Ironized Yeast for Keira Knightley

[queerbychoice]

keryx linked a while back to an article about finding an advertisement in a 1933 issue of Woman's World magazine for Ironized Yeast, a "special quick way to put pounds on fast":

"Now there's no need to have people calling you 'skinny,' and losing all your chances of making and keeping friends. Here's a new, easy treatment that is giving thousands healthy flesh and attractive curves--in just a few weeks! . . .

Skinniness is a serious danger. Authorities warn that skinny, anemic, nervous people are far more liable to serious infections and fatal wasting disease than the strong, well-built person. So begin at once to get back the rich blood and healthy flesh you need. Do it before it is too late!"

I think the endless advertisements for diet programs these days would be significantly less annoying if there were any advertisements mixed in with them that promised to help people gain weight. At least then there'd be some acknowledgment that there at least is some such thing as excessive skinniness, and of people who want to gain weight and have trouble doing so. It still wouldn't be ideal; ideally, there'd be no advertisements claiming that either weighing a lot or weighing very little would cost you "all your chances of making and keeping friends" or signify that you must automatically possess certain personality traits ("skinny, anemic, nervous people"). But it would be less bad than the current situation, I think. Currently, to the extent that our culture has any concept of such a thing as "too skinny" at all, the concept is only of anorexic women who wish they were even skinnier. There's no concept at all of the fact that gaining weight can be as difficult as losing it, or that anyone anywhere would ever even want to gain weight.

Meanwhile, bay_bus_rider linked today to photographs of nightmarishly anorexic Keira Knightley, which I do not recommend that you click on unless you have a very strong stomach, because I am not exaggerating when I say that those photographs are likely to make you feel physically nauseated and to give you nightmares. Anyway, I'd been meaning for a while to link to the Ironized Yeast thing, and now Keira Knightley has provided an absolutely perfect illustration of what excessive skinniness exists around us, and thus of how absurd it is for us to be endlessly surrounded with advertisements promising only to help people lose weight, and never to help people gain any.

Comments

[silverchan.livejournal.com]

What, you mean skinny people can be unhappy with their weight and not mentally ill? Blasphemy!

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Dear god, she looks absolutely horrifying - the "Dachau-look" should not be considered acceptable, much less sexy.

[rhekarid.livejournal.com]

Weight-gaining commercials would be welcome, though I think I'd prefer they try to use phrasing a tad less creepy than "rich blood and healthy flesh."

Keira is in denial. I recall seeing something mention that while she admits her family has a history of anorexia, she is unaffected.

An article I read said that the health risks associated with being overweight start to be comparable to those of being underweight at around BMI 35+, between obese and morbidly obese. Perhaps we could throw American cheese at her, and a square will slap against her skin and mess up her whole system.

[comeoneileen.livejournal.com]

Poor Keira.

[lilerthkwake.livejournal.com]

And recently Keira's been interviewed and has denied being anorexic. Even though in other interviews she's admitted to hating her body. Oh, please. Whenever these skinny chicks deny having eating disorders, I want to scream at the general public, OF COURSE THEY DENY HAVING AN EATING DISORDER!!! PEOPLE WHO HAVE EATING DISORDERS ARE IN DENIAL!!! *shakes head*

[rhekarid.livejournal.com]

And assertion that it's genetic further validates the assumption of bigots that it's a disease that can and should be cured, while assertion that it's uncontrollably formed through conditioning validates that it's a mental illness/condition that can be removed through psychiatry.

I don't mean to fight anyone else's battles, but people who ignorantly hate you will invent the means to justify it regardless of logic. It is equally ignorant not to acknowledge that some people CAN choose, as it is not to acknowledge that some are born that way. If the same scenario equally applied to all people universally, we'd be the same and there would be no different sexualities in the first place.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Whether people are born gay is an issue for scientists to prove, not something that people can somehow know instinctively. It is perfectly valid to debate whether gayness is inborn or not; however, it would indeed be ignorant to assert that all gay people WANT to be gay, and I would never assert that.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

The purpose of coming out in the first place is to be able to be ourselves, to speak about our own experiences and tell the truths about our lives as best we know it, and be able to feel that our expeirences have been understood. I am speaking mine, and by speaking it, I have helped provide places where hundreds of others have been able to feel that their experiences of choosing to be queer are finally understood by others too.

