Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Freedom to be yourself...

I read this New York Times article about Girth and Nudity, a Pictorial Misson with great interest. Not just because the photos were taken by Leonard Nimoy, but because it demonstrates to me the acceptance of people for who they are, and that there is a beauty in us all no matter our clothing size. Part of the article:
“The average American woman, according to articles I’ve read, weighs 25 percent more than the models who are showing the clothes they are being sold,” Mr. Nimoy said, his breathing slightly labored by allergies and a mild case of emphysema. “So, most women will not be able to look like those models. But they’re being presented with clothes, cosmetics, surgery, diet pills, diet programs, therapy, with the idea that they can aspire to look like those people. It’s a big, big industry. Billions of dollars. And the cruelest part of it is that these women are being told, ‘You don’t look right.’ ”

Mr. Nimoy, who divides his time among homes in New York and Los Angeles and on Lake Tahoe, in California, admits that before he began this project, it had never occurred to him that beauty might be culture driven, that a fat body in Africa is treated quite differently from one in the United States. “In some cultures their weight is a sign of affluence: their husbands can afford to feed them well,” he noted.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Leonard Nimoy is a man of many talents. I have seen him on the screen, heard him on the speaker circuit addressing attendees of a national conference for school board members, and read one of his books. I knew he has also been a director, producer, an actor in live theater as well as on television and in movies, a recording artist, a published author, and now I learn he is also an accomplished photographer.
Not bad for a Jewish kid who grew up in Boston born of Ukrainian parents who had fled Russia.