Women and Their Bodies

I had no idea that Britney Spears performed last night at the MTV Video Music Awards show until I read that she had bombed. Truth be known, I didn't know that the VMAs were still ongoing considering that MTV hasn't trafficked in music videos for some time. While I’m no fan of Spears, I found the above article disturbing at one point. In addition to poor lip-synching and equally bad dancing, the author of the piece noted, "The paunch in place of Spears' once-taut belly."

Now, on one hand, I can imagine that this information is relevant. Spears works in a business where image counts for, perhaps, too much and so, for better or for worse, I can understand how a physical description would be important to gossip hounds. Here is the offending body part:



On the other hand, part of me interprets the above sentence as being equivalent to "Britney is fat" which is ridiculous. That is not a paunch. I have a paunch so, trust me, that ain't one. Personally, I find her more attractive in the above picture than in previous photos where she had a taut belly. I'd be willing to let the statement in the article go if it had merely stated that she'd gained some weight but by using the term "paunch", the author knowingly conjures up connotations of overweight folks or obesity when she should have instead been trying to get across that Spears actually looks more normal, more like average women. I suppose it could be argued that the term was employed to heighten the notion of how far Spears has fallen since her heyday when she was swapping spit with Madonna on stage. But I think what comes across is "Britney is fat" and, by extension, women must be hyper-thin to be attractive and good performers.

While I'm on the topic of female celebrity bodies, how stupid is it that Vanessa Hudgens felt compelled to issue an apology for the actions of someone else? She took some nude photos of herself for her boyfriend, apparently, and then they get leaked to the Net. Contrary to the Disney spokesperson, Patti McTeague, taking intimate photos of yourself for your lover is not a "lapse in judgment". Who is McTeague to pass judgment on Hudgens' sex life? I've seen one of the photos and its just her standing there naked. The most shocking thing about it is that she actually has pubic hair. An apology is certainly due but not from Ms. Hudgens. Instead it should be from whoever put the pictures in the public domain. If it's true, as the article states, that "Judging from comments around the Internet, there's been a lot of anger and disgust over what Hudgens has done", then there's a whole lot of hypocrisy on the part of those commenters.

EDIT: For more of the Britney-is-fat stuff, head to the New York Post which declared her the "lard & clear loser" last night. Check out some of the captions of the photos too. She's the "porky princess" who was "looking a bit rotund". She goes from being an anorexic teeny bopper to a real woman and all the press can do is cry fat. I don't think she's ever looked better.

Well, now that I'm all randy, I had better "research" something else...