Anna Wintour Prays for Your Waifdom Every Night

On the April cover of Vogue, Scarlett Johansson is spread out on either a very modern-looking lawn chair or a very smooth rock. There is perhaps a pool in the background. She is wearing a silky green lingerie-type get-up. She looks, of course, lovely as ever. Yet, how does the magazine choose to describe her? "Curvy and cool." Huh. Everyone knows "curvy" is code for fat. Let's try it in a sentence: "Boy, that Queen Latifah sure is curvy!" But why would they call Scarlett "curvy"?
Continuing. In an unrelated tease to another story, the words "Nobody's Perfect" lie across Scarlett Johansson's perfect thigh. Oh, the irony! Anyhow, the "Nobody's Perfect" head apparently involves a story in which seven women obsess over their body flaws. Does that sound like hell to anyone else? Why would I want to listen to seven women bitch about their cellulite?
Then, the main head on the cover encourages us to: "Embrace Your Shape!" This head, along with the ultra-fat, err, "curvy" Scarlett, seems a condescending touch. It tells women to accept their bodies, but then presents "curvy" Scarlett as their poster girl. Like, Scarlett can accept herself, why can't you, Vogue reader? I'll tell you why: Because the average woman in America weighs more than 160 pounds and I'll guarantee she probably doesn't look like Scarlett Johansson. Or have those boobs.
What's funnier is that under the "Embrace Your Shape!" head, there are choices. That's right; Vogue accepts different body types. And those four body types are: Towering (read: tall), tiny (read: seriously anorexic), thin (read: aspiring anorexic or born in Eastern Europe), or top-heavy (read: big-boobed). You're just fat? Too bad.
I saw a photo of Madonna on a magazine cover from 1989 the other day. And what's funny is I thought, "She looks really fat." But I remember when I was young and saw the cover and thought she looked great. So it's just interesting how we've been trained, however so subtly, to think that what was thin fifteen or twenty years ago now translates into cow.
And then we wonder how this happens.
Or this.

Vogue