(Okay, so not really.)
This video shows Brigid Polk, one of the members of Andy Warhol’s Factory — a former society girl whose mother forced her to diet from a young age — describing how she uses speed instead of various reducing salons, yet insists on not being “uptight” about being the fat girl in a bathing suit.
Brigid is a rebel and a troublemaker, no doubt, but also someone who has obviously been victimized by a culture that demands the impossible from women.
As such, I offer this counterpoint — a clip from Jean Kilbourne’s Slim Hopes, which applies a serious context to every single one of these silly Diet Pop Culture posts.
The theme that underlies both Brigid’s experience, and the messages in Kilbourne’s film, is that women must be thin, must look a certain way, or risk losing love from their families and significant others, and acceptance from society as a whole. This kind of ostracism can be the kiss of death for social primates, like humans — naturally, we’ll do anything to avoid it.
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