Latest / The Fourcast / Is the ‘woke’ backlash killing body positivity? - From Sydney Sweeney ad to Zara models ban

Transcript

Is the ‘woke’ backlash killing body positivity? - From Sydney Sweeney ad to Zara models ban · The Fourcast

• 0:00
  The current zeitgeist that we are in, we are leaning towards
• 0:03
  conservatism. There's these kind of purity
• 0:06
  politics happening again for women and the thin white,
• 0:09
  blonde, blue eyed figure is kind of looming over as the ideal
• 0:12
  once again. Sydney Sweeney's interesting to
• 0:14
  me because she's done nothing to make her body look particularly
• 0:17
  different. She's not had a boob of.
• 0:18
  She's not gone sort of bleach blonde just by sort of having
• 0:21
  boobs and going on telly. People say she's the harbinger
• 0:24
  of the death of woke. That's the sort of extreme time
• 0:26
  she's living. In Is this just another phase
• 0:28
  will go through and it'll come back round?
• 0:32
  Is this driven by Trump and that once that goes, something else
• 0:36
  will come along? Or is it more profound than
• 0:38
  that? Hello and welcome to the
• 0:43
  forecast. Is fashion the latest thing to
• 0:45
  be swallowed into current politics?
• 0:48
  Culture war and the backlash on woke stick thin models with
• 0:51
  protruding bones with a marketing choice of Zara for a
• 0:54
  new campaign. They've just been banned by the
• 0:57
  Advertising Standards Authority as irresponsible.
• 1:00
  And the fallout from Sydney Sweeney's ad campaign for
• 1:03
  American Eagle jeans keeps growing.
• 1:05
  A few years ago, accusations of white supremacy and promoting
• 1:09
  the right wing might have caused a share price to plummet.
• 1:12
  But after Donald Trump described the ad as the hottest ad out
• 1:15
  there, American Eagle stock rocketed.
• 1:17
  So are we back in the 90s or even the 30s?
• 1:20
  Ad agencies have always looked for ways to get noticed.
• 1:23
  But is the war on woke also sweeping away years of progress
• 1:28
  on body positivity and diversity?
• 1:30
  Katie Glass writes about these things for The Times, and Megan
• 1:34
  Jane Crabb is a writer, presenter and activist for body
• 1:37
  positivity and feminism. Meghan, when you saw those Zara
• 1:42
  images, that heart back a long way, what did you think?
• 1:48
  Honestly, I thought they were eerily reminiscent of the era of
• 1:52
  a skinny skinny inspiration on Tumblr.
• 1:55
  You know, we're seeing now a skinny talk on TikTok.
• 1:59
  It definitely felt like the images I would have compared
• 2:01
  myself to when I was a teenager and I was deeply struggling with
• 2:04
  my body image. The the thing that body
• 2:07
  positivity was a reaction against.
• 2:10
  Yeah. And and and without a doubt we
• 2:12
  have gone sliding on backwards over the last couple of years.
• 2:16
  Diversity and representation is a way down.
• 2:18
  The thin is in mantra is absolutely everywhere and this
• 2:21
  is the latest representation of that.
• 2:22
  Where were you? Thin is in.
• 2:23
  You're seeing it where? I'm seeing it on socials, I'm
• 2:27
  seeing it in brands on runways, even TV shows.
• 2:31
  You know the the TV shows that have diversity are cancelled and
• 2:36
  even in plus size sizing in stores, plus size collections
• 2:39
  are being pulled out of stores and put only online.
• 2:42
  Casey, what's your initial reaction to this?
• 2:44
  Because I mean, the system clamps down on it immediately.
• 2:48
  Yeah. I mean, that's probably a good
• 2:49
  thing that we have some sort of measures about what looks
• 2:52
  extremely unhealthy on either side.
• 2:54
  I suppose I, I sort of thought was predictable in the sense
• 2:57
  that fashion's job is to sort of mirror cultural discussions and
• 3:00
  cultural movements. We're in an age of sort of
• 3:03
  injectable weight loss jobs. Even Heston Blumenthal's talking
• 3:06
  about how people don't want to go to restaurants anymore.
• 3:07
  So we know this is sort of mainstream thing going on.
