The incredible shrinking Tyra

During the America's Next Top Model finale episode a couple of weeks ago, Tyra was looking especially gaunt and unattractive. I didn't really care why until I read this. Turns out, she has lost 30 pounds. In five months.

For those who have forgotten, or who don't really care, Tyra was photographed looking fat-ish at an unattractive angle a few months back, and was then ridiculed by the supermarket aisle tabloids. She took the bait, and claimed she had fluctuated a lot since retiring from modelling, yes, but that she liked her normal and healthy body just fine. She appeared on her talk show in only a bathing suit to show off her figure. She said she was 161 pounds at her heaviest, up from 120 at her youngest model weight. As I railed at length in a January post, seeing a 5'10", 160 pound woman as fat is a sign of skewed body image. 160 pounds is in the normal BMI range and the 36th percentile for Tyra's age, weight and height--i.e., totally normally and healthy. On the other hand, 120 pounds is underweight.

If Tyra lost 30 pounds from her heaviest weight, she is now at 131, which is around the 5th percentile and five pounds away from underweight. And that's if her starting weight was 161. Much lower and she'd be ineligible to walk the Madrid catwalk, where models under 18 BMI are banned.

Let's assume she's still within the normal, healthy, range. I can't really fault her for changing her eating habits and taking off a few pounds, I guess. But she has lost 30 pounds. In five months. And during those five months she was simultaneously launching her "So What" campaign, striking back at the tabloids and hyper-thin models, and making a big deal about choosing two whole "plus-sized" models to be in the running towards becoming America's Next Top Model (though, conveniently, both were devoid of personality and the ability to pose and were eliminated early).

As much as I appreciate the lip-service Tyra gives to loving-your-body, is her waning figure mixing the message?

P.S. Check out this shot of the ANTM Cycle 8 winner. And her winner photo with Tyra.

Fashion ecology

Here's a questionable benefit to poisoning one link on the food chain: the vultures of Nepal are getting their own restaurant. The daily daily special is diclofenac-free cow. Apparently, the vulture population in South Asia is threatened by the widespread (though illegal) use of the drug diclofenac to treat inflammation in cows. Drugged cow carcasses poison and kill vultures. The restaurant managers are attempting to boost the dwindling vulture population by collecting sick and dying cows that have never been treated with the drug. Once dead, the cows are presented for local vultures to snack on.

In unrelated news, a popular London restaurant is currently offering up free meals to models threatened with an unhealthy Body Mass Index. Minus-sized models can present an identification card with their clothing size on it to receive the grub. The restaurant is getting some good press for the program; whether they save any dwindling models is another matter. Skinny models may find eating to be so detrimental to their livelihood that offering the cow (or, if they prefer, "charter pie containing leeks, chicken, and bacon") for free may be insufficient incentive to fatten up.

In Madrid, a larger carrot is being dangled. Models there can now be denied runway access if their BMI drops into carrion territory. The policy was set after a rise in eating disorder-related death within the modelling community; recently 5 models were barred from appearing on the Madrid catwalk until they "fatten" up.

Though other fashion capitals are talking about adopting a similar policy, unhealthy body and body image has poisoned the water, and it could be some time before cultural obsession with the unnatural evaporates. In Spain, for example, plastic surgery, often with walk-in appointments and financing plans, is so common it was recently added to the monthly inflation equation.

(Sadder still is what is being dropped from the equation. Apparently money once spent on cloth, upholstery fabric, and most appliance repair has been diverted for the repair and maintainance of a certain corporeal aesthetic.)

But it is not just our wallets that are affected. A recent study highlights the deep inner reach of body image consciousness, and the detrimental effects negative self-image can have on our physical and emotional wellbeing. Dr. Lora Park, of the University of Buffalo, New York, developed the appearance-based rejection sensitivity (ARS) scale to measure "the extent to which people anxiously expect to be rejected by others based on their looks." People with a high score are those most likely to think of themselves as unattractive and to base their general self-worth on their appearance. In Park's study, a high ARS score predicted that subjects were also likely to be anxious, neurotic, insecure, and to not eat well.

These results are disturbing given the current push for heightened image consciousness. The question is whether kicking a few models off a catwalk will do for the general human population's body image what the diclofenac-free cafe has done for South Asia's vultures.

