“But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”
Tina Fey and Negron-Muntaner have very different views when it comes to Jennifer Lopez's physique and what it has done to society. I must note that readers of the articles have to take into account that Negron-Muntaner wrote her article many years before Tina Fey wrote hers. Negron-Muntaner quoted Jennifer Lopez talking about her butt and saying "it's all real". The point she wanted to being up is that Jennifer is curvasious and proud of it. She isn't ashamed of the body she was given by her mother and she actually embraces it. Negron-Muntaner went as far to say that Jennifer diversified the idea of beauty.
In a sense Tina Fey says the same thing but it is with a bit of sarcasm. She joking states that girls now want big butts and that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. But in reality Jennifer's butt being showed off to the world and being idolized for it only added another quality to the laundry list women already have in their heads of what counts as beautiful. Jennifer's body is unique and it would almost be better if she let the world know its okay to not look like her rather than saying, your big butt should look like my big butt. And Tina Fey was actually right. Girls now want thin, but muscular legs, a booty like JLo, a tiny waist, thin but toned arms…and huge boobs. A body thats quite difficult for anyone to achieve.
It is great that people are becoming more proud of how they look and the certain racial/ethinic traits that attribute to the beauty they are proud of. With this pride and appreciation has come also come a rush of defensiveness over those qualities and their ethnic traces. There has been a lot of talk about cultural appropriation and white people taking certain qualities from ethnic groups and turning it into mainstream white pop culture, such as the talk about Kylie Jenner's plumper lips. I have read several angry comments about how black people were mocked for years for their lips, but now it is "cool." It's similar to how white girls are now trying to be everything, like have a big butt and big lips and Tina Fey's whole list.
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