• 3:10
  Of course, fashions reflected that swing to thought sort of
• 3:13
  people being thinner. I guess I felt it was really
• 3:15
  depressing because as usual, that discussion is playing out
• 3:17
  over women's bodies. It's always women's bodies,
• 3:19
  whether they like it or not, over which these sort of
• 3:22
  political and cultural battles are happening.
• 3:24
  And that just feels a bit depressing to me, to be honest.
• 3:26
  Well, I mean, it really feels like we've gone back in time,
• 3:28
  doesn't it? I mean where where women don't
• 3:31
  have agency over what is regarded as attractive.
• 3:35
  Again, because because commerce and politics have taken over.
• 3:40
  Well, it's always been the case, hasn't it, that sort of
• 3:41
  capitalism's been in charge of what's attractive, But the fact
• 3:44
  that that focus is still on women, I don't know if it's that
• 3:46
  we've gone back in time. It just feels like nothing's
• 3:48
  changed. You know, I was sort of thinking
• 3:50
  back to Elizabeth the 1st and talking about her body as the
• 3:53
  sort of virgin queen and, you know, like forever.
• 3:55
  These political debates on women's bodies.
• 3:57
  Why don't we talk about what men look like and whether that
• 3:59
  reflects a change in culture? Because interestingly, we'd
• 4:03
  interestingly we do not see ads or representation of men's
• 4:08
  bodies that promotes the Super unhealthy as often.
• 4:12
  We see like Levi's ads and Calvin Klein ads in which men
• 4:15
  with 6 packs walking around, you know, on Love Island, we've got
• 4:18
  men sort of like obsessed with their bodies.
• 4:20
  That's happening on sort of. You talked about social media
• 4:22
  culture, so I don't feel it is just happening to women.
• 4:25
  I do think it's happening to men too.
• 4:27
  But the discussion and, you know, the debate and that sort
• 4:29
  of political wrangling always feels like it's over women's
• 4:32
  bodies, that they're somehow responsible for that, that I
• 4:35
  mean those. Well, what is it?
• 4:36
  Desirable men's bodies become incredibly 2 dimensional
• 4:39
  recently, hasn't it? Because of, you know, the gym
• 4:41
  and muscles and all that kind of that, that is it.
• 4:44
  So yeah, you're right. There's no sort of there's no
• 4:46
  heroin chic for men right now, but.
• 4:49
  But it's still unrealistic and unattainable for the majority.
• 4:52
  Yeah, so I mean, So what? What has happened to the whole
• 4:54
  body positivity movement in fashion over the last few years?
• 4:58
  Oh my God has. It just collapsed.
• 4:59
  Well, listen, I've been part of the body positive movement for
• 5:02
  10 years, so I kind of was in it before it was a thing.
• 5:05
  I saw it at its peak around 2017.
• 5:07
  We had way more diversity. You know, Lizzo was singing his
• 5:11
  films with plus size main characters were out.
• 5:13
  It was fantastic. And it has felt like over the
• 5:16
  last few years, especially since the introduction of Ozempic and
• 5:19
  other GLP ones, things have just just slowly trickled backwards
• 5:23
  and. What's happened to work for the
• 5:26
  models? Let's try to help.
• 5:29
  I have a quite a few friends who are plus size models who are
• 5:32
  getting nowhere near as much work as they used to get and
• 5:34
  even body positive influencers who are being told directly by
• 5:37
  brands we're not doing the the body positive thing anymore.
• 5:40
  You know, we're not doing the diversity thing.
• 5:42
  So they've kind of we're using it when it was useful to them.
• 5:44
  Is it? Is it both?
• 5:45
  Is it body positivity and diversity?
• 5:47
  Yes, yes, I think. They're both going backwards.
• 5:50
  I think so. And I think again, that's
• 5:52
  reflective of the time that we're in where we're we are
• 5:55
  seeing a massive pushback and a swing back towards conservatism.
• 5:58
  The what? Wasn't the whole sort of
• 5:59
  commercial rationale though for body positivity that you know
• 6:02
  most of the buying public are not perfect and don't look like
• 6:06
  the models and therefore you've got to appeal?
• 6:08
  Yes, appeals to them, but also fashion has always been
• 6:10
  aspirational. I mean, most people aren't
• 6:12
  walking around with the sort of 5000 LB Dolce and compiler dress
• 6:15
  on or maybe even a spider ever own one.
