Blog #7

Body image plays a huge role during adolescence. I remember when I was younger, I was thin and always had straight hair and had a small frame. However, when I turned 12, it definitely all changed. The hawaiian part of me kicked in and my hair became curly and frizzy and I gained all this weight and my frame became larger. I remember through junior high that I hated my body and there was girl that rode my bus who was bone skinny and I hated seeing her everyday because I would've given anything to have her body. I was so jealous of the skinny girls who could wear American Eagle and they wore an XS and I wore a L or XL. I felt so ashamed picking up a shirt at the back of the pile because I felt like people were watching me and judging me because I had to get an L. I envied the girls who had perfectly straight hair and who turned heads when they walked down the hallway. So yes, I believe that body image plays a HUGE role during adolescence and a lot of girls starting at the age of 9 are already dieting and wanting the perfect body image. In Real Women Have Curves, Ana is such a strong character because she embraces her body and stands up for herself to her mom. Carmen is so obsessed with Ana's weight because she believes that no man is going to want her and she'll never be married and have kids and she's old fashion. There's a lot of tension between Ana and her mom because her mom began working at the age of 13 and she thinks that Ana is lazy and ungrateful because Ana is 18 and wants to go off to college and pursue her own dreams. I believe that Americans are obsessed with being too thin and being too fat because there's always the pressure to be thin because thin is in, but there's a lot of women who are perfectly okay with not being thin and they embrace their bodies. Ana is absolutely beautiful in the movie and I love the part when she's at her sisters work and she takes off her clothes and just dances around and really celebrates her curves. There honestly wasn't a part that I didn't like about this movie because it truly celebrated that real women do have curves and it's okay to not be thin. I believe that advertisements can be extremely negative to body images, but we can look past them and take a feminist perspective on them. We can celebrate our bodies and really love who we are inside and out.