Tyra Banks: Normal is the new fat

The story goes that Tyra Banks googled her name plus the word fat. Try it. Results include this and this. Tyra was hurt. Tyra, it turns out, is not a cold-hearted superbitch who dances through a broken shoe heel, screws her head back on straight, spews out a self-righteous lecture, then spouts a speech nearly identical to the one that came the week before while shattering the dreams of America's Next Most Forgettable Personality.

Nope. Apparently, Tyra is not only the architect of a successful budding empire; she also has feelings, and those feelings are understandably offended by the cruelty of those who are gleefully peddling the image of "fat"-Tyra-in-a-swimsuit, and word that Tyra's weight is out of control since her "retirement" last year.

In her supermodel heydays, Tyra looked something like this. She weighed in the 120s. Now, her weight is fluctuating, but Tyra says her top weight has been around 161 pounds.

Let's put this in perspective: At 5'10", that weight places Tyra's Body Mass Index (BMI) within the normal range. In fact, according to this BMI calculator, Tyra's top weight is in the 36th percentile for other women her age and height. In other words, approximately 36 percent of women her age and height weigh less. Again, this means Tyra weighs less than average at her top, post-retirement weight. At her lowest post-retirement weight, around 140, she is in the 11th percentile, and also in the normal range. If she weighed 120 now, she would be underweight, and under the 2nd percentile.

I'm not sure how sorry to feel for Tyra. I think she looks great for an android. (Sure, she is not wearing a swimsuit in this photo. Raise your hand if you are over 30 and think you look good in a swimsuit.) Though I am not Tyra's biggest fan, I respect her. It takes a strong person to withstand the kind of criticism she is getting without racing to the toilet. But I watch ANTM. I've watched her tell countless young model-hopefuls with a dab of belly fat that they need to lose weight to compete. This may be reality, but I wonder if she could do more than perpetuate the status quo from her influential position.

It is the rest of us, however, that allow the reality to exist. We may rail against the fashion and modeling industries for their treatment of women's sizing and body weight. We may lament the epidemic of eating disorders among young girls. Yet when a fashion and modeling industry icon "balloons" to a normal and healthy weight, she is widely ridiculed. Those of us who think this is ridiculous need to speak up louder than the image-peddlers if we want to be heard.

Calculus, coffee, cars, and cleavage

In the past two days, Salon's Broadsheet has covered two instances of businesses using sex to sell their wares. Yesterday, they covered the edifying combination of sex and tutoring in Hong Kong, where one of the largest tutoring competitors boasts it has the sexiest (female) tutors around. And today, honorable mention was given to a delicious Seattle story about a coffee shop where a very scantily clad woman works it while steaming milk.

So I read this story with compounded disgust: A Bay Area Lexus dealer has settled a lawsuit alleging that at least five women were not only treated to the usual in sexual harrassment, but generally forced to use their sex appeal to sell cars, encouraged to show cleavage during sales, and, in one case, subjected to having a skirt pulled down during a pitch in front of a customer.

Apart from the combination of sex and sales, the third story is significantly different from the others. The sexy barista is shaking while she stirs of her own accord, presumably because she finds it helps to bring in customers. And I guess the tutors know about the Hong Kong company's ad strategy when they take the job. Perhaps a few pretty (and I hope smart) women sought the job because they knew they had the bodies for it and could make decent money.

The women employed by the car dealer, on the other hand, were subjected to expectations and treatment beyond their own desires. But the three stories make me equally uncomfortable, and seem somehow related. Women in all three are encouraged by the prospect of increased sales (or by men who are enticed by the prospect of increased sales) to use their bodies to sell. Say what you will about a striptease empowering women; to me, these stories provide a cautionary tale, for both women and the men seduced into spending by them. Not that individual women who are objectified deserve to be, or that individual men who objectify women are not responsible for their behavior, but that, on a larger scale, if we as a society take frequent advantage of the fact that objectification sells--on either the buying or selling end of the deal--I fear that we must be saddened but not too surprised when the objectification slips out of our control.

Return of the Jungle Girl?

The parents of a girl who went missing 19 years ago at the age of eight in Cambodia are celebrating what they say is her return. A young woman, being called a "jungle-girl", was found in the forest scavenging for food. Though some are skeptical, a family has claimed her, and they are undergoing DNA tests to prove she is their daughter.

One strange piece in the reunion story is that the woman does not speak. An eight-year-old would have acquired the family's language before disappearing. But if she has indeed been living in the jungle for 19 years, it would not be terribly surprising if she undergoes some language and culture shock as she reenters village life. A psychologist is travelling to the remote village to assess the unusual--and potentially research-worthy--situation.