• 6:17
  So the idea I'm supposed to look at a model and think I should
• 6:20
  look like that, I guess it's never.
• 6:21
  But like, don't get me wrong, I thought body to positivity was a
• 6:24
  wonderful thing. It was a sort of exciting time.
• 6:26
  The pendulum swings one way and I talked to model agents who
• 6:29
  talked about at the time how blonde, you know, blue eyed,
• 6:33
  very skinny girls weren't getting work.
• 6:34
  The pendulum swinging another way.
• 6:36
  That's fashion's job, isn't it? To sort of, you know, change the
• 6:39
  discussion all the time. And like I say, I think it's
• 6:41
  obviously you said yourself, it's a reflection, isn't it, of
• 6:43
  the sort of rise of a Zen pick and maybe a comment on that,
• 6:46
  which I'm just sort of longing for a fashion discussion.
• 6:49
  That's interesting. So I'm up for that, you know,
• 6:51
  sort of provocative reflection of the fat weight loss jabs have
• 6:55
  come in and I don't know why that's so sort of problematic.
• 6:57
  Well. In in amongst all of this,
• 6:58
  though, we've got a very political row going on in
• 7:01
  America around Sidney Sweeney, Now, American Eagle do this ad
• 7:06
  campaign, a load of people sort of jump on it on social media
• 7:10
  and accuse them of supporting eugenics and white supremacy and
• 7:16
  all of that because she's talking about genes.
• 7:18
  They of course deny it and say it's just about the genes.
• 7:21
  In amongst all of that, it's revealed that she's a registered
• 7:23
  Republican. Trump swings in behind her and
• 7:26
  says she's hot, this is amazing, best dad ever, and it's a
• 7:30
  commercial success. That.
• 7:33
  That's quite weird, isn't it? I would say that anything that
• 7:37
  Trump gets behind and says that's hot, steer clear of do
• 7:41
  not touch with the but. People aren't clearly.
• 7:43
  I mean, you know, he's, you know, MAG is a big movement.
• 7:45
  Lots of people are prepared to buy into it.
• 7:47
  And it's a commercial success. Yeah.
• 7:49
  But I think also people, that's how buying power has shifted,
• 7:51
  isn't it? People are talking about their
• 7:53
  politics through what they buy. The way you see people sort of
• 7:55
  boycott Israel, for example. But I mean, yeah, like Trump
• 7:59
  being interested in in some jeans, like, I guess it is.
• 8:02
  It just only reflects really how politically divisive things are
• 8:05
  now that people feel that they want to show their support for
• 8:07
  Trump in this mad way but bang some frankly rather horrible
• 8:10
  sort of mum shaped jeans. But I suppose, but where, where
• 8:14
  does that fit in, if you like, in terms of, you know, the
• 8:18
  culture war, you know, is, is American fashion again, sort of
• 8:22
  just now picking sides? You know, you've got Beyoncé
• 8:25
  with her Levi's ad and Sidney Sweeney with her American Eagle
• 8:30
  ad and you've got people sort of taking sides and wearing,
• 8:33
  wearing badges to show, I suppose.
• 8:37
  Well, it is certainly interesting that fashion.
• 8:38
  Yeah, it's, and it just shows how divisive things are in
• 8:40
  America that people are picking up on that and they're
• 8:43
  discussing. I mean, people would compare a
• 8:45
  sort of just a jeans advertisement to Nazism.
• 8:47
  It's just sort of wild. And it just goes to show on both
• 8:50
  sides of the discussion how polarized things have got
• 8:52
  really, that people, you know, feel such strong affinity that
• 8:55
  to those sort of things. But it happened with the
• 8:57
  Budweiser ad as well, didn't it? Yeah, and, and, and I do hear
• 9:00
  that. I do hear that it's kind of
• 9:02
  taken on a real life of its own. But I think that in part the
• 9:05
  success of the body positive movement a handful of years ago
• 9:08
  was because people started voicing on social media
• 9:11
  actually, is this OK? I'm not happy with this.
• 9:13
  Can we get more representation? So I'm all for people calling
• 9:17
  things out when they think, yeah, that's defensive.
• 9:19
  Well, that's not good enough. But do you think the
• 9:20
  progressives fell into the trap again, if you like of, of, of
• 9:24
  saying something that was, you know, slightly over the top for
• 9:28
  a lot of people, You know, that you went, they went, they jumped
• 9:30
  straight for Nazi off the back of a jeans campaign, which which
• 9:35
  just enabled, you know, everybody else to go off.
