The Woman on Page 194

Usually, this site doesn’t consider these media-hyped photographs as iconic, but the above photo is so emblematic of everything that is wrong with our media-addiction and is rightfully causing some outrage so I find it worthy to mention it in passing.

Sized only 3×3 inches and buried on page 194 of September issue of Glamour magazine, the photo was part of an article on body acceptance. It seemingly rejects the idea that models like Lizzie Millier above can’t be glamourous or fashionable because of their ‘plus-sized bodies’. Nearly nude photo of 180-lbs, 5’11”, 20-year old by Walter Chin went against mainstream by not being airbrushed–a practice so common in magazines like Vogue, Playboy and Glamour.

Although she has a body mass index of 25.1 (two-tenths above what is “normal”), she is not technically ‘plus sized’, as many bloggers were clamoring. The average American female has a BMI of 26.5. Although many are saying that she will change the face of the fashion (they limited their opinions to facebook, twitter and blogs), that lofty goal may be impractical. “We are a culture where the Karl Lagerfelds of the world proclaim Kate Moss too fat,” wrote Newsweek.

Miller seems to be cherishing her 15 minutes of fame though: “I’ve been that girl, flipping through magazines trying to find just one person who looked a little bit like me. And when I didn’t find it I would start to think there’s something wrong with the way that I looked. When J. Lo and Beyoncé came out and were making curves sexy, I started to accept myself more. It’s funny, but just seeing them look and feel sexy enabled me to do the same.” She sat through an interview with MSNBC, which is still devoting pretty big chuck on cable news time to her.

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