Does this Make My Butt Look Big? (And do you want it to?)

BIG or SMALL? Mixed Messages and the Ideal Body


I hear people say “my butt is too big. I want it to be smaller” and I hear the same number of people say the opposite “my butt is too small. I want it to be bigger.” The media seems to be filled with mixed messages about the way female bodies should look like. Magazine articles that espouse workout tips alternately switch from topics of how to make ones big butt disappear to how to make one’s butt look bigger. One such article from Women’s Health Magazine is titled “4 Moves to Boost your butt” another from the website Real Women’s Fitness has an article called “Lose that Fat Butt.” How can these two seemingly opposite goals of body appearance be in existence at the same time in our culture?

The difference here may be the qualifying word “fat.” It’s alright to have a large, curvy butt, as long as it’s not fat that stored up in your rump. I’ll use an example of two celebrities, Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Love Hewitt, to illustrate my point.


Kardashian is known to the public primarily for her curves, and by that I mean that she is known for having a large ass. Hewitt has been a famous actress for a longer time than Kardashian, with her fame starting from the age of adolescence with TV and movie appearances. For most of her career Hewitt has appeared to be very skinny. However in 2007, Hewitt gained a few extra pounds. When pictures were released of Hewitt frolicking on the beach the media caused a fire storm by calling her “fat.”

Comparing her picture with Kardashian’s however, I see little difference. Hewitt responded to the criticism by saying that still wore “size 2” clothing. So if these two girls weigh and look relatively the same size why was Hewitt’s body shamed?

Jennifer Love Hewitt, Kim Kardashian

We are supposed toadmire the “curves” of Kim Kardashian. But then criticize like Jennifer Love Hewitt who has hips and a big butt? At first, if one thinks these two women areroughly the same body weight, then the treatment to Hewitt and dismissal of Kardashianseems unfair. But I think the reason Hewitt was attacked was because she wasseen as being unnaturally overweight. In previous years Hewitt had alwaysappeared smaller and leaner. Therefore the conclusion was made that she startedeating more and exercising less and that is the reason why she got bigger. “Tobecome fat” as Farrell suggests, “meant that one had moved down –had degraded –on the scale of civilization,” (64). However, for the entirety of Kardashian’s fame she has stayed the same size and thus has not declined on the civilization spectrum.

Are there even someracial components at play here? Kim Kardashian, with her dark features andAlbanian ancestry, is considered, in comparison to white Jennifer Love Hewitt, tobe “ethnic.” So do we expect Kardashian, as being a representative of “ethnic”or “exotic” physique to be larger than white Americans?

Whatever the underlyingreasons, the different reactions people have to different people’s bodies are sending out mixed messages. Some people are praised for their big backsides whileothers fall victim to harsh comments and scorn. Is there a happy medium groundwhere a person can have the “right” amount of weight stored in the behind?



But why does a desire to have a curvy butt exist at the same time the desire to be small and lean exist? Farrell suggests that this has always been the case.“the connotation of fat as female, primitive,and sexual has often evoked a mixture of attraction and repulsion….The popularity of the bustle in women’s fashion in the second half of the 19th century is a prime example of this attraction and repulsion. The bustle can be seen as a false ‘steatopypia,’ an artifice that creates an excessive protuberance of the buttocks. On the other hand… it was a false set of buttocks that was fashionable, an allusion to the shape of the iconic Venus Hottenhot but not an actual development of real fleshy buttocks.” (Fat Shame p. 74. Emphasis added.)

This is extremely obvious when the image of the “Venus Hottentot” and a image of a woman wearing a bustle are placed side by side.

Venus Hottenhot , 19th century bustle style dress

Strikingly similar to the 19th century bustle are contemporary products made to enhance booty size.

Bustle worn under female dress, Deluxe Hip and Padded Panty by Feel Foxy

There is an entire website called Feel Foxy that is dedicated to selling various products all designed to make the butt look bigger. There are padded panties, hip booster padded panty, formed hip enhancer, and many, many, more butt enhancement clothing articles. Feel Foxy’s products have been featured on the daytime televisions Today, Tyra Banks, and Rachael Ray shows, and also on the “medically focused” (as the titles of their programs suggests at least) Dr. Oz and The Doctors.

Perhaps people naturally want to have a Hottentot like body. Likely, people want to avoid the negative connotations that come along with having a big bottom: that you are primitive, lazy, and out of control. Yet, the image of a rounder backside is appealing so maybe there are ways to gain that aesthetic without actually getting fat. The bustle and the padded underwear are things that can just as easily be taken off as put on. When one slips off the undergarment meant to produce the image of a larger posterior they are also able to shed the negative connotations associated with having a naturally large behind.





The question is: how does society want our behinds to look like? Does it want them to be large or small? Moreover, is there any way a person can ever reach society’s standard of beauty? For me, it seems to be a no win situation. And maybe it is purposefully unattainable. Without magazines telling us what to do to make our butts look good, and without products specifically designed to make our butts look good, how would those companies make money?




Links:

http://realwomensfitness.com/lower-body-exercises/lose-that-fat-butt/
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/butt-shaping-exercises
http://www.feelfoxy.com/default.asp