• 9:39
  You know, This is why Woke Korea is a disaster.
• 9:41
  Absolutely, and it was such clickbait and the response was
• 9:43
  so predictable. One sort of suspects that might
• 9:45
  have been part of the advertising campaign itself.
• 9:47
  Shawny. Deliberate.
• 9:49
  Yeah. I mean, it just seemed so like,
• 9:51
  automatic. It sort of happened straight
• 9:52
  away, You know, this sort of provocative advertisement in
• 9:54
  which he's playing with the sort of offensive idea of eugenics,
• 9:58
  which she can't have realized is not happening at a time when
• 10:01
  Trump's camping down on immigration.
• 10:02
  So I think what is interesting to me about Sydney Sweeney is
• 10:05
  she has chosen to lean into those discussions not sort of
• 10:08
  verbally. She's not saying in.
• 10:10
  The past she has. Well, she knows her body is
• 10:12
  going to be the centre of those discussions anyway and she's
• 10:15
  willing to like, let it be and sort of engage in those
• 10:17
  conversations rather than let other people have them over her
• 10:21
  and and not be sort of part of that debate herself.
• 10:23
  I think other women's bodies are always used in that way.
• 10:26
  Look at Kim Kardashian or Dolly Parton, people are always
• 10:29
  talking about how women's bodies look.
• 10:31
  Sydney Sweeney's interesting to me because she's done nothing to
• 10:34
  make her body look particularly different.
• 10:36
  She's not had a boob dog. She's not gone some sort of
• 10:37
  bleach blonde. She just looks the way she
• 10:39
  looks, and she can't seem to win just by sort of having boobs and
• 10:42
  going on telly. People say she's the harbinger
• 10:44
  of the death of woke. I mean, that's the sort of
• 10:47
  extreme time she's living in. I love her for leaning into that
• 10:50
  and saying, OK, well, I'll do an ad.
• 10:52
  I'll do, you know, produce some soap in which I pretend it's
• 10:54
  made from my bath water. I think she's sort of hilarious,
• 10:57
  isn't she? She's definitely playing the
• 10:59
  game and winning. But how?
• 11:01
  How does that fit into your whole worry about how women
• 11:05
  aren't in control of this conversation?
• 11:08
  And she might be in control momentarily of making a load of
• 11:11
  money and, you know, raising her fame.
• 11:14
  But is she playing into something that is actually quite
• 11:17
  bad for women? She's talked, hasn't she, about
• 11:20
  an interviews, but how she feels this, she's lost control of her
• 11:22
  body. People have these conversations
• 11:24
  over her body. I was thinking about that essay
• 11:26
  by like Emily Ratajkowski where she talks about paparazzi
• 11:29
  snapping her image and then someone taking that image and
• 11:33
  putting it in a gallery and selling it.
• 11:34
  And she sort of plays with this idea of what control she got
• 11:36
  over her image. Well, Sydney Sweeney's body is
• 11:39
  going to be a matter of discussion and debate anyway and
• 11:42
  she's just chosen to say I'm going to try and have a little
• 11:44
  bit of control over that. I look, I think ultimately the,
• 11:52
  the issue with Sydney Sweeney and the issue even with this
• 11:54
  Zara ad, it's not necessarily, you know, these, these bodies
• 11:58
  shouldn't be seen or they shouldn't be taking up this
• 12:00
  space. It's just the where, where is
• 12:01
  everyone else? You know, the average woman in
• 12:04
  the UK is a size 16. And so the average size that we
• 12:07
  should be seeing in advertising surely is that.
• 12:11
  And I don't believe that fashion needs to be this aspirational,
• 12:14
  you know, unreachable thing. I think it should be reflective
• 12:16
  of who we actually are. And when it does that, when it
• 12:18
  does tap into diversity and represents people, it shows they
• 12:22
  make money. Plus size collections make
• 12:23
  money. Well, well do well, do they?
• 12:26
  I mean, because if, if you know, if they, if they do, if, if it
• 12:29
  really was a commercial imperative that drove plus size
• 12:33
  models and body positivity, they'd still be doing it.
• 12:36
  You know, why would they drop it?
