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Model Jennifer Hawkins, who was also Miss Universe in 2004, poses nude and un-airbrushed in the February Australian issue of Marie Claire. The purpose of this move is to empower women and generate awareness around body image issues, but it's receiving a lot of criticism and backlast.
An article on the Huffington Post has more details:
Editor Jackie Frank told The Australian that the images were inspired by a survey of 5500 readers, which showed that only 12 percent of women were truly happy with their bodies. Marie Claire put Hawkins on the cover to make a positive statement about body image and the photographs of Hawkins will be auctioned later this month, with the proceeds donated to the Butterfly Foundation, an eating disorders support group.
In the interview, Hawkins says, "I'm not a stick figure--I thought it would be great to tell women to just be themselves and be confident."
Sounds good right? Not to everyone...
But the cover sparked an outcry from Marie Claire readers such as "She wants to make [women] feel more comfortable about how they look, gee thanks, I now feel worse! I'm a size 10 and I still have more rolls than her!" and "If anything is going to have me running to the toilet with my finger down my throat it's a picture of Jennifer Hawkins naked."
Here's what was said in response to the negative criticism:
The Butterfly Foundation's general manager Julie Parker pointed out Hawkins flaws, including her dimpled thigh, creased waist and skin-tone changes. Parker told The Age that photographing an average Australian woman wouldn't have worked.
"The thing is unfortunately it doesn't make the same point, because Jennifer sells magazines and she creates awareness. If 'Marie Claire' had chosen to put on their cover an ordinary women, say myself or a friend of yours, it would not have created the awareness it does."
I tend to agree with Parker on this one. If it were an "ordinary" woman, it wouldn't raise the same amount of awareness because people wouldn't care as much. I wish that's not how it was, but I do think that's the lame reality. Here's another question... would the cover raise awareness if it were a woman of color instead of a white woman? Actually, will this cover even raise awareness or make women feel more positive about themselves, or not?
Also, if it was my decision of whether to do this with a white woman or a woman of color, I would choose a woman of color. I think that would have made an even bigger impact and impression.
THAT BEING SAID, I think projects like this called "50 Nude Women"
http://www.fiftywomen.com/index.html
Could create a lot more of a positive impact. And I think the Dove Real Beauty campaign has done a lot in this area as well. Showing a pretty much flawless woman airbrushed? It's more for attention. I think they purposely picked someone who wouldn't need airbrushing anyway to create controversy and raise awareness of their magazine.
It worked.