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barbara walters, body image, calling someone fat, celebrities, celebs, cigarettes, cuss words, eating disorders, fat, fat-shaming, fitness, health, healthy, influence, interview, jennifer lawrence, jlaw, lifestyle, media, movies, self-esteem, sex, teen boys, teen girls, teenage boys, teenage girls, teenagers, teens, tv, women, young women, younger generations
I’m sure many of you have read one of the many articles published in the last 2 days about Jennifer Lawrence’s opinion of ‘fat-shaming’, so to speak. Barbara Walters interviewed Lawrence this past week and asked her opinion on the criticism people, specifically women, receive on the red carpet. Lawrence replied that it should be “illegal to call someone fat on TV.” She states that because of the media’s strong influence on young girls, and the younger generation in general, it needs to be more responsible with the way it talks about women on the red carpet.
Young girls and boys alike learn a lot from the media: how to dress, how to act, how to talk, and how to be in general. It teaches them what’s in and what’s not, what’s cool and what’s lame, what’s sexy and what’s unsexy, and so on. Lawrence is right about the media, that it needs to take more responsibility for its influence on young girls and boys. Kids, and even teens, repeat what they see and hear on TV. If they’re constantly hearing the media fat-shame people and speak so negatively about people’s bodies, they’re going to learn to do that themselves. And I think that’s a big contribution to bullying as well.
Lawrence explains that calling someone fat is a way to hurt that person, not just stating a fact – sometimes, or most of the time when it comes to the media itself, that person isn’t even fat. Lawrence has even been called fat by the media. She’s nowhere near it! She has curves and is proud of them. She refuses to change her body and become stick-thin for a movie role, and I admire her for that.
The media puts way too much pressure on young girls to be thin, and puts way too much emphasis on weight. Because the media is so influential, it should be using that influence to promote healthiness and living a healthy lifestyle, not being stick-thin. Not to mention the fact that the media is never satisfied: Women are either too fat or too skinny. They’re never “just right.” And that’s because there is no such thing as “just right.”
She’s right that if we’re regulating “cigarettes and sex and cuss words because of the effect they have on our younger generation,” then we should regulate calling people fat as well. Cigarettes kill, and hurt others around the smoker. Sex often leads to teen pregnancies and STD’s, even if the teens are careful. Cuss words are used way too often among teens and kids, (partly) because it’s used all over TV and in movies (and I’m even hearing them in commercials now). Well the media constantly calling people fat affects teens and kids too: Eating disorders. ED’s kill if they’re untreated, and sometimes even when they are treated, unfortunately. Fat-shaming has become a serious problem, and something needs to be done about it.
Now, what I don’t agree with is Lawrence saying that calling someone fat on TV should be illegal. I don’t think that will ever be illegal because fat is not a cuss word, and we do have freedom of speech. But I do agree that it should be regulated. Now how that will go about being regulated, I have no idea. But I agree with her on that.
What do you think? Should calling someone fat on TV be illegal? Or at least regulated?
