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Hoo boy. The next three years are going to be fun.

The Skinny on Fashion

So you know all that stuff you've been hearing about how fat is where it's at, how some magazines are promoting healthier body images and how the end is nigh for the anorectic fashion role model?

Don't believe it.

Via Sociological Images, here's just one catwalk image from Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, in this case from the Lindsey Lohan-directed collection for Ungaro:

 
Turns out even Barbie's ankles are now too fat for fashion.

Ovum Office

 So last week, the cyber trash talkers were all abuzz over whether U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama was preggers.

That's because, in some photos and some outfits, there's been a kind of bunching up of fabric around her middle.

This has been taken as a sure sign of the blessed baby bump, seen here in an image from the deliciously trashy Gawker.

Frankly, I think there are bigger things on the Obamas' minds right now, like the economy, world peace, climate change and, well you name it. Still, there's no denying that they're in love and anything is possible.

What's more, Michelle O recently turned 45, and a pregnancy at her age is undeniably high-risk as we saw with Sarah Palin.

Besides, I suspect she has other plans for the next few years.

Anyway, is it anybody's business but the Obamas?

That's why I didn't bother to blog this last week.

But then, I stumbled on this:

If the pregnancy rumors that are swirling about Michelle Obama are true, then the new presidential couple have truly hit the recession with a trifecta punch.

#1, The $819 billion economic stimulus, #2: The Obama family females — Michelle, Malia, and Sasha — who have kicked off a style stimulus. And now, slamming it out of the ballpark, they will have ignited an emotional stimulus.

There's almost nothing that this beleaguered country could use more now than an adorable Obama baby. In fact, we need it so badly, that if Michelle isn't already knocked up with #3, she and Barack should start trying immediately. Star magazine actually reports that Michelle has already consulted with fertility experts at Northwestern University in Chicago. Nothing would epitomize the new optimistic spirit of change, hope, and rebirth more than a baby born into the White House.

And talk about harkening back to an earlier era of inspiration. The last time there was a baby birth, Jackie and John F. Kennedy were the parents.

The photos and antics of Caroline and John John cavorting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, captivated the American public in the '60s.

Now, with a pregnancy, the Camelot-ian charisma of the Obamas would be catapulted into the stratosphere.

Yes, have a baby for political reasons! Do it for the flag!

This opinion piece was penned by former Star writer Bonnie Fuller, who went on to edit Cosmopolitan, US Weekly and a stack of other mags which trade in celeb images and baby bump speculations.

Which could explain this: 

Just think about the gift this baby will give to many hurting industries. First off, the media would be blessed. Celebrity newsweekly covers would have weeks of the question mark story: Is She or Isn't She Pregnant?, then there would be months to follow the growth of The Obama Bump.

Oh yay! Babies for the tabloid bottom lines!

Oh but there's more:

But an Obama baby wouldn't just stimulate the media industry, including paparazzi sales, just think of what it will do for the entire baby service industry. Moms across America will want to
purchase the same stroller, car seat, booster, bassinet, sippy cup, and wardrobe as the new mini Michelle or Barack.

And best of all, we'd finally get a break from the dreary economic news. Instead, we can look forward to the new front page headlines: Michelle: Breast or Bottle?; The Childbirth: Epidural or
Natural?; First Lady Balancing Act: Can Michelle Do It All?

The Obamas' own personal baby boom could have another positive consequence — a national one. Bad economic times usually translate into a drop in the birth rate. During the Great Depression, births plunged 15%. Well, the last thing America needs with its quadrillion dollar deficit is a smaller future generation of taxpayers to pay it off.

The Obama Boom can help us offset that now.

Babies as stimulus packages!

She has got to be kidding.

Right?

It's a joke.

Right?

To dream the impossible dream

I dream of a world where little girls are not married off to begin breeding -- and often dying -- when they should be studying or playing. Like in Ethiopia:

Over half of the girls in Amhara are married before they are 15.

The vast majority of them will have sex before they have even reached puberty and many will get pregnant as soon as it is physically possible.

The problem is their bodies are not fully formed making it highly unlikely they will have a trouble-free labour.

Hardly any of these girls will have access to a trained health worker and will have the baby at home.

Another girl, Achawache, told me she was 15 when she spent twelve days in labour.

Eventually the baby was born dead and she was left with a fistula.

