Models & Sports Illustrated

After watching Miss Representation in class, I thought hard about how women are represented in terms of beauty standards in the media. I thought about how just the other day, I stalked the Instagram pages of Gigi Hadid and Zendaya Coleman, and couldn't help but wish I looked as "perfect" as them.

Right now, it is undoubtedly Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition season. Pictures are all over the media of the new cover models, and voting has already begun for next year's edition. While I was browsing through my Instagram feed today, I came across a picture of model Barbara Palvin. She was a "rookie" in this years edition. When I looked at the picture, I did a double take. I realized her body was not what I was expecting to see come out of Sports Illustrated. Her stomach/ body type looked normal and healthy. Her shape is what mine looks like (she has visible hips!). This was so refreshing to me. What made me sad was that I was surprised to see this. As Miss Representation pointed out, society is not offered a true representation of women. We are constantly given impossible beauty standards, especially in magazines like Sports Illustrated that are created for a man's pleasure.  I went through some of the comments on her photo. People were actually calling her "fat" and "too fat for SI". This is ridiculous. We are taught from such a young age that we are supposed to look a certain way, and having anything other than the model physique is not acceptable. It is sad that this is the representation that media gives us, and in return society believes that a woman like Barbara Palvin is fat. As the Killing Us Softly article pointed out, "Magazine advertisements portray women as flawless", so when they are not flawless, people are taken aback.Clearly, things need to change.