Can a cartoon character be too thin?
A friend who loves her cat as much as I love my dog went with me to see “The Secret Life of Pets”. Just a few seconds into the movie, she gasped, turned to me and said, “Would you like to leave now?”
She and I both had an immediate reaction to the stick thin, TOO THIN body of “Katie”, owner of “Max”, the dog. Those red sticks you see in this picture are her legs. For the full effect, to see why we gasped, play the video below. Then freeze it 12 seconds in.
Katie appears to be a totally cool young working woman with her own apartment in Manhattan and a great dog; a real role model for millions of impressionable young girls and young boys who will see this movie (not to mention the middle-aged pet enthusiasts like my friend and me).
During the story-boarding, animation, and market-testing phases of this movie project didn’t anyone stop and say, “Is there a reason why we’re making this character so thin some people might think she has anorexia? Is this a good idea for a kids movie?” It’s not like there was a subplot coming where the dogs help Katie overcome an eating disorder.
In the past couple of years France, Israel, Spain, and Italy have passed laws cracking down on the use of too thin, unhealthy looking models. Some of the laws require that very skinny models have a doctor’s notes before they are allowed to work.
Lawmakers in California proposed similar legislation earlier this year but I haven’t been able to find news about whether it did or did not pass. I read this quote on The Today Show website, “California Assemblyman Marc Levine, the Marin County Democrat who introduced the bill, says studies show that up to 40 percent of fashion models have eating disorders and as many as 50 percent of girls in 5th to 12th grade think that they’re not thin enough because of the images that they see in magazines.”
Can’t common sense rule? Or do we have to pass legislation banning too thin cartoon characters in movies for kids?
The weekend the movie was released, I read several reviews. Not a single one I read made a reference to Katie’s extreme thinness.
Again, check out the movie trailer above, 12 seconds in. See what you think. At least the dogs and cats are shown in all shapes and sizes, as is acceptable for cats and dogs in real life! No one expects a St. Bernard to lose weigh so he or she can be as thin as a Greyhound. Why do we accept a wide variety of body types in dogs but expect all human bodies to fit into a very narrow standard of beauty?
______________________________
I’m Ellen Shuman and I believe we all feel impact from what we see on TV and in the movies, whether we acknowledge it or not. I’m a Coach who specialize in helping people achieve recovery from binge eating, binge eating disorder, and emotional eating. I am the founder of A Weigh Out Life Coaching (1997-present) & Acoria Binge Eating Disorder Treatment (1993-2005), a Past President of the Binge Eating Disorder Association (merged with NEDA)), and Co-Founder of the Academy for Eating Disorders Special Interest Group on “Health at Every Size”. Interested in working with me on your recovery? Please get in touch, ellen@aweighout.com, 513-321-4242.
