First, let me say that I've seen some great Pagan art in the past few years. Vivid, imaginative, beautiful. Not only is Paganism attracting more people, including a fair number of artists, but now that Goddess imagery is becoming more widespread, even non-Pagan artists are turning to Her for inspiration. But one question keeps coming to mind:
Where are all of the fat Goddesses?
Really...looking at most pictures of Goddesses these days, you'd think that the Divine world was populated by a modeling agency. I know that many see the Divine as an expression of human perfection, but "perfection" is relative. Who's model of perfection are we using? By the looks of it, it seems to be Madison Avenue's and Hollywood's model. This is troubling on many fronts.
t's no news to anyone that the modern media perpetuates uncommon and (often) unhealthy body images as some sort of "ideal" to be pursued. Not only is uncommon beauty a great way to grab viewers/readers, but making these images the "norm", at least on our TV's/movie screens/magazine pages etc, keeps many people in the US deeply unhappy with how they themselves look, and that equals big profits. Keeping us unhappy about how we look is a multi-billion dollar a year business for a great many industries (fashion, dieting, cosmetics, plastic surgery, etc).
It's also killing some of us. In the United States, as many as 10 million women and 1 million men are struggling with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Furthermore, studies have shown that 80% of American women are dissatisfied with their appearance! While not all of them are succumbing to an eating disorder, many are throwing their money away on diets that don't work (and some that are dangerous), clothes that aren't comfortable, unneeded surgery, and much more. All while pursuing a look that, due to their body type and genetics, may not be physically possible for them! While a great many factors are involved with these numbers, the fact that women like Paris Hilton, Cameron Diaz, and Lindsey Lohan (who maintains her skinny figure through a strict regimen of alcohol and cocaine) are thrown up as "it" girls for the rest of American women to pale next to certainly plays into the statistics.
We Pagans like to think of ourselves as different, bold, not-following-the-crowd, etc. And yet, a great many of the Goddess images we see (especially online) look like a casting call for Maxim magazine. Again, where are the fat Goddesses? The short Goddesses? Where is the Goddess with baby-carrying hip or stretch marks from giving birth? The single most famous Goddess figure we have from the ancient world, the Willendorf Goddess, is all belly and curves, and yet our more modern representations look like the cast of Charmed.
Maybe it's just that people look for things while imagining their Deities that they feel is lacking in themselves. Now, for certain moral or mental attributes, this can be healthy, especially if we use these visualizations to help us change in ways that we wouldn't be able to otherwise. For physical attributes, however, it isn't so healthy, because it seems to be taking on the images that come from media conditioning that is often unhealthy and unattainable. And since Pagansim is not a path that teaches us to hate our bodies or feel forever pitiful in the eyes of the Divine, that is not something to encourage.
Maybe we just don't think of these things, but we should. With more and more people becoming interested in Wicca and Paganism at younger and younger ages, we should create an environment where they can escape the profit-driven yet mentally and physically unhealthy conditioning that they are bombarded with in the mundane world. Especially since:
* 40% of newly identified cases of anorexia are in girls 15-19 years old.
* The incidence of bulimia in 10-39 year old women TRIPLED between 1988 and 1993.
So let's see some Goddesses who look like the rest of us! Let's see some "big Mama" Goddess, whose bodies show the signs of birthing the world (imagine the stretch marks from that!). Let's see some maiden Deities who look more like the teens we know, instead of Jon Benet Ramsey! Let's see more crones. Let's celebrate the Divine that looks like women that we know, instead of women that horny guys would like to know.
And for me? When I see the Goddess Arianrhod, I see her as...average. She's not skinny, not especially curvatious. She's a realistic looking woman who, in human terms, would be somewhere in between her late 30's and mid 40's (a prime age for mother figures in my book). I never really put any thought into it, that's just the way I first saw her in a spontaneous vision some years ago.
And by the way: she wears no makeup. My Goddess radiates beauty without cosmetic help, just like my wife.
Blessed Be,
Taliesin
Note: All statistics taken from the National Eating Disorders Association Website.