ONTD Political

Thin by what standards though? Where does thin begin and end for the people doing this? I'd like to know that, too.

Because if you counted everyone below like, size 8? (That would be my criteria, as my mom is a size 8 and really, really thin) It would be like 98%.

Exactly. I consider size 8 to be average, but the models who do the Plus-size catalogs are generally size 6-8. It's ridiculous. The standard set by the media industry (fashion/TV/etc.) of what constitutes 'thin' is far more stringent, probably size 2 or less as you've said, with size 4 being considered average. Which is ludicrous.

Precisely. I'd just love to know the criteria they use here, because I think you're right.

I can only really think of Penelope Garcia (at least for the female characters- I can think of plenty of plus-size/not-skinny-or-muscly males).

I thought that at first, too, but then I added up the percentage numbers of men and women and they equal 100, so it's not a percentage of thin women as opposed to women of other body types, but a percentage of thin women as opposed to thin men. There are more men than women, and therefore it's likelier that there'll be more thin men than women.

Oh, I mistakenly counted the numbers on the speaking roles in comedies. :/

That was my thought, 'cause when I turn on the TV I'd say it's closer to 95% of women on TV are thin-- except certain talk shows or the comic relief "fat lady," they are almost all thin.

I wonder if the other numbers are like "magical talking animals" or something.

That was my first thought. It is SO rare to have a non-thin female character on TV. Like, I can think of maaaaaybe 10 off the top of my head. Maaaaaybe, and the only lead character is from Mike and Molly.

I thought this too. But then I also tend to think of main characters, I wonder how many of the not-thin women are side characters and/or older? It seems like being less thin is more acceptable on tv for women who are older and not presented as sexy or sexual as it is.

I think it's that they are both characters from the same franchise.

ha ha ha this, Mermaids would very little need for en-cumbersome clothes.

She was probably just chosen for a visual example, but I think they weren't really taking into account the levels of justification or situational normativity of "sexy attire," just whether it was sexy or not.

Which is a whole 'nother issue---sexy attire that is out of place for the situation, actively hindering to the character, or obviously just there for male-gaze benefit, is its own variety of sexism, though it's more prevalent in video/computer games and the like than it is in "family" TV shows . . . but there's also the fact that producers seek out those situations where less clothing makes sense more for female characters than they do for male ones, and take it further when they find one.

An egregious example of this was the Knight Rider reboot that they attempted a few years ago, where the settings seemed to be deliberately chosen for their providing an excuse to get the attractive female operative/agent/cop/whatever into sexy, skimpy clothing. Crime on a beach; woman investigator puts on a bikini. Of course.

Then again there's the part where women's bodies are more sexualized period such that even with similar amounts of clothing, the woman is perceived as more sexualized than the man---compare Ariel with King Triton, who wears nothing on top, or Jasmine with Aladdin, who wears an open vest over nothing, or April to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who are technically wearing nothing but thin strips of fabric around waist, elbows, and knees. (Which brings us to yet another issue, where the anthropomorphization of animal and other nonhuman characters regularly has the female characters closer to human in shape and proportion, and thus perceived sexuality, need for clothing, et cetera. With few exceptions, given any species of cartoon character that is other than human, the females will look more like an idealized female human than the males will. (Compare Optimus Prime's body shape with Elita-One's, for example, or Buzz Lightyear's with Princess Mira's.)

I agree that Ariel wouldn't be the best subject to put there, because much of the issues of her costume are beside the point in question (and honestly, a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, because Eric is not a merperson, and when Ariel is on land she wears dresses that cover her more, and under the sea her counterpart is the shirtless King Triton), but there is still an issue or three about disproportionate sexualization of female characters to be made about her. Not that one, though. Jasmine should have gone there with Aladdin, Jafar, and the Sultan, methinks.

(By the way, in the sequel to The Little Mermaid, Arial's daughter becomes a mermaid and is pictured wearing an odd vest or sleeveless blouse, which looks exceedingly out of place.)

When the models for the female charr were being designed, the artist in charge of the design - a woman - put her foot down and refused to allow them to turn into sexualized catgirls. The exact quote was "six or none!" in terms of breasts. So the differences between male and female charr are similar to those of real-world big cats, where the females are a bit smaller and more lithe (and also with fluffier tails), but look no more human than a male does.

I can't even begin to describe how much I love this! :-D Like, to the point of wanting to run out and buy Guild Wars 2, even though I really don't care for that type of game, usually.

Yeah, really. And her outfits as a human are modest enough, or at any rate, just as modest as Eric's.

No, I think they're using that as an example of a movie where the women wear sexy attire and the men don't. Look also at the "thin" example- the woman is thin and the male is not.

WoW has some great badass women characters... but, they are almost entirely characters that you meet questing. They aren't the lore figures that are prominent in the books and such, which often get treated poorly (TYRANDE, enough fucking said). I'm pretty sure they have different teams handling the lore for the quests, vs. the overall world lore, so that may be part of it. Cause in quests, there are some particularly awesome women characters.

Unfortunately, they almost always end up getting dropped at the end of their quest line, although this seems to be less true in the new expansion. Shokia and Kiryn, for example, are pretty freaking badass and you see them in multiple different zones.

One of the things I've always loved about the Guild Wars universe is how many amazingly badass women are present in the games.

lol i love you for this comment. not that it's a good thing but it's definitely not equatable.

And the privilege to be clueless about things related to menial, monotonous and thankless chores has absolutely nothing to do with it, of course.

(Srsly, I want to see a laundry commercial where a man and a woman are doing the laundry together and getting into a sock fight with the laundry they're in the process of folding. Sharing a chore that's not considered enjoyable, and managing to have fun with each other's company.)

My dad brings that up every. fucking. time.