Whats wrong with this picture?
Meow!
Calling Amy Schumer to the rescue. Maybe the comedian extraordinaire who recently railed against being put in Glamour Magazine’s “Plus Size” issue, can empower poor Betty at this head-scratching, body shaming attempt by flawless Veronica.
When it comes to body shaming, many girls cut their baby teeth on the ongoing comic book cat fights between Betty and Veronica, with oh-so-perfect-rich girl-Ronnie constantly belittling the supposedly less than perfect Betty.
What message did this send young girls about body image ?
Seemingly silly, this comic book cat-fight does bring to mind the ongoing problem that we still face today of a media still slow in embracing a more expansive version of fashion that doesn’t segregate and reward women based on the shapes of their bodies. And if Amy Schumer is a size 6 or 8, how is that considered plus size?
Even 50 years later, this 1966 comic isn’t all that funny.
Envisioning The American Dream 
“What message did this send young girls about body image?”
Any sort of shaming is typically (always?) biased about ONE attribute of a person or entity. Therefore, it is extremely biased and narrow-minded. It is simply wrong.
Shaming utterly fails to embrace this world’s, its biological Nature, and everyone living here having single uniqueness out of 7.4+ billion other people/bodies — pseudo-exceptions: identical twins/triplets/quadruplets, etc. Denying this “uniqueness” is utter non-sense when that unimaginable uniqueness is all around us, constantly, especially below the surface.
That said, I think the appropriate question (concern?) should be purely a medical/health question or concern: How healthy is the person mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and of course physically? All four areas are EQUALLY important! Denying any one of four is playing with or exhibiting naivety. And yes, in some (many?) cases breaching into Sexism.
Humanity has progressed in some cultural regions, some further than others (HAH!)… but we still have a long way to go.
Good post Sally. ❤
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Very well said!
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When I see this comic I don’t see body shaming. I see a conceited girl using a catty comment about a girl who has the same figure. A lot of comedy (although I admit this is not a funny comic) is made up of put-downs. Sitcoms are made of one put-down after another. On the Big Bang Theory, a lot of the humor comes from the guys putting each other down and the girls putting the guys down. Sheldon once said, “One cries because one is sad. For example, I cry because others are stupid, and that makes me sad.” But we all know that the other people on the show are smart, which is what makes the joke funny-Sheldon thinks he’s the smartest guy ever and he really isn’t. Same here–Veronica is putting down a woman whose shape is identical to her own, but she is too conceited to see it.
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