She looks pretty flat stomach to me.
This author must have a problem with his weight and he sounds like he is trying to justify himself. I bet he looks like this.
Posted on 04/20/2006 3:01:22 AM PDT by teldon30
If Marilyn Monroe were alive today and auditioned for "American Idol," Simon Cowell would probably tell her, "You need to drop a few pounds, hon, or you’re not going to Hollywood." Yet the amount of fan mail that lovesick women send HBO star James Gandolfini (aka Tony Soprano) increases every season in direct proportion to his ever-expanding girth.
Does this represent a double standard in our society? You bet it does! I can think of no other double standard that affects so many people when it comes to dating and relationships than the "battle of the bulge."
What is the root cause of this totally unfair bias that results in heavy women being far less desirable in the dating marketplace while husky men are very much in demand? (I am not making any judgment about overweight women, by the way. Check on-line personal ads placed by men and the word "slender" pops up more frequently than Alka-Seltzer moments during a typical Jack Bauer day.)
I have decided that the culprit is television. And I think it all started with Ralph Kramden.
Remember Jackie Gleason’s rotund character from "The Honeymooners?" Alice, his adoring and slender wife, not only put up with Ralph’s obesity, but also tolerated his crazy moods and antics. What a great role model Ralph was for American husbands, as his solution to every marital spat was to wave his fist and shout "To the moon, Alice!"
And America laughed.
Over the decades, as television evolved and became more inclusive in terms of minorities, gays, and even women in starring roles, one 50-year-old stereotype remains. Not only remains, but apparently has worsened!
That is, more than ever before, television today portrays heavy, obnoxious husbands married to far more attractive and slender women. How about "According to Jim," where burly Jim Belushi is married to Courtney Thorne-Smith, who is about 10 times hotter than he is? Or "Still Standing," in which chubby actor Joel Murray is wed to "hottie" Jamie Gertz? Or "The King of Queens," in which portly Kevin James’ wife is the far more attractive Leah Remini?
And let us not forget animated shows, starting with the "The Flintstones," in which Fred’s bride was sexy (for a cartoon character) Wilma. Alas, even my all-time favorite television show is guilty. Yes, in "The Simpsons," Homer’s slovenly build is ignored by Marge. Even worse is "The Family Guy," in which the husband, Peter, is literally twice the size of loving wife, Lois.
What really sticks in my proverbial craw is a pizza commercial that aired about a thousand times during the recent NCAA basketball tournament. The ad shows a chubby, balding husband lounging in a lawn chair, watching hoops with two buddies, and ordering his slender, blonde wife to bring him a pizza. Oh, she gets back at him by squirting him with a hose, but the question remains why she ever married this oaf in the first place.
Of course I am sure that all of these shows and commercials are probably produced by wealthy Hollywood men with stomachs hanging over their belts and who parade their "trophy wives" around Tinseltown.
Before writing this column I asked my wife if she could recall one television couple in which the wife was overweight. She quickly came up with "Roseanne," the ground-breaking ‘90s sitcom, in which both the husband (John Goodman) and the wife (Roseanne Barr) were quite overweight. (Interesting to note that all three of their children did not have a weight problem.) Of course the executive producer of that show was a woman, Roseanne herself!
So what does all this have to do with dating? Why should this trend bug me so much?
Because at the dating service I ran for more than two decades, I continually had to "battle" with overweight men who insisted that just because they were heavy, they did not want to meet overweight women. Many of these portly men blatantly admitted that they were not attracted to heavy women.
And what can you expect, as these guys were members of a generation that grew up watching many of the shows mentioned above? Moreover, like all males, they have been exposed to a non-stop avalanche of sexy, sultry and slender women peeking out from magazine ads and prancing around in skimpy outfits in television commercials.
The image of women that these shows and ads portray is one that frustrates many women. Of course it is great for the diet industry, but it also leads to all sorts of eating disorders for young girls and even women of all ages.
Now the question remains: are men just naturally attracted to slender women, or am I correct in blaming the media?
Well, I maintain that popular culture definitely influences men’s (and women’s?) tastes. After all, if, in the mid-1600s, Simon was judging models to pose for Rembrandt, he probably would have said to Ms. Monroe, "Sorry blondie, but if you don’t pack a few more pounds on those hips you won’t be going to Amsterdam!"
Of course it is a double standard.
Women like rich guys, and men don't usually have a $$ requirement for the women they are attracted to.
Duh?
People need to stop flipping out over "double standards" because they're DIFFERENT standards.
Women want a man who brings home the bacon just as the hunter was the most desired in times past. A woman instinctively wants a man who's going to make healthy, strong offspring, and then be able to provide for them.
Men want a woman who's attractive to the point where he'll want to reproduce with her and who seems physically capable of bringing up those kids.
Before you all freak out, this is only the beginning though. We live in a society that isn't about going out and hunting for animals to eat or sitting home and bringing up babies all day.
So standards of society enter, as do those of personal taste based on education and socialization.
All women don't find Gandolfini attractive, and all men don't find (whoever) attractive. Some do. A fat man who is successful is as interesting to the opposite sex as would be a physically attractive woman who didn't have a dime.
Different standards. Deal with 'em and stop whining.
She looks pretty flat stomach to me.
This author must have a problem with his weight and he sounds like he is trying to justify himself. I bet he looks like this.
I wonder how little Steve is?
uhhh...hmmm...little what? belly?
I think Marilyn was about a size 12. Now size 2 is slim. I wonder why the style is to like women who look like boys.
Homosexual men do all the designing in the modeling world.
Your never fully dressed without a smile!!!
Yes it is rare for a fat guy to have a hot wife (in the real world), but it is even rarer to see a hot guy with a fat wife.
Besides, you can't have a TV comedy with a fat wife because that is a tragedy.
Spelling error.....You're!!!
That's because men are hitting on them all day long. The only way to counteract that is with a snear. I learned that by watching French women.
Since I was in high school, I always thought the lasses looked better with a bit of curve to them.
It always annoys me when Playboy has an anniversary issue, and they do a retrospective on all the famous women who've posed for them, and they put some kind of disclaimer on Marilyn Monroe's pictures, like, "Of course, in those pre-hard body days, the standards of beauty were different..." or some such, as if they have to apologize for running photos of such a cow as Marilyn. Meanwhile, I think the photos of Marilyn are about 1,000 times hotter than their current "standard of beauty," which looks like a bleached blonde anorexic 14-year-old with giant silicone boobs. Yuck.
"Beauty is only skin deep, I tell ya. Why, just think how many times you've seen a handsome man, walking down the street, arm in arm with an ugly girl...
I've never seen that! Have you ever seen that?!" -- Rodney Dangerfield
BINGO
HAHA! Man that's funny! Thanks!
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