Opinion

Is Hawkins too beautiful to be ‘normal’?

All this brouhaha over Jennifer Hawkins’ unretouched photographs in Marie Claire is fuelling a healthy appetite for debate among media owners and hopefully the Government.   

MC02_COVER_JENNIFER_FINAL.inddIn a bid to prove that it’s doing its part to promote positive body images, Marie Claire editor Jackie Frank has put Hawkins’ naked, unretouched body on the cover of its February edition.

And boy has it angered the masses. Oh sorry, just Bianca Dye.

The radio host’s gripe is this – Hawkins is just too naturally beautiful and thin to represent the average woman. Unlike Dye, who also recently posed nude and unaltered for Madison.

And Dye seems to be on a mission to share her two cents to anyone who’ll listen – going on the Today show, speaking to the Daily Telegraph, telling the Pope…

But is this not all just much ado about nothing? And did Dye complain about singer Tiffani Wood who also appeared in the same shoot as her cause she was too thin and beautiful?

To answer the first question – yes and no.

It seems unfair that Hawkins is being singled out. If anything, as more and more women’s magazines go down this route and feature more women of all different sizes sans the airbrushing, the better. Some women are naturally a size eight and are still healthy, while others are naturally a size 14 or 16. So what? Importantly in the article Hawkins talks about how she stays in shape through regular exercise and a balanced diet.

Also importantly, Julie Parker, the GM of the Butterfly Foundation, the organisation that helps women combat eating disorders, has been quick to back the use of Hawkins on the cover.

But perhaps Dye should actually be commended for keeping the issue of promoting positive body images on the forefront of magazine editors’ minds – all of whom should be pushing the Government to make the Proposed National Strategy on Body Image, which includes a voluntary Industry Code of Conduct, a reality. Not just for the media, but just as significantly for advertisers and the worst offender of them all – the fashion industry.

Camille Alarcon

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