• 12:38
  Because. It's no longer fashionable.
• 12:42
  It's no, it's no longer, you know, in vogue to represent all
• 12:45
  bodies. And also because I don't, I
• 12:47
  think a lot of brands don't want to deal with the backlash
• 12:50
  because as much as we did have a moment of body positivity,
• 12:52
  brands had to deal with a lot of people who were against that and
• 12:56
  didn't agree with that. And a lot of them then have
• 12:58
  tapped out the earliest possible opportunity because they were
• 13:01
  just hopping on the bandwagon. So.
• 13:02
  How has that played out in your world, particularly online?
• 13:05
  I suppose the backlash. Well there's always been
• 13:09
  naysayers, there's always been trolls.
• 13:12
  I would say there's definitely been a new influx of commentary
• 13:16
  on anyone who'd any woman who dares to exist in a body that is
• 13:20
  above maybe a size 10. These automatic assumptions
• 13:23
  about health. You're irresponsible.
• 13:26
  You shouldn't be showing yourself you're disgusting.
• 13:27
  Huge amounts of misogyny and body shaming just coming in
• 13:32
  endlessly, especially from the kind of TikTok side of things.
• 13:35
  Now case you mentioned to weight loss jabs, what what effect do
• 13:39
  you think that's had on what's attractive?
• 13:45
  I think GLP, we, I think GLP ones have changed everything.
• 13:51
  I think they have, we have forever been searching for this
• 13:55
  magic miracle weight loss solution.
• 13:57
  You know, in the 1920s, we were sold cigarettes as that
• 14:00
  solution. There's been drugs like Fen Fen
• 14:02
  that were recalled because they did so much damage.
• 14:04
  And now we have GLP ones and it I think it goes to show that a
• 14:08
  lot of people, they never stopped looking for that miracle
• 14:10
  and they were always willing to do whatever they could really to
• 14:14
  buy into it. And even now, you know, we don't
• 14:16
  know the long term consequences of being on these drugs.
• 14:19
  We don't know what's gonna happen in 20 years time.
• 14:20
  And yet we've been caught up in this fervour of thin is back in
• 14:24
  and it's represented everywhere. And all the, you know, Hollywood
• 14:27
  starlets have jumped on the bandwagon.
• 14:29
  And I think again, it's that the idea of exclusivity or that
• 14:34
  rareness of, you know, we had the kind of Kardashian era where
• 14:38
  we saw more curvaceous women. And then as soon as people were
• 14:42
  women kind of got more comfy in that snap back to something that
• 14:45
  is unattainable and really difficult to achieve is that
• 14:48
  kind of exclusivity that we've seen throughout time as well,
• 14:51
  especially when it comes to class.
• 14:52
  You know, often throughout history, women of a higher class
• 14:54
  have always sought to essentially, it just had the
• 14:56
  more rare body type, whether that was larger 100 years ago or
• 15:01
  thinner. I mean I agree with you that
• 15:03
  definitely a problem with the weight loss jabs as you do have
• 15:06
  this difference that some women can afford them or men too.
• 15:09
  Some people can't afford them, but you know, we can't have a
• 15:12
  sort of conversation about thinness and weight loss jabs
• 15:14
  without bringing health into it. And I do think, you know,
• 15:17
  without sort of making some wild assumption that anyone plus
• 15:20
  sizes super unhealthy. I think there's a really
• 15:22
  interesting thing happening in a sort of post COVID time where
• 15:25
  people are thinking about their health more.
• 15:27
  You know, we see the headline obesity crisis and the sort of
• 15:29
  tabloids, but probably discussions of that in the paper
• 15:32
  all the time. And I think people are conscious
• 15:34
  of it is a balance. It's not just about looking a
• 15:36
  certain way. Some people want to lose weight
• 15:38
  because we do know it's healthier and I don't think we
• 15:41
  should be chastised for that. Well, of course being fitter,
• 15:44
  you know, not eating processed foods, yeah, all those things
• 15:46
  are healthier. But like there is a sort of
• 15:47
  correlation. Yes.
• 15:49
  And I wouldn't make assumptions about people either way.
• 15:52
  But you know, yes, it to be too thin is like very unhealthy,
• 15:55
  although we also know that to be overweight is unhealthy.