Please leave your political views at the security checkpoint

A man has been kicked off of a flight for wearing a T-shirt with some words on it. The man hoped to be a passenger on an Australian Qantas airline flight, but was removed because his shirt read "World's number 1 Terrorist," under a picture of our beloved George W. Bush.

He is the most recent victim of a strange phenomenon: would-be passengers removed from or denied access to a flight because of the words or images they wear. In some cases, passengers were removed for offending other passengers, or for their potential to do so. For example, in August 2004, a young man was kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to take off a T-shirt with a depiction of bare breast on it. This case is not unlike a more recent incident in which a woman was kicked off a Delta flight for breastfeeding her child. Sure, in the latter case the passenger was not wearing an image of a breast but using an actual breast to feed a child, but it would seem there was no chance of either a nursing mother's breast or the image of a breast causing an actual security risk.

In most cases, however, people who are grounded for their attire are expressing views against the current U.S. administration, or having something to do with terrorism. In October 2005, a woman was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight for wearing a shirt with pictures of Bush, Cheney, and Rice, and the line, "Meet the Fuckers." Here, of course, the shirt contains both a statement against Bush and potentially offensive language. But in another case, a man was booted from a British Airways flight in 2003 for a button that read, "Suspected Terrorist". Strangely, it seems he was removed not because the airline took the button's line literally (if only terrorists were so easy to spot), but because of the word, 'terrorist'; the man reported that when he asked if it would be OK to wear a button that read "Terrorism is Evil" he was told that this would also get him kicked off.

The strangest case of all is that of an Iraqi man who was refused entry on a Jet Blue flight in August of 2006 until he removed a shirt with some Arabic writing on it. Although the shirt read simply, in both Arabic and English, "We Will Not Be Silent", the airline reported that some passengers were uncomfortable with the Arabic writing, which, you know, could have said anything.

Incidentally, it is not the law that kept these people from flying, but the airlines' vague policies, which seem to either prohibit certain language (apparently regardless of context, and especially if worn by an Iraqi citizen), or accommodate other passengers' potential or actual discomfort.

At least some of the offending ticket holders surely meant to engage in a peaceful protest, to express their views and sensibilities through the words they wore. Perhaps not all passengers could be expected to stand alongside the shirt-wearers' views, but it is a sad time when people feel they are entitled to fly without being subjected to other peoples' views and sensibilities. And it is an even sadder time when simple words are routinely mistaken for threats, offense, or action.

Silicone, paint, and yards of double-sided tape...

That's what celebrities are made of.

Award season is in full swing. Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, and the various Guild Awards are enough to keep fancy clothing designers and acceptance speech writers (if only there were such a thing) in business. But these awards and their ceremonies are a mere prelude to the most spectacular of all awards show spectacles: the Oscars. I watch the Oscars every year for two reasons: first, because I like movies, and, though every year has its Titanically tragic missteps, the Academy Awards are genuinely the most important awards in Hollywood. And second, of course, I watch for the glitz and glamour, the auditorium packed full of fabulosity. In short, for the front row view on a universe that seems to run parallel to my own.

It’s like this: at some point on each of the greatest television shows of our time, a character comes dangerously close to missing prom. Perhaps their dream date ditches them, or they mistakenly believe that it is unimportant that they go to prom, like because prom is just so establishment and a stupid ritual that forces people to spend way too much money on clothes and conform to someone else's ideal of beauty. Fortunately, a true friend helps them to see that if they miss prom they will regret it, soon and for the rest of their lives. A few less fortunate television-souls realize too late just how horrible missing prom is, and their losses are healed only when a belated prom is thrown for them in their living rooms. We’ve all seen that episode (unless we are this guy).

I watch these shows, and I think, Seriously?!

I did not go to prom. I was one of those characters who just didn't get why it would be interesting. Except I'm still waiting to feel sad about it. Maybe I should keep a disco ball and some old tunes in the closet and a therapist on speed-dial in case that ever happens. But I’m pretty sure there are two types of people in this world: those who believe they will be unhappy if they miss prom, and those who know they will be never really miss prom. And I am reasonably sure I am one of the latter.

