*Update* This piece was long and I was so upset ("my feewings wuh huwt") that I just wanted it posted, so I later made revisions to improve its readability, just improve the article's quality. (We should all simmer on huge entries!) Enjoy!
This outrageous (literally) GAP ad is the buzzing news, destined for infamy:
"Put some pants on!"
Small Text: "Because we can't all look good in shorts."
Photo: Huffington Post & Stephanie Marcus
Ex-squeeze my love handles, er I mean, sexy hips?
How insulting!!! As someone of the cellulited-gender - yes, entire gender (heck even a man I know *hushnottelling* has some on his rear end), and past the stickly teen years, I'm horrified. I fear further for the eyes of the larger-sized than I.
Ugh. I call for a boycott/protest of GAP. Quick, someone start a Facebook campaign for that one! Check! Done! Look below to "like" the page! (Related in the buzzosphere, Target boycott, read all about it, if you haven't yet.)
Seriously (although I'm dead serious about the boycott, too!) though, cellulite is normal. What's abnormal is airbrushing and photoshopping. What's wrong is hiding normal, yes even healthy, bodies from public eye.
And what I learned recently, a while before this ad, is that "public eye" does not just mean magazines and TV. It means beautiful, healthy, slightly less healthy, etc., women of small, medium, large sizes - great legs or not - are afraid to bare those legs. But we have a right to bare legs! Because we feel our legs are "less worthy" than those in fashion ads (please!), we might opt only for bermuda shorts. Even when those shorten us (our legs), and therefore, widen (our entire frames). Short-shorts lengthen like a great pair of heels. So yes, they even thin us out, if a pear-shape is our problem.
Asking the question, "should some people not wear shorts?" (the Frisky) due to this ad is understandable coming from a shocked viewpoint. But asking that question is also akin to asking,
"Should female human beings not wear shorts?"
It's ridiculous. Sure, not all women have cellulite - but they should merely wait a few years. Even thin, toned middle-aged women get cellulite ... as low down the leg as the back of the knee. Still, we can't ban shorts for women over 35, can we? What about those with beautiful curves and cellulite at 19? When will it end?
The slippery slope argument can be made, and made well I believe, in the shorts debate.
I've already written my plea to women of today in a draft for a future post about staying cool & stylish in the summer heat, but I will steal from it.
Don't be afraid to bare your cellulite. If you don't feel hot enough to stay cool in the epitome of summer fashion -shorts, you might just be wrong. Curves and cellulite are absolutely normal, and we need more images of these things, of real women, in the world. ... I won't be ashamed of something that's absolutely average.
Maybe I hate other parts, but I can live with even the least thin parts of my legs, and the rest of the world should too.
What about you? Please make some sort of pledge. Comment, Twitter, Facebook, Blog.
And please like the "cause" on this Facebook page that I did just create.
The code is below. But it's hard to read.
Ella M.
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