In an episode of the defunct reality side show, 'The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency,' the late Mia Amber Davis, an editor at large of 'Plus Model Magazine,' and an actress best known for her role in the college boy flick, 'Road Trip,' seeks the agency's assistance in finding new faces for a photo shoot.
The ever-abrasive Ms Dickinson is appalled, and snaps, "High fashion is a size zero." At that moment, zero seemed like what it truly is -- nothing. When Janice grudgingly agrees to participate in the casting, she is compared to Martin Luther King (by a plus-sized model cast for the episode) leading the way in the civil rights movement. Freeing us to do what? Receive the respect due to any mother's daughter walking the earth? To be our "naturally" curvy, sassy black selves?
Ms. Davis died on May 12th from a blood clot after routine knee surgery. Her untimely passing led us to reflect on what, if anything, has changed since we were both plus-size models in the early 1980's. The answer -- not much.
While body image issues are a pandemic in our society, the stats are about the same as they were in our day. The average American woman is still 5'4", wears size 14 and weighs a little under 165 lbs. Yes, there was tons of press around Full Figured Fashion Week last year, and the inclusion of a plus size event during "real" Fashion Week -- both of which were (mis)lauded as "firsts" (Yvonne Dazay produced the first show in 1979, and Givenchy debuted a plus size line, Givenchy en Plus, at the Carlyle Hotel during Fashion Week in 1984).
The occasional "fat fashion" article runs in a major newspaper. The naked size 14 posing in 'Glamour' was called brave, and the Dove Real Women campaign was seen as groundbreaking, but we still live in a size-ist ghetto, where achieving the coveted "zero" is the goal. That is a change. The ideal size used to be 6 or 8.
Do black women wrestle with size-ism like everybody else? Yes, but if we're big, we are generally seen as one of two types -- the larger-than-life, curvaceous, insatiable, loud, flamboyant temptress who cannot control any of her appetites; or the comforting, non-threatening, desexualized "Mammy" whose arms are always open and who bakes a mean pound cake.
Are black women "supposed" to be curvier than our less melanin-endowed sisters? Does being the fat black woman effectively remove us from cultural, fashionable or romantic consideration -- unless we're talking to fetishists? Or do we just become "other"?
Mia was, in so many ways, another kind of "other" -- she was the antithesis of the media's image of the big black woman, both in real life and in the roles she played. Her character in 'Road Trip,' and most recently her stint on Ms. Dickinson's 'Model Agency,' reflected a sweet kindness often absent in the portrayals of young women of any age, race or size. She was beautiful, not in spite of her size, but because she seemed comfortable with all of herself and she championed respect for women regardless of size.
Then there is the most visible large black woman in the world, Oprah. It's OK for Oprah to be fat. It's even OK for her to be black, because she is the undisputed Queen of Otherness. She is every one of us (female/male/black/white/fat/skinny/wounded/enlightened) and none of us, and we like that about her. But it is also clear that she has continued to struggle with what her size means in her own life, just like the rest of us.
Does "otherness" like that of Oprah and Mia affect the way we see ourselves and move through the world? Does it force us to defend, excuse, deny or ignore the relevance of our plus-sizedness (and/or our blackness) to every single life issue we face? Every time we are forced to do that, do we lose a little bit of ourselves?
This is not a battle we expected to still be fighting thirty years after we entered the full-figured fray, but like so many others, it goes on. After decades of women fighting for equality and the claim of our fair share, we're now fighting to achieve nothingness -- that's what zero is right?
Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant are former professional plus-size models that have turned a friendship into one of the most successful collaborations in women's fiction. These 'The New York Times,' 'USA Today' and 'Essence' bestselling authors have coauthored seven novels and were recently ranked #9 on the list of 25 Most Influential Black Fiction Writers on twitter by The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog. Buy their books and read their blog on Red Room.