I have sometimes felt it would be nice to be a fly on the wall at such an event, though—dressed in jeans and invisible, taking in the ritual as a non-participant observer. Apart from the golden statue idolatry, this is approximately what watching the Oscars is like for me. I am mesmerized by the people who, like those of my high school classmates who breathed for prom for weeks, seem to sincerely regard this evening as Significant and Worthy of all the time, resources, and concern they’ve put into it, the ones completely horrified at anyone who makes a fashion blunder, or whose appearance reveals a cavalier attitude toward the Event. Personally, as I watch all those important people navigate the red carpet interviews, I try to spot the ones who are there just for the punch. For example, I think I caught a bit of (slightly self-congratulatory) perspective shining through George Clooney's award night make-up last year.

Part of my confusion and awe stems from the weirdly heightened image-consciousness of these special occasions. We expect that, come prom night, that acne-encrusted, greasy-haired kid that sits in the front row of math class will be buffed and combed just a little, that hairy legs will be shaved, mascara will be there where it wasn’t and thicker where it was. Here, our greatest overpaid actors have it rough. Our starting vision of them is as flawless, airbrushed, scripted, reshot beauties, and they must show up to the Oscars as prommed-up versions of that, trying like hell to hide the fact that they, also, are real, blemished, wrinkled, sometimes inarticulate people.

This is a lot of pressure. A recent story on CNN.com uncovers the incredible technology and art behind Oscar glam: silicone breast enhancers and nipple covers, tape, spray-on muscle-contoured tans, more tape, hair extensions, and even more tape, tape, tape. It takes hours and hours of overtime for make-up artists make a few people look, if a little stiff, like reasonably close facsimiles of their on-screen selves as they shimmer and sparkle and tell people who they are wearing.

Normally, the resolution of our television screens helps keep these measures secret, smoothing the edges and hiding the tape and fake tan lines. With the spread of HDTV, however, lines of all kinds are emerging. That’s right—the high definition of high definition television reveals not just incredible detail in the hairs on a zebra’s ass, but more than a few human pimples. I haven’t experienced this for myself, but if you’ve ever seen a Charlie Rose interview and realized, Wow, Robert Redford really is in his 70s, I imagine it’s something like that.

So here’s where things get a little weird. The response to the HDTV effect has been…an increased demand for plastic surgery. Obviously. Which makes me wonder at what point technology will reveal so much reality that these poor actors will stop trying to hide that reality with more technology (and tape). I'm not sure whether they go it for themselves or their audience, and maybe I’m too oblivious to understand, but it seems absurd to demand of our stars that they not reveal their or reflect our own aging realities. A 40-year-old woman can look like she has the skin of a 20-year-old on-screen. Great. But shouldn’t we all know on some level that there are a few wrinkles underneath, just as we knew what was hidden under our classmates’ cakey prom make-up? Come Oscar night, I have no real problem with stars covering up their blackheads and thinning hair, but it should be done with a bit of a wink. We should realize that, when actors return home from the after-parties their Oscar gowns may fall to the floor to reveal a few stretch marks and sagging bellies. And if we all know and accept this, at some point the amount of plastic and silicone used to maintain the "secret" seems just a little ridiculous.

Seriously, Gizmodo...

Stop. You're going to hurt yourselves.

There are mature adults who are interested in gadgets. I would guess most would prefer not to wade through the adolescence on your site to get to the good stuff. Really, you do some good work, so I say this with love if not total respect: if you would ever again like to see the shape of a breast in your home (perhaps even one not made of plastic and metal), grow up already. Believe it or not, not all bloggers need self-cleaning underwear.

(Apologies to all for sounding crude, but it may be the only way to get Gizmodo to listen.)

Are Gizmodo's Boys baiting the feminists?

Or are they really this lame?

Back in 2006, the Gizmodo Blogger Boys compiled a charming end-of-year list, entitled "Pictorial: Top 10 Blogger Babes of 2006".

Reaction to the post was, shall we say, informative. I scrolled to the bottom of the page, looking forward to a little justified outrage in the comments, but what I found were comments generally along these lines: "Veronica Belmont should do something with that hair" (posted by "Vagitarian") and "Didn't know there were sexy women bloggers -drools-[...]Xiaxue and Veronica Belmont are the top two of the bunch, but Xiaxue has that... certain (insert-french-phrases-here) about her, shes hawtness personified" (posted by "Deviant Spawn").

OK, so at least some of the readers of Gizmodo are also idiots. Outside of their own creepy following, though, Gizmodo's Blogger Babes hit the blogosphere with gusto, spawning reactions from, among others, Feministing, who dubbed this the "[p]uke-inducing post of the day", and Broadsheet, who summed up the post most simply and poetically: "blech".