Or even in the U.S. (Major icky photos warning!):

In what may be the creepiest court exhibits ever, Texas officials have released photos of imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs in intimate clinches with two underage girls. The photos, which you'll find on the following pages, were introduced Friday at a child custody hearing stemming from last month's raid at a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compund. Jeffs, the former FLDS leader, was convicted last year of rape as an accomplice for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry--and have sex against her will with--her 19-year-old cousin. As seen below, Jeffs is pictured with a girl named Loretta in three photos, which were snapped in January 2005 and recorded the couple's "First Anniversary." Six other images show Jeffs, now 52, in July 2006 photos with a girl named Merrianne, who was 12 at the time. In the photos, Jeffs is passionately kissing both girls. The so-called prophet lived in a home on the YFZ Ranch, from which hundreds of children were removed last month by Child Protective Services investigators.

Just imagine the difference letting girls mature and learn would make to the planet. For one thing, there would be a lot less misery. For another, there would be much less pressure on scarce resources.

Instead of having two, three, four or more babies before they're 20, babies that often die for lack of food, health care or clean water, these women could be starting businesses, going into professions or trades, farming, teaching, doing so much to help make the world a better, less disease-ridden place.

That's my fantasy anyway.

Since the start of the year, the young women of Antigone Magazine, which comes out of the University of British Columbia, have been raising funds by inviting readers to submit postcards with their dreams for women. These mini works of art have been regularly posted on the Antigone blog. You can find the last 12 weeks worth here.

Here's a video montage of some of the earliest entries.

Oh yeah, I have another dream. That more young women think like these do, and spend a lot less time fantasizing about Prince Charming, big weddings, having perfect bodies and designer clothes.

Pop porn

The first time I saw Hannah Montana -- that Disney marketing juggernaut aimed at turning little girls into big consumers of cosmetics and clothes -- I was visiting my 11 year-old goddaughter Rosie who, along with two of her friends, was giving a little violin and piano concert to raise money for Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. (They raked in about $100.)

Afterwards, while the grown-ups sat around drinking wine and talking, I suddenly became aware of the girls behaving like zombies, mouths agape, transfixed by the TV.

It's a look many kids get when they're in front of the tube so that wasn't what hit me in particular. What did get me was how the girls reacted to the images on screen. They were moving their hips in a way that was, well, not particularly appropriate for that age.

Last Saturday afternoon, I babysat my seven year old niece. We were out in the garden, where she climbed on top of her little plastic slide. Suddenly it was a stage and she was Hannah Montana, performing for the crowds. She rocked and bopped and shimmied and shook and tossed her hair.

Well, I suppose it's no worse than wanting to be a fairy princess who hopes to marry the prince. At least being a rock star requires grit and independence.

As for the marketing, well, it's just become bigger. After all, after we went to see Disney's Cinderella when we were eight or so, my sister and I each got that Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo magic wand, a princess tiara plus dangerous high-heeled plastic ''glass'' slippers which probably are responsible for my chronic ankle problems today.

But we were not sexualized. Not like today's little girls are, wearing thongs and grown-up mall rat outfits.

Which leads me to today's treeware column on the whole Miley Cyrus brouhaha. I have added some links ...

Frankly, I think Miley Cyrus looks a lot better – and certainly more age appropriate – in that now controversial Annie Leibowitz photo for the June issue of Vanity Fair than she has in her last dozen or so red carpet appearances.

Consider her hair, makeup and outfits on the recent CMT Awards, for which she was a presenter. Apparently braless in two deeply cleaved gowns, teetering on peekaboo pumps, her makeup applied with a trowel, her eyebrows painted on as always, and I'll-bet-there-were-extensions-there bedroom hair – she didn't look a day under 31.

It's not as if her wholesome  Hannah Montana brand – worth a billion this year, at least according to The New York Times – hasn't already been tainted.

The infamous Leibowitz photo, with her looking as if she might have just climbed out of the bath and into a sheet, is reminiscent of a Titian painting perhaps, or some other classic nude. It shows a beautiful young woman poised on the springboard to adulthood.

Yes, it's sexual.

But it's not sexualized.

And there's a big difference.

Unlike so many other recent images of Cyrus, as well as those of other young women who grow up in the celebrity spotlight, she is stripped bare of the art and the artifice of music videos and glossy magazines. Her gaze is direct, somewhat flirtatious, but not at all the stuff of the come-hither looks she has lately flashed at the camera.

