HOW DARE THEY?
So first Lena Dunham was too fat; now she’s too ugly. Or maybe she’s both. That seems to be the consensus among critics who have blasted a recent episode of Girls, in which Lena Dunham’s Hannah has a weekend fling with a rich, older man played by Patrick Wilson.
Normally in film or TV, the young girl in her 20’s shacking up with an older man is par for the course, nothing exceptional. And in this instance, it would have almost certainly gone as unnoticed as the rest, had it not been for the fact that Patrick Wilson is extremely good looking. So good looking apparently, it is simply out of the realm of possibility that someone like him would ever want to sleep with someone like her. You know, someone not even close to being in his league. Someone ugly.
(Disclaimer: I take issue with the assertion that Dunham is fat or ugly. She is neither, and those who think otherwise are from crazy town.)
Many critics have reconciled the total LUNACY of this hook-up by explaining it away as a dream-sequence. Because the only way a woman who looks like Lena Dunham could ever sleep with a man who looks like Patrick Wilson (and have him tell her she’s beautiful by the way), is if she’s making it all up in her sad, ugly head.
Excuse me, but get fucked.
It’s incredibly concerning that the concept of the average looking guy+hot girl=acceptable but the average looking girl+hot guy=heads exploding from confusion. Why is it okay in film and TV for the average looking guy to get the amazing looking girl but not the other around? Why can Seth Rogen get Katherine Heigl but Melissa McCarthy never gets Ryan Gosling? How come I find men like Jack Black, Steve Carrell, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Zach Galifianakis incredibly attractive, but I can’t think of a similar list of women that most men would go for?
Never gets the hot guy – that would just be unrealistic.
These are questions that, to be brutally honest, never even crossed my mind before I gained weight. But when you suddenly find yourself completely lacking representation in the media (at least, in any form other than humour), you start to get 1) incredibly insecure and 2) really pissed off.
Are men really so superficial that the only role they would like women to play is that of trophies? That first and foremost they need to be attractive, and everything after that (humour, values and, oh I don’t know, intellect) is just a bonus? I would like to think that isn’t true, but since gaining weight it’s become difficult for me to believe that it isn’t.
I’m the same person that I was when I weighed 60kgs. I’m still smart, still funny, still kind, still a great friend, still great to talk to. I’m still the same person. Why then, did I used to get copious amounts of male attention and now I get none? I feel stupid for ever even thinking that my personality had anything to do with it. For ever thinking that I didn’t have an advantage by being attractive. For ever thinking that I was getting attention because I was smart and funny and not because I looked awesome in my skinny jeans.
I’ve been trying incredibly hard lately to see my value as a person in spite of my weight, but seeing myself as sexual and lovable being is the one hurdle I feel will be almost impossible to jump. Am I getting less attention because my self-esteem has been so shattered by my poor body image that I’m just not putting myself out there as much? Maybe. I want to believe that’s the case, because that means I may have some control over the situation. That if I just bothered to go out with my friends and flirt a little there would be a bunch of guys waiting to pick me up. But in a world where the Internet loses its shit when Lena Dunham hooks up with Patrick Wilson (but calls the ‘geeky’ boy who hooked up with Bar Refaeli in a recent Super Bowl ad a hero), it’s hard to believe I’ve got any sway over the situation.
What a hero he is! Good for him! Well deserved!
Some days I really do feel like no matter how much I learn to love myself, I’m fighting a losing battle when it comes to relationships. No matter how comfortable I get in my own skin, I can’t make a guy want to have sex with me. I can’t make a guy want to date me. And I try not to, but most days I think my ex-boyfriend was right when he told me that guys just can’t help not being attracted to girls when they gain weight. That conversation is tattooed on my brain.
I know he was a jerk for saying it, and people tell me there are men out there who will fall for me and want to date me in spite of how I look (and not just want to have drunken sex with me, which I’ve not gone without – a vagina’s a vagina after all, no matter how big the body around it). Apparently there are men who will even find me beautiful because of how I look – now there’s a crazy thought. I smile and nod when people say things like that to me and I want to believe it, I really, really do. But I’ve yet to come across a man like that, and the recent confusion and incredulous attitude surrounding Lena Dunham’s ‘implausible’ hook-up does nothing to help me believe men like that exist. But how will things ever change when it’s not even clear how they got so out of hand in the first place? It feels like a chicken vs. egg situation: did men start believing they deserve to date only beautiful, thin women because the media tells them that’s their entitlement, or is the media simply reflecting the attitudes of society back on itself? And it’s the same murky ground from my end: did I start believing I don’t deserve to be in a relationship at this size because the media told me so, or is the media just representing a harsh reality?
Whichever came first, Lena Dunham is being brave as shit by going against the concept altogether. By placing the importance of her wit, talent and intellect above that of her looks, she is confusing and angering people, and pushing boundaries at the same time. While I personally don’t think she’s fat or ugly to begin with, the fact that she’s not a supermodel, yet still believes she has the right to be represented as a lovable and sexual person in the media does make plenty of people incredibly uncomfortable. And although she’s considered the epitome of unattractiveness to some and that swells a slight panic and exasperated rage within me, at least she’s pushing forth regardless. In the mean time, I’ll continue to try and reconcile the confusing feelings I have about my ability to attract the opposite sex at this size. I find I jump from rage at the superficiality of it all to despairing that I’ll be alone forever.
Source:
http://rosiewaterland.com/2013/02/21/here-we-go-again/