It's kind of silly to call a major media outlet mean. So many people contribute content that it really is impossible to asses whether they intend to be hurtful. Perhaps some do but I don't think CNN would be one of them.
CNN did frustrate me today though, and it was due to a mean girl encounter sooo the two aren't ... what's the term? Mutually exclusive? Unrelated? I don't know but I think you get it.
For the past several Fridays, CNN.com has posted stories about body image and perceptions of beauty. Miss American's anorexia recovery was one of them. There was also a story about FATshion. My heart did a little woot woot when I read that one.
Today, I read this story by Shanon Cook who is incredulous that a man found her pregnant silhouette attractive. She used so many fat slurs it was like someone played a tape loop of my past. I wanted to crawl under my desk and induce puking into my trash can.
For obvious reasons, acceptance, tolerance and kindness are high on my wish list for society. My story is not uncommon. Because I am fat, I was brutally bullied from 6th grade until I graduated high school. Even in adulthood I have been called names in public, humiliated and physically assaulted over my weight. That's probably why my blogs don't have a lot of range. They're either completely shallow fluff or they're about the things that hurt me. Write what you know. ^_^
Being treated like a piece of subhuman shit due to my appearance hurts me. Wouldn't that hurt almost everyone? So when I see news pieces, TeeVee shows, movies, pictures, etc. that are size positive or even size neutral, I do a mental cartwheel because it means that maybe history will stop repeating itself.
But then I read Shanon Cook's piece and I think it will never get better.
Here are some examples of what she said:
"And then there was the belly -- a massive dome of a thing, so immense that Lennox looked like a wee Scottish lass beside me. Jessica-Simpson-on-the-cover-of-Elle, no. Sexy, I was not."
"I didn't tell him that excitement doesn't really register when it takes a forklift and three bodybuilders to raise you out of bed in the morning."
"This dude thought I was hot. But how could he? I mean, I looked like an upright hippopotamus."
Wait, though, it gets really confusing and that added fuel to the frustration fire.
She says pregnancy allows women to not be neurotic about their size for a moment, so she enjoyed it by eating "truckloads" of candy and feeling good in spite of herself.
What?
Did I miss something? Is she saying that only when you are pregnant can you love your body if it's big? And CNN published it?
Why? Why can't we love our bodies always, regardless of how big or small? And why does CNN give us an entire series about diverse beauty and body image then turn around and run another tired old fat = gross story?
Seems like every publication goes balls out when it comes to fat hate stories yet they'll print an anti-bullying story on the very next page. What message is this? Is it intentional?
Hate totally bums me out. It hurts; it causes me to ask all these questions and the absolute most frustrating part is that I will never know the answer.
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