Rihanna’s CFDA dress

Music, acting and being beautiful is not enough anymore. A lot of celebrities and wannabes either say, wear or do something controversial. It gets people talking. It doesn’t matter whether you liked what they did or not. All that matters is that you are thinking, talking and writing about them. This I believe is the reasoning behind Rihanna’s latest publicity stunt. In the CFDA’s fashion awards, Rihanna wore a bedazzled, all-revealing dress that, well, revealed almost everything. People (like me) will be talking about this dress for a very long time. Why did she wear it? WIll you say that she was brave or stupid? Was she making a statement, and if so, what was the statement? Do you like the dress? Would she lose or gain fans because of this? Would more and more females wear outfits that are similar to this?

Rihanna is a huge celebrity and fashion icon. People of all ages and sexual orientations adore her all over the world. No doubt that this wardrobe choice will have reached the four corners of the world before I even publish this article. I am very curious as to how this would affect the wardrobe choices of females around the world.

Does it matter if women wear this sort of clothing?

More importantly (for me), to what extent will this change the way boys and men think about women?

Would parents and teachers educate boys better, i.e. make sure that they do not objectify women and treat them as mere sexual objects?

Or would parents and teachers be far more stricter to girls by enforcing hard rules on wardrobe choices because they fear that males (and most of society) will not respect them if they appear ‘slutty’?

 

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Stop Fat Shaming

Here is a black and white photograph of a naked overweight woman with the writing “Thank you for hating my body” on the front of her body. This photograph was taken on the blog site tumblr.com.

Nowadays a lot of people think that being fat is bad, regardless of the cause. There is widespread stigmatization of overweight people as being lazy, stupid, jolly (for men), unattractive, sick, and many others. Such negativity towards overweight people can be seen all over the media. TV programmes in channels such as Nickolodeon and Disney, which are aimed at children and teenagers, all have skinny protagonists. Most of today’s popular singers, actresses, actors and models are skinny. Even news presenters on TV (I only watch BBC news) are fit and slim. Because of these, negative attitudes toward people who are overweight are reinforced, and are mostly turned into hatred against them. These are probably the reason why this picture was taken.

It is noticable that the woman on the photograph does not look happy. The way that the slogan is written on her naked body and not on clothes is probably a way of telling people that she knows she’s overweight and she knows that because of this, people hate her. By writting THANK YOU FOR HATING MY BODY suggests that she assumes that people automatically pass judgement on her based on her weight and not on her whole personality. She also did not specify who hates her. The message is clearly for everyone- for people of all ages, sexual orientation, ethnicity and culture. The picture is in black and white, not in technicolour, which probably suggests that she feels the stereotype is a known fact to everyone.

Stop fat-shaming. Victims can be traumatized, develop depression, self-harm or commit suicide. Fat-shaming does not help. It makes matters worse. Stop it. Accept people for who they are. Nobody’s perfect now or ever. Why can’t we find the goodness in people?