• 15:57
  And we had we had a sort of area, didn't we, when it was
• 16:00
  Tess Holiday on the front cover of Cosmopolitan, this great
• 16:02
  celebration. And I don't think that's bad,
• 16:04
  but maybe it is problematic. You know, now people are being
• 16:07
  more health conscious whether we should promote either end of the
• 16:10
  sort of spectrum. I think it's not directly
• 16:14
  comparable. I think when we see, you know,
• 16:17
  the woman in the Zara ad, she becomes one more example in this
• 16:21
  never ending stream of extreme thinness that we are seeing.
• 16:24
  And it just plays into the already existing narrative that
• 16:27
  thin is the best way to be and the only way to be for women.
• 16:29
  Whereas when we see one plus size person, even a very, you
• 16:33
  know, much larger plus size person, that is not adding onto
• 16:37
  a narrative already that, you know, pressures women to gain
• 16:40
  weight or be larger. I.
• 16:41
  Mean it was interesting that Zara's response was to point out
• 16:44
  that these models had been certified as in good health,
• 16:49
  which I'm assuming if they certify thin models, they must
• 16:53
  certify everybody as in as in good health.
• 16:56
  That's such a good point. Do they certify plus size models
• 16:59
  as being in good health? Have you ever heard of that?
• 17:02
  Never heard of it. Well, I mean, so it'll, it'll be
• 17:04
  interesting what that actually means and who does the
• 17:07
  assessment. But I mean, is, is the health
• 17:09
  conversation a bit of a fib? You know, I suppose is, is, is,
• 17:15
  is what I, you know, wonder in the same way that the whole plus
• 17:19
  size rationale was about, you know, it makes commercial sense
• 17:24
  because most people aren't, you know, thin and tall and, you
• 17:28
  know, and beautiful. And so we've got to represent
• 17:31
  the, the, the consumer that that was sort of a bit of a post op
• 17:33
  rationalization for fashion. And that maybe this is the same,
• 17:36
  that the health benefits of being thin through weight loss
• 17:40
  jabs might be a bit of a post op rationalization for the truth,
• 17:45
  which is just the establishment like blonde, white, thin people.
• 17:51
  And and that's that's what the establishment view of what's
• 17:55
  attractive is. Here we all are.
• 18:00
  But also the establishment like to make money.
• 18:02
  Come on, GL the the the GLP well I.
• 18:05
  Mean, I suppose the establishment is, is is a bit of
• 18:06
  a get out for me. I mean, you know, but people,
• 18:08
  society, the Western world, the ideal of of what is attractive
• 18:14
  in our society is still thin, Yeah, and isn't going to change.
• 18:19
  Look, I think it's a it's a nuanced conversation when we
• 18:21
  want to talk about health and GLP ones.
• 18:23
  And obviously you can't tell anyone individual what they can
• 18:24
  and can't do for their body and what they think they're doing
• 18:26
  for their health. But also, I personally think
• 18:29
  it's kind of absurd to promote something on the basis of health
• 18:33
  that we literally don't know what it is doing long term to
• 18:36
  people's health. But that's a slightly separate
• 18:39
  issue, because that's that's about substance.
• 18:42
  We're talking about the the sort of ephemeral nonsense of
• 18:46
  appearance, aren't we? I actually let you know, let let
• 18:49
  alone you know, put put the hell of a side.
• 18:50
  We're just talking about how people look.
• 18:52
  I'm probably sort of not fashionable enough, but like to
• 18:55
  me it feels like there's been a shift towards strength, you
• 18:57
  know, with people finding like stronger looking bodies more
• 18:59
  attractive. I think that reflects a sort of
• 19:01
  shift towards health. I, you know, Zara side, which is
• 19:05
  a sort of fashion brand or is trying to, you know, associate
• 19:07
  itself with being a high fashion brand.
• 19:09
  Like actually, I think a lot of the images we see are of like
• 19:11
  strong women. You know, I'm thinking in pop,
• 19:13
  people like Katy Perry or like, you know, wet legs performance
• 19:17
  at Glastonbury, Like people like strong women are finding that
• 19:20
  there's a move towards that and not this sort of thinness.
• 19:22
  I'm I'm surprised when you talk about it being sort of
• 19:24
  ubiquitous because we must have different algorithms on our
• 19:27
  social media aspect. I think we do.
