism (which she definitely had) is that they tend to skate over the difference between the type of stories she was working on at her student paper vs. Runway magazine. When she's showing Miranda the clippings of stories she wrote for her university's newspaper, it's clear she was doing investigative journalism exposing worker exploitation. While some fashion magazines do carry stories about other issues (Teen Vogue for example has had quite a few stories recently on issues like gun control and intergenerational trauma) Runway is not that sort of magazine. In one scene, Miranda complains that she doesn't want to do a story they had planned about female paratroopers anymore since none of them are slim enough. Like yes it's snobby (and sexist) of Andy to assume fashion is worthless, but it's also true that Runway (especially Miranda) does not care about covering the kind of issues Andy wanted to write about. When Andy's friends and parents raise concerns about Runway taking over her life, part of their concern stems from how she isn't getting the opportunity to write about issues she cares about and how she seems to have suddenly stopped caring about everything other than Runway. It's one expression of how the toxic work environment has started seeping into other areas of her life. That's the whole point of her leaving Runway to join another newspaper, it's the move which allows her to regain control over her life and reconnect with who she really is outside of that toxic environment.

[@mv9653]

Teen Vogue had articles about intersectional feminism. Seventeen had articles debunking pseudoscience. It isn’t a binary.

[@loki1456]

I can remember refusing to wear shorts in the summertime or wearing board shorts over my bathing suits obsessively when I was a teenager. I hated my body and it took me years to become comfortable with my body.

[@meganinthemountains]

The redeeming part of the Bridget Jones book is that when she finally achieves her goal weight, her friends say she looks worse and she then kind of lets go of the weight goal.

[@stro-ganoff]

Glad to see you back! Hope you're feeling well since you had covid ❤️

[@Fullmetal1890P]

Ex-model here, but I always just assumed that it was a play on how strict and cutthroat the fashion world is when they were calling someone as thin as Anne Hathaway "fat." Like, yes, in the real world, she is thin, but in the fashion world, not so much. The modeling world (and I suppose the fashion world as well, though I didn't find this problem existed *as much* with designers as it did with those of us paid to wear their clothes) IS incredibly toxic when it comes to body image and weight, and it's displayed here pretty accurately. I think it would have been even more accurately depicted had she been a model, rather than the lacky of a magazine editor (though, quite frankly I doubt she would've even been hired as a model back then), but no, it's not entirely unrealistic for people in that world to view her that way, which is exactly the point. Fashion has always catered to the thin, and at the point this story was written, "heroin chic" was at its peak. Average people just sort of ignored this in favor of idolizing these extremely thin models, but this film sort of brought a bit more attention to it than was previously given at the time. It's because of films like this that the modeling and fashion industry *did* change (a bit). It has a long way to go before it really starts catering to *everyone* but it definitely has changed quite a bit (especially compared to when I was working in it).

[@EmilyWhite2013z]

The critique here is not that the film portrayed this toxic mindset, but how the director chose to frame it. Not only is there little pushback on people calling the main character fat, she even gives in to peer pressure. Andy could have still lost the weight, but had they shown the nitty gritty of eating disorders (like the lost tooth enamel, or the fertility issues, or any of the other physical pain) it would have showed they knew how serious it was. It’s softly critiqued, but mostly glamorized. They didn’t even have to show the physical destruction happening to the main character, it would have been more believable to have an older person in the fashion world demonstrate the long term damage it can have on the body.

[@sashamartens2633]

@@EmilyWhite2013z well to be fair, Andy did not loose so much weight to loose teeth, or fertility. If the subject would have been brought up at the cost of the other assistant that was eating a cube of cheese a day - that would be realistic and hit home.

[@inessa5923]

I payed no mind to these things on TV until I myself developed issues with weight and food. Even when I was underweight, I'd watch and feel like every character that made a "silly, funny" remark about someone's body or eating habits was actively bullying me. Like a dagger to the heart.

[@michellerhodes9206]

Thank you so much for making this video. When I was in my 20s in the mid 2010s I wore a size 4 (US) jean. I thought I was still too big and needed to loose weight, because I had hips. Growing up in the late 90s/early 2000s and constantly being surrounded by all of this crap did this. Ultra low-rise pants only, "muffin tops" (gag), diet culture, "just eat a salad", thigh gaps, bullying, fat shaming exposes on every newsstand. Women who were literally killing themselves body and soul to be just a little bit thinner... and we all thought it was normal. Now I am in my 30s shopping anywhere between a 4 to an 8 (depending on brands because yeah, apparently women also don't deserve standardized sizing) and not giving a toss about the number on the tag. Because I'm finally starting to enjoy the body that I have. Am I always happy with it? Of course not, everyone has insecurities. But I'm beyond thankful that I came through that flaming dumpster fire of anorexia praising assholes relatively unscathed, because so many people didn't. Love yourselves ladies. Love your bodies, and your brains, and your beautiful bright souls because you deserve that. Be well and healthy.

[@_wvo]

I went up a size in pants recently and my god it really got to me. I usually don't tend to care about my weight but this made me realize I still have the internalized ideal of the flat stomach and thigh gap plus the unhealthy ideas about losing weight as well. Thank you for making it, it made me think about some things and was overall just really interesting. The journey to body positivity and selflove continues!

[@triinbean]

I loved this video so much, not just for the actual film reviews but for the media that surrounded these films at that time. You gave such a well-rounded opinion UGH!

[@teresamesa]

and this is why i thought i was monstrously fat at ages 13-18 when i wore a size medium in zara. it was a wild time.

[@hannas9087]

I'm so glad the thigh gap isn't as desirable anymore as it used to be 6 years ago. I remember a girl in my class coming up to me and some other girls saying: "Here's a test to see if you're beautiful" and she made us press our knees together to see if there was a gap between our thighs. And there was a sleepover party at which some girls found scales and girl after girl would weigh herself. It was such a toxic environment, I'm glad I didn't develop an eating disorder, although to this day I still struggle with feeling comfortable showing my body when for example I'm at the beach.

[@calabrees7]

so glad you're okay! thank u for the vid

[@maja-rl6lk]

this was so interesting and so nice to watch! i'm really glad i found your channel!

[@e11esounds]

Well done. The 00s were so toxic, as were magazines. I am still struggling to order my eating in a healthy way in my mid thirties.

[@papush22]

I just came across this video very randomly but I must say, thank you very much for this! FInally someone has addressed this issue. Being a teen during the 00's was a lot of pressure and the diet culture was definitely one of the biggest triggers of my eating disorder.

[@shezambreen2362]

your voice is so eloquent and lovely to listen to! thank you for this well thought out video, your accent is beautiful too!!!

[@mushfrogmushfrog]

I needed this. I'm a UK size 10, I'm bang in the middle of "healthy weight" BMI for my height, and yet, like Bridget, am convinced that I'm fat, and like Andy, internalise the notion that smaller = better. I definitely hold my value and self worth against my weight, which have nothing to do with each other, but my brain often forgets that and reverts to trying to convince me otherwise.

[@Lizzie-ve7kt]

I mean at least Hugh Grant’s character doesn’t think Natalie is chubby, it’s kind of refreshing that she doesn’t have to change anything about herself to catch his eye and have him want to pursue her.