We pause for an exorcism.
You know that incredibly loathsome phrase, “Inside every fat person is a thin person struggling to get out?”
Well, it’s kind of true. Except the thin person is not the perfectly healthy, sexy ideal person our culture would like you to believe. No, the thin person inside us is artificially starved, surgically reproportioned, plastic sculpted to make us perfectly pretty, empty-headed dolls.
The thin person inside us is Barbie.
GET IT OUT OF ME.
Exorcism, by Heather Keith Freeman
9″x16″, pen and ink on watercolor paper
This is the representation of the voice in our ear whispering that we are worthless, ugly freaks if we don’t spend every spare moment exercising and every meal eating salad.
This is the urge to read the fashion magazines that leave us feeling shamed and fat and poor.
This is every cringe when we look in the mirror in the morning and see nothing but flaws.
This is the Disney princess and the Playboy centerfold and the meanest, prettiest cheerleader in the school.
This is the plastic mantra that we can’t unhear, repeating incessantly that we are only valued by our appearance, and by whether men want to fuck us.
And it’s inside me, permeating my being, poisoning my mind in ways I don’t even realize because it’s always been there.
GET IT OUT OF ME.
Thank you for this.
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FYI: I’ve passed it along on LJ, too, and it’s appreciated:
http://mlerules.livejournal.com/831063.html?view=2480215#t2480215
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this astounds me… the picture and the writing both. i am deeply touched to see another person expressing the things which i have never been able to express clearly, and giving them shape and form. this is so important to the world! thank you x
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loud and hard claps. your work and thoughts are beyond fantastic.
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hkfreeman Reply:
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 am
Thank you!
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