• 19:29
  I I do agree that there definitely was a push towards
• 19:32
  strength, but to me that was almost happening now a few years
• 19:36
  ago. And even when we are seeing
• 19:38
  these like very strong women, it's still an incredibly low
• 19:42
  body fat percentage. We don't.
• 19:44
  We don't often see women who are strong and soft at the same
• 19:47
  time. Do you feel cheated by people
• 19:49
  like Lizzo who've chosen to use weight loss jobs?
• 19:52
  I know I'm curious like, because I guess she's talked both about
• 19:55
  the fact that she wants to represent body positivity and at
• 19:58
  the same time, you know, she's sort of obviously on a sort of
• 20:00
  health, she has talked about it as a health journey, hasn't she?
• 20:03
  She has and and you know, my opinion is she can obviously do
• 20:06
  what she wants with her own body.
• 20:08
  It doesn't feel great to have lost a really key figure of
• 20:13
  representation of of the movements.
• 20:16
  A lot of people do feel betrayed by that.
• 20:17
  There's kind of a sense of grief, I think, which is
• 20:19
  understandable. But again, I try not to kind of
• 20:22
  project my feelings onto her as an individual because she can do
• 20:26
  what she wants. It feels so surprising that when
• 20:28
  we have this discussion, we start with Sydney Sweeney,
• 20:30
  though, because when I see her, I think that is a return to body
• 20:33
  positivity, isn't it? I mean, she's not a Zara thin
• 20:35
  model because. She's not.
• 20:37
  Yes. She's not manipulated her body.
• 20:38
  You know, the last person we were having these intense
• 20:40
  debates around, which was sort of Kim Kardashian really did
• 20:43
  feel like a body that was sort of manipulated and unobtainable.
• 20:46
  Whereas Sidney Sweeney looks reasonably natural.
• 20:48
  It's just what she looks like, isn't it?
• 20:50
  But the, the, the Sidney Sweeney debate, I suppose is, is again,
• 20:53
  it's about what's attractive, isn't it?
• 20:57
  And, and you know, specifically the, the the controversy is
• 21:01
  around, is she saying, you know, blonde, white, blue eyes is
• 21:05
  what's attractive and in and in and in Trump's mega world, it
• 21:10
  largely is, you know, if you look at what's happening to mega
• 21:13
  women and author, you know, his half of his cabinet and the
• 21:18
  people around him and the amount of plastic surgery that's going
• 21:21
  on amongst those women and the traditional look, that is a
• 21:26
  type, isn't it? That's where the controversy is
• 21:28
  with Sidney Sweeney, that she's playing into all of that.
• 21:31
  I guess, but again, that feeling, it just feels
• 21:33
  relentless for women. You know, Pamela Anderson
• 21:34
  doesn't wear makeup. We have a conversation about
• 21:36
  that Trump and women, you know, look over inflated or wear too
• 21:40
  much makeup. We have to have a conversation
• 21:41
  about that. If women have Botox, they're
• 21:43
  done. If they don't have Botox, you
• 21:45
  know, if they're too big or if they're too small, it just feels
• 21:47
  sort of relentless. Actually, I said to your
• 21:49
  producer, I got asked to come on here in the first day.
• 21:51
  I thought, it's what am I going to wear, you know, which is just
• 21:53
  so boring or something that's intensely boring, being a woman,
• 21:56
  but having to think about your sort of, you know, I just want
• 21:58
  to sit around reading books. Like for a man, I just don't
• 22:01
  feel they're having these relentless conversations about
• 22:04
  how they look and having to think about that all the time.
• 22:06
  I wouldn't assume that to be honest, because I think I think
• 22:07
  particularly with young men, the you know, their look is
• 22:12
  something a lot of them are obsessing about as well.
• 22:15
  And you know, we know that eating disorders are massive
• 22:17
  amongst men now and and mental health crisis because of it as
• 22:20
  well. But it's in, it's different,
• 22:22
  certainly. It's not not happening for men,
• 22:24
  but I don't think it's making front page news in the same way
• 22:27
  for women. No, but that's but that's, you
• 22:30
  know, again, that's capitalism, isn't it?
• 22:33
  It's, it's, it's, it's industries run either by men or
• 22:38
  women in male owned industries that drive that conversation.