This photo is as natural as we have ever seen her.

As for the sexy part, well, let's not kid ourselves. Raging hormones define adolescence. Teenagers probably think about sex more than adults do.

That's why high school is hell.

At least Cyrus isn't trussed up in Bratz-like skankwear, the kind so many little girls want to wear on Halloween.

What's more, many critics of the photo – notably Bonnie Fuller of Cosmopolitan and Star magazine fame – seem to have no problem at all condoning the use of starving teenage girls to model grown-up fashion.

That parents who are now protesting Cyrus's pose have not been concerned about what she has been projecting and promoting to date – rampant consumerism through the idea that girls should be all about their looks and clothes – is what is really disturbing.

In fact, the rest of the Vanity Fair layout is what should be attracting their ire.

Not only does she wear a cut-to-whoops and hiked-to-OMG Balmain dress, there is a particularly creeptacular photo of Cyrus lounging up against her father, the one-hit country music wonder Billy Ray. He denies being on set when the girl-in-a-sheet shot was taken – although other minders were present – but he makes no apology for posing like a dirty uncle with her.

Which he does all the time.

If you really want to see creepy, then hit the play button:

But then, Cyrus's trashy parents – who have spawned a number of children through various adulterous relationships – do the God talk thing a lot, which seems to give them a pass in the more conservative quarters of the U.S. of A.

Make no mistake: Cyrus Sr. knows how to extend the Miley franchise into the future. What we are now witnessing is his girl's metamorphosis – just as we saw Britney Spears' and Christina Aguilera's – from teen idol to pop tart.

As for the Disney company's statement that "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines," it is to laugh. Its Hannah Montana juggernaut not only manipulates a 15-year-old – who has reportedly now been told to lay low – it exploits the three million girls aged 6 to 14 who watch the show, buy the records, pay for concert tickets and want the clothes.

If anybody needs protection, it's them.

But not from this photo, that's for sure.

Now Miley has apologized, and it looks like Disney is shopping around for its next dispose-a-girl. That probably has less to do with the Vanity Fair picture than these photos.

As for what's happened to our young women, they're not the ones who can't say no.

It's their parents.

 

When I say Big O, I don't mean Oprah

Because today's young women are not sufficiently pre-occupied with with attracting and pleasing men, sex, cocktails and how to style their public pubic hair, along comes CosmoTV.

This is from today's news release -- and no, it's not a joke:

Inspired by the World's Bestselling Women's Magazine, CosmoTV Offers Women a Sizzling Backstage Pass to Men, Style and Sex ... Not Necessarily in that Order

        -   CosmoTV's flagship series Oh So Cosmo is the ultimate guide for the
            single girl
        -   The nationwide search is on in the first Canadian CosmoTV Bachelor
            Search
        -   Men, Manolos and martinis every Saturday night with uncut episodes of
            Sex and the City
        -   Supermodels, star-makers and dirty cows punch up CosmoTV's reality
            block
        -   Uncork guilty-pleasure-programming with Hangover Weekends
        -   Sexy stars and retro faves rule the weekend movie schedule on
            CineCosmo
        -   Surf CosmoTV.ca for gotta-try-that sex tips, Cosmo quizzes and
            Canada's most eligible bachelors

The channel, which will target women 18-34, launches February 14.

Perfect.

Hun, if you're home alone watching TV that night, you obviously need all the help you can get.

GAG.

Just shoot me

So I was in the checkout line yesterday and I just couldn't resist.

It's research, right? Blog fodder. Grist for my mill. Possibly even, if not expensable, then maybe tax deductible.

Well, that's my excuse and I am sticking to it.

You know, many of us have the fantasy that, if only we were rich enough to afford personal trainers, lifestyle coaches, full-time chefs, home gyms, indoor pools, spa vacations, liposuction and tummy tucks, we'd have perfect bodies.

Hah.

Let me tell you, even the celebs have cellulite. And flab. And guts. And saggy skin.

Which is strangely reassuring.

You know, if Oprah, who has a gabillion bucks, can't control her weight and eating, then who are we little ordinary people to believe that, all we have to do is, eat less and exercise more, we can look like Jessica Alba?

Just sayin'.