I should say I don't read Gizmodo, a "gadget guide"/blog. My more gadget-inclined husband does, or did until recently, and he likes to share the most egregious posts with me. So it is mainly because of him that I've been tracking the Boys' continuing strange representations of femaledom from their MacWorld/CES coverage, and I'm rounding up the best/worst here:

First, there is something a little creepy about the body-part-by-body-part angles in this video, shot on a cell phone at some party they were clearly excited go to, and even more excited to get kicked out of (for shooting said video). There's a breast-view-first shot of a head here, a leather-heeled foot shot there, a Look!--off in the distance is a woman in a dress about to crouch shot, a quick shot of a cute guy, then back to more breast shots. Let me tell you, Blogger Boys, you can make fun of the party now if you want to, but getting kicked out of a techie party for shooting video of women you wouldn't be in the same room with otherwise is not that cool.

Second, something equally sad about this post, in which Matt and Charlie check out a Sharp/Nascar venture. An actual woman plays a rather superfluous role in the beginning of the video, and gets honorable mention in the synopsis, as the "cute Sharp girl", as if to say, Look, a cute woman employed by the company running the booth is talking to us!!

Third: I just have nothing whatsoever to say about this post.

And finally, and most recently, a very strange entry. The title, "The World's Sweetest Boothbabe" had me unsure whether to be ready to "stir up the chicks", as my husband (ironically, I think) calls it, or ohhh and ahhh over a cute baby picture. Then I saw the picture, which at first appears to be an abandoned baby face-down on a table, and was disturbed. Next I realized the "baby" is in fact a doll, and wondered why the Blogger Boys bothered to take, much less post, a photo of it. And, finally, I read the post, which recounts a strange exchange with an actual Booth Babe, who assumes the geeks with a camera want a picture of her. In the end, I can't tell whether this is another I-talked-to-a-woman! post, or whether, perhaps, the boys mean to point out the irony and general ickiness of the Booth Babe phenomenon (for good discussion of such, visit Salon's Broadsheet here and here).

Blogger Boys of Gizmodo, I don't know you. Maybe some of you are well-rounded and kind individuals. But I sense that some of you would benefit from some positive attention through real interaction with some real females, the kind that may be hard to come by through computers, video games, and visits with the Babes of Boothland. Good luck with that.

Ringing out the old: The 2006 list of 2006 lists

There is something about year-end lists. For me, it isn't the end of the year until the end of the year lists begin. It is then that I am reminded I will soon have to write a new number on my checks and in my journal and in the one or two other scenarios in which a computer doesn't date my life for me. I am reminded to make plans to avoid the approaching mayhem surrounding the worst excuse to drink yourself into a stupor, light things on fire, and go for a drive since July 4th.

That's right, I'm a bit of a New Year's Humbug. But this time of year is a natural time of reflection as well as a reason to go out of the house in costume. What have we learned this year? What are the most significant events, cultural, political, and otherwise? And, most importantly, who are the hottest people doing (in)significant things today?

These are some 2006 round-ups that have captured my interest in one way or another so far, ranging from the reflective to the funny to the disgusting.

1. Topping my list is this gem from gizmodo. It was not the first list I'd seen this year, but it was the one that inspired me to move my fingers from the mouse to the keyboard and create this collection. Reactions to this post seem split between those expressing outrage at the inclusion of several not-quite-hot-enough-for-even-a-geek-to-fuck bloggers to those expressing disgust at the sexism underlying the existence of the list itself. I'd tend to fall into the latter camp. What is the relevance of these bloggers' cleavage, anyway? And just how creepy is it that some of these photos appear to have been snapped surreptitiously by some geek-stalker's cell phone? And how can I get a shot at next year's list? Focus my energy on good blogging or on finding a good plastic surgeon and photographer?

2. Perhaps the guys at gizmodo are emulating some of the men profiled in the next list. The Top 10 Sex Stories of 2006, posted on SFGate, has it all: law, order, scandal, sex toys, cross-dressing, sex-with-scientists. Best sex story of 2006 in my book? Joe 'Girls-Gone-Wild' Francis gets his comeuppance.

3. Now I'll restore the feminist balance with this intelligent synopsis of some significant national and global events in women's issues this year from Salon's Broadsheet. [Note to Broadsheet's bloggers: how about throwing some photos up there for the fine gentlemen at gizmodo?]

4. Next, check out Science News' Environmental/Ecological stories of the year (and scroll around for other science news of the year.

5. Finally, another Salon list that is also a gift of sorts: Thomas Bartlett's top 20 free Salon downloads of the year.