• 22:43
  I mean, in terms of where you think this is going, is it just
• 22:49
  fashion like is, is this just another phase we'll go through
• 22:53
  and it'll come back round? Is this driven by Trump and that
• 22:58
  once that goes, something else will come along?
• 23:01
  Or is it more profound than that?
• 23:03
  Look, I think it's all interconnected.
• 23:04
  I don't think you can say this is solely because of any one
• 23:07
  thing. I think the current zeitgeist
• 23:10
  that we are in, we are leaning towards conservatism.
• 23:13
  We are, you know, there's these kind of purity politics
• 23:16
  happening again for women. And the thin white, blonde, blue
• 23:19
  eyed figure is kind of looming over as the ideal once again.
• 23:23
  And these are all kind of intertwined with each other.
• 23:26
  My feeling and the feeling of many people I've spoken to.
• 23:29
  I was interviewing Jamila Jamil recently and even she said just
• 23:33
  hold on. Just brace yourself and hold on
• 23:36
  because we know that this will circle back around.
• 23:38
  We have been here before, we'll be here again.
• 23:41
  So just wait for it. And then probably five years,
• 23:43
  maybe body positivity will have a boom again.
• 23:45
  And how important is it, in that meantime, to keep banging the
• 23:48
  drum, keep talking about it, keep writing about it, keep
• 23:50
  doing what you're doing on social?
• 23:51
  Media, it's so important and it's, you know, it's not just
• 23:54
  important for women like me, it's important for all people
• 23:58
  and especially, you know, our teenage girls, the girls who are
• 24:00
  shopping on Zara everyday and seeing that advert or on Tiktok
• 24:03
  and getting sucked into skinny talk.
• 24:05
  That is why we need to change the narrative and continue to
• 24:08
  have the representation that is the bare minimum.
• 24:10
  You know, diversity and representation.
• 24:12
  That's not the most that a brand can do.
• 24:14
  It's the absolute least and it's frankly just cowardly that they
• 24:17
  don't. What is skinny talk?
• 24:20
  It's the modern day equivalent of of pro Anna content, which
• 24:24
  kind of used to live and thrive on Tumblr and now skinny talk is
• 24:28
  content that is actively saying this is how I get really thin.
• 24:34
  Promoting disordered eating behaviours.
• 24:36
  You know, idolising very thin women.
• 24:39
  And and that's able to happen way beyond the scope of any kind
• 24:43
  of regulation or online Safety Act or.
• 24:47
  Anything. Give it five years again and
• 24:49
  there'll probably be some kind of act around it.
• 24:51
  But it's happening now, yeah. And that feels ironic because it
• 24:53
  is actually driven by young women themselves, which suggests
• 24:56
  that it's not just women being or young people being influenced
• 25:00
  by advertising, but also that they, you know, the sort of
• 25:02
  dialectical conversation that they're promoting that stuff
• 25:04
  themselves, aren't they, online? And there is, you know, I mean,
• 25:08
  just poke, poke you a little bit with your why are we talking
• 25:12
  about this? I mean, you wrote an article
• 25:14
  about Sidney Sweeney. You're talking about it.
• 25:16
  No, I want to talk about it, but I'm saying we shouldn't.
• 25:18
  I, I, I, you know, I want to celebrate her.
• 25:20
  I want to celebrate the fact she's lent into this discussion
• 25:22
  that's happening over her body that she can't control.
• 25:25
  You know, it's a capitalist thing.
• 25:26
  She's talked about how nowadays you can't just be an actress,
• 25:29
  you know, you have to sort of promote brands, you have to do
• 25:31
  other work that the people are going to talk about her body and
• 25:33
  take that away from her. So I really wanted to sort of
• 25:35
  write something and say, you know, I support her actually.
• 25:38
  And I understand otherwise a young woman, the only way maybe
• 25:40
  to seize control of that discussion of that public
• 25:43
  discussion of your body, that public discussion that's
• 25:45
  happening about her breasts that are just part of her body that
• 25:48
  she can't do anything about, You know what she should.
• 25:51
  It's just like now she's trying to seize control of that in some
• 25:53
  way. And I just want to sort of like
• 25:55
  celebrate for that for her and stand up for it a bit because it
• 25:58
  feels like she's attracted nothing but criticism.
• 26:00
  Thank you both very much indeed. That's it for this episode of
• 26:02
  The Forecast. Until next time, bye bye.