Fans of The Fictionista know how much I love fashion. Each year I do a fashion red-carpet wrap up during awards season. I cover the Globes, the Grammys and the Academy Awards. Last week, MTV hosted their annual MTV Movie Awards. I din’t watch the show because it’s become clear to me that I’ve aged out of being entertained by Best Line in a Movie and Best Scared as Shit Performance. But I did tune in on Monday night for E!’s Fashion Police to see what the young folks were wearing. 😉
No fashions captured my interest, but I did note another disturbing trend.
Pia Mia
Image via AP Images
Bella Thorne
Image via NY Daily News
Victoria Justice
Image via TLC
Does anything about these pictures alarm you?
To me, these young women seem alarmingly thin. When they showed the picture of the first young lady, I thought, “Okay, she’s a bit too skinny.” But only after seeing the other girls did I realize this wasn’t an isolated image. And I do mean “girl.” These are young starlets. Ages 17, 16 & 21.
One of the panelists on Fashion Police, when commenting on the fashion said, “She has a great body, but the dress is all wrong.” I was stunned. This girl has a “great body?” Is this the ideal, the size my daughter should strive for? Is this body type natural for her? Or is she starving herself to maintain/achieve it?
I could write an entirely different post about the sexualization of these young ladies and the dresses they chose** to wear. I’ll also take this time to note that the boys, who are their contemporaries, came dressed in jeans, t-shirts and jackets. Bet they were comfortable wearing sneakers and not four inch heels. Wonder if they worried about holding in their stomach?
What do you guys think? Am I being too sensitive? Or is this a real issue?
**Choice is relative here. The girls are brought a rack of pre-selected clothes and told to choose from it, all in the name of solidifying their image. Imagine having to be worried about your image at 16. And not your image in high school. Your image in front of the world.
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Now, I’m definitely not a fashionista, but even I can see your point. Disregarding the choice, or lack thereof, of dress, they look as if a good wind would knock them over. The double standard for females and males in the fashion spectrum has been decried for generations. I had hoped it was getting better, but it looks like I was wrong. All we can do is try to help our girls to fight the peer pressure and be healthy first.
I agree, Denise. It’s always hard to change what’s happening now, though we should be aware. But making sure my daughter doesn’t believe this is the key. 🙂
I think most teen girls worry about their images to begin with. I did, and that was a loooooong time ago. 🙂 I was overweight, was bullied for it, and have struggled my whole life with issues of weight and self-perception. It’s only been the past five years or so that I can look in the mirror, or at pictures, without loathing what I saw. As a mother, yes, I would be alarmed to think my daughter might have those same feelings and be compelled to virtually starve herself. I think your awareness of the issue is a first giant step to making sure your daughter has a healthy perception of what “a good body” means. Good for you.
I think the ‘culture’ we feed our daughters is toxic, it’s been this way since I was a child, and is only getting worse. I cringe when I see pregnant women keeping up with her anorexia. OUR SELF WORTH CAN NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH A NUMBER ON A SCALE. When my daughter was a child/teen/still at home, I constantly nagged her and her friends about internal organs needing room, puberty about getting hips to bear children, and curves being good. I agree with other commenters; Good For You.