As for your boldface statement, it is my opinion that the belief in a "gay gene" harms gay rights. Please see my FAQ questions "Does the idea of choice encourage homophobes to say that queers don't deserve equal rights?" and "What is the difference between essentialist and social constructionist techniques for fighting homophobia?"

But even if the belief in a gay gene didn't harm gay rights, the denial that any of us can choose to be queer still certainly harms the rights of queer by choice people, who comprise approximately 8% of the queer community (see the link on that page to the Internet Survey of Queer and Questioning Youth, under #3). For the mainstream queer community to decide to sacrifice the rights of the approximately 8% minority of queer people who choose to be queer is just as bad as for the mainstream human community to decide to sacrifice the rights of the approximately 10% minority of all people who are queer at all. Queer by choice people have a right to be able to talk about our experiences and not everywhere encounter people trying to tell us that we're the only ones who've ever felt such a thing. And I intend to continue asserting that right.

Eh.

[comeoneileen.livejournal.com]

What rhekarid said. And I hope I'm not being inexcusably rude here, but I really dislike this assumption that homosexuality is something that needs to be conclusively explained away, like a blemish or a birth defect, for the benefit of gawking bigots. Same-sex relationships are not immoral, period. If they were, it wouldn't matter how genetically predisposed to them you were. They aren't, and the question of whether or not "being gay" is a choice is a question with as much moral import as whether or not there's a specific DNA marker for liking American cheese. The pro-compulsory-heterosexuality crowd isn't really about to start piling on the equal rights out of pity for the poor queers what just can't help themselves. We have nothing to gain from playing to their prejudices.

Teh Gay is not a disability. Gay rights are not concessions graciously accorded to those unfortunate souls whom fate has denied a normal libido. Nothing about same-sex attraction makes it less complex and bewildering than the heterosexual kind; maybe "by choice" vs. "no choice" is a little bit of a false dichotomy anyway. But even if it weren't? There's no reason why we should all have to pretend like we had absolutely no say in the matter at all just so the religious right can have a little smug pity mixed in with their hate.

queerbychoice is speaking from personal experience when e talks about being, well, queer by choice, and I don't know, maybe you should respect that a little.

Burn!

[comeoneileen.livejournal.com]

But think of all the fun otherwise perfectly legitimate arguments you're missing!

Oh, well.

(Somehow, knowing that my unholy love of bad Internet humor makes white noise of everything else I say only makes the flame of that illicit passion burn all the brighter. And I spent a good fifteen minutes typing up that comment, too. Sigh, sigh.)

Re: Burn!

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Considering that you received more of a reply from that person than any of the rest of us did, it appears to me that the "teh" actually had the opposite effect of what she claimed. Only people who use "teh" receive replies from her!

[bay-bus-rider.livejournal.com]

Found this on a random British website:

Keira Knightley has slammed rumours she has an eating disorder - saying being thin is in her genes.

The stunning actress says she owes her toned body to her father and gets hurt when critics say she's too thin and is starving herself because her grandmother used to suffer from anorexia.

Imagine any heavier person using the same argument! "I owe my ample body to my father." This argument always irritates me for the reasons you cite above. Whether or not Ms. Knightley is deliberately that thin, it's unhealthy and she needs to change it. I remember thinking the same thing about Calista Flockhart. Sometimes people should be encouraged to gain weight, but our crazy, thin-prizing society will rarely do it.

Thanks for the link!

[bay-bus-rider.livejournal.com]

That link should go here.

