A recent article - Monday 10th - to be exact was published on the Guardian website. In this article it mentions a recent controversial 'stunt' by Keira Knightly. If you don't know about this, then i'll tell you. Recently, Knightly posed topless for the front cover of Interview magazine, but she only agreed to do so if the magazine promised to keep her body natural - meaning no photoshop, no manipulation, nothing. Knightly states " her decision to bare all on the cover of the September issue was in fact a protest against the media for its damaging attitude towards body image" and this isn't the first time I've seen this. Recently there has been a lot of celebrity women coming forward baring their breasts and no, not to do it for the pleasure of man but to make our breasts 'ours again'. They want to show people the real women, the difference in breasts, the un-manipulated photoshopped tits, the untouched by surgeons boobs - the real, the small, the saggy, the large, the no boob etc. Comedian Tig Notaro, after being catcalled at recent stand up show, un popped her shirt to reveal post op breast cancer surgery (I know, what an incredible women) she then carried on the show topless, to prove a point that 'No breasts are okay too'. This is another example of women embracing their bodies - no sexual connotations used what-so-ever.
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| Taken by Patrick Demarchelier |
“I think women’s bodies are a battleground and photography is partly to blame. It’s much easier to take a picture of somebody without a shape; it simply is. Whereas actually you need tremendous skill to be able get a woman’s shape and make it look like it does in life, which is always beautiful. But our society is so photographic now, it becomes more difficult to see all of those different varieties of shape"
- Keira Knightly
In this guardian article, the writer states that we should be allowing women to do this. We need to get this society back into looking at women's bodies the way they should me - natural. In fact the last paragraph simply states " So this kind of nonchalant defiance that Knightley, Notaro and everyday women are offering up isn’t just important – it’s desperately needed. If we want to normalize women’s bodies, we need to present them with a shrug, not just a wink. They’re bodies, we’re people, deal with it. You don’t like it? Tough tithes"
How does this help my work though?
This article is basically stating that as long as the womens bodies are real, we're showing them in their natural form, how the women want there bodies to be, then what is wrong with that? We need to show this more, because if we don't, we will carry on living in the world where studies show young boys to believe that fake tits are real - Seriously, they believe that fake breasts are what girls actually have and that if they were too see my tiny, odd shaped ones, then they would be the unnatural ones. Really?..
Is this something I could bring forward in my work?
I keep saying that I want to show women in the truest form, yet also contradicting myself due to the era we live in - the normality behind getting rid of body hair or adding tattoos etc. It can't really be done. But maybe thats what we all need to realise? we have all changed. This isn't the 70's, girls shave now. I know I'll probably be condemned for saying this, but so what? regardless to some of the negative connotations to shaving, girls have grown up thinking it's okay, many believe it or not, don't shave simply for their lovers. I mean take me for example, i don't shave, but then sometimes I fancy a change and do.. Is that so wrong? I'm single, I haven't got a man to please, so why do I do it? Because i suppose i've been manipulated by our culture - This point is something I think I should show. I should looking representing the girls of today, making slight references to the society we live in.
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