I know it's none of my business, but. . .

[comeoneileen.livejournal.com]

Toned? Toned? TONED?

Ok, maybe she does get a naturally toned body from her father, but that is not it. Doesn't "toned" imply the existence of muscle mass?

[mariness.livejournal.com]

Two separate notes:

1) As a biologist, I remain firmly of the opinion that the gay-is-genetic remains entirely unproven, as does the queer-by-choice. I've seen interesting indications in both directions, but interesting indications do not constitute proof either way. And given that we still have difficulties understanding the full nature of sex, gender and biology in comparatively simpler corals, we've got a long way to go before we fully understand sex, gender and biology in humans.

2) Now the more personal bit:

I've lost a lot of weight, completely unintentionally, over the last year thanks to a combination of medical stuff, stress and so on. Which made me extremely amused to read your "skinny, anemic, nervous" description, since that's exactly where I am at the moment.

But here's the kicker: I haven't been dieting, and it took me six months to realize just how radical the weight loss was (I was focused on other stuff) and another three months to decide to try to do something about it, a resolution that immediately ended when I realized that the stress and excitements of this past year weren't ending. I am wondering if Keira Knightley is in the same position right now, especially since she has clearly gone beyond even the Hollywood skinny factor, to the point where it could be decidedly detrimental to her career, since let's face it, Hollywood likes skinniness, but Hollywood also likes breasts, and Knightley no longer has them. (In previous movies, she did. In the latest Pirates movie, they're gone, and that's not just the result of costuming.)

Here's the other kicker: Everyone, but everyone, has assured me that I will "rapidly" regain the weight.

Possibly. The weight loss happened mostly over a six month period last year (and it wasn't entirely caused by negative things; I was also exercising a lot more than I'd been previously); the last six months have not reversed the trend in the slightest. But I think that perception is so widely held that no one thinks of marketing any weight gain products aside from the muscle build up things sold in health stores -- the assumption is that it's easy to gain weight, difficult to lose it.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

It can definitely be as difficult to gain weight as to lose it. Mikie used to be anorexic, and when ey eventually realized ey was anorexic and decided ey'd better try to gain weight in order to regain the strength to walk longer than a few yards at a time and in order not to die, ey still kept unintentionally losing weight at first, because figuring out how to gain it just wasn't as easy as people think.

[yareach.livejournal.com]

I don't know that Keira Knightly has dropped weight that drastically. The pictures from that event seem to be contradicting: different angles show her to be either pretty much the same size she's always been (tiny, no boobs) or terribly emaciated. Not that I don't think the skinny craze is ridiculous, because I do. I get the issue. I just get a bit defensive of people saying she looks disgusting because I have her body type (insanely tiny on top, no boobs to speak of, more substance in the thighs and ass), and .. well.. I take it personally. A bit. Ok, I'm done.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I've seen pictures of you! Pictures of you do not cause me to start worrying that you may at any moment collapse and die on the ground! Pictures of you do not make me concerned about your health at all. Pictures of her are entirely different. She has no substance anywhere!

[yareach.livejournal.com]

But you only see her top! And you've only seen me in sweaters! (I think?)

Oh, well. I can't say she wouldn't look better with more body fat. And the same applies to me.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I can see her hips in the bottom picture! Complete with protruding hip bone and an indentation where her tummy ought to be!

[(Anonymous)]

I am skinny. And believe it or not, we skinny people don't necessarily want to be so. I know i am healthy even though i have a BMI of barely 18. My mother, grandmother and great grandmother have all been slight people, to the point that in primary school, my grandmother was dressed in 2 pairs of thick tights to avoid others thinking she was underfed. I am now 25, have 2 children and have to eat 5 times a day to keep my normal weight. I never liked my boyish figure, but i know that the women in my family develop their 'womenly curves' around 40 so i havr something to look forward to. :P please don't assume you know everything about a persons mental and physical health at first glance.