For women frustrated by our culture’s intimidating
standards of beauty and sexiness epitomized by say, the Victoria’s Secret Angels,
the good news is that there is a new feminine body image ideal in town – and it
belongs to Ronda Rousey.
It’s been a big summer for the mixed martial
arts champ Rousey. In June she appeared in a romantic role playing herself in
the Entourage movie. That wasn’t her
first film – Rousey had previously appeared on the big screen alongside
heavyweight action stars in The
Expendables 3 and Furious 7, and is
now apparently slated to star in a movie version of her autobiography, My
Fight/Your Fight.
Fresh off that Entourage appearance, in July she scored ESPY awards for Best
Female Athlete and Best Fighter (in a category that included four male nominees).
A few days after that, she put down her trash-talking UFC opponent Bethe
Correia in a mere 34 seconds to retain her women’s bantamweight title. That’s
par for the course (if I may mix my sports metaphors) for the undefeated
Rousey, who routinely forces her opponents into submission in less than the first minute of
the first round, and who owns the record for the shortest match (14 seconds) in
UFC championship history.
But the most significant and unexpected
development came this Tuesday when it was announced that she would be the next model to spice up
a Carl’s Jr. burger commercial. The fast-food chain is known for its
sexed-up ads featuring barely-clad supermodels dripping hot sauce as they
indulge orgasmically in a burger. Previous models have included Jessica
Simpson, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Emily Ratajkowski of “Blurred Lines”
infamy, Kate Upton, and Charlotte “the new Kate Upton” McKinney – all sex
symbols in the traditional vein.
The choice of Rousey signals not only an
interesting change of direction for Carl’s Jr., but also an acknowledgement of
a new standard for female sexiness. The kickass Rousey is no mere sex kitten. Her
intimidating physical power and animal intensity, combined with a disarming
grin and wavy blonde mane, are making her the face (and body) of a new kind of
sex symbol.
They earned her, for example, the cover of ESPN the Magazine’s The Body Issue 2012,
in which she posed discreetly nude, as well as an appearance in the 2015 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. For
the latter, the 5’7”, 135-lb. Rousey actually gained weight intentionally – no doubt a first for an SI model – because “at 150 pounds, I
feel like I'm at my healthiest and my strongest and my most beautiful.”
She may carry herself with a pantherish
confidence now, but in a Cosmopolitan
interview last month, Rousey
revealed that she once had her own body image issues:
I grew up thinking that because my body type
was uncommon [i.e., athletic], it was a bad thing. Now that I'm older,
I've really begun to realize that I'm really proud that my body has developed
for a purpose and not just to be looked at.
Rousey elaborated on this a little more
explicitly when she countered critics recently who called her too “masculine”:
I have this one term for the kind of woman my
mother raised me to not be, and I call it a do-nothing b*tch. A DNB. The kind
of chick that just tries to be pretty and be taken care of by someone else. That’s
why I think it’s hilarious if [someone thinks] my body looks masculine or
something like that.
Listen, just because my body was developed
for a purpose other than f*cking millionaires doesn’t mean it’s masculine. I think
it’s femininely badass as f*ck because there’s not a single muscle on my body
that isn’t for a purpose, because I’m not a do-nothing b*tch. It’s not very
eloquently said but it’s to the point and maybe that’s just what I am. I’m not
that eloquent, but I’m to the point.
Yahoo! Beauty editor Bobbi Brown was bowled
over enough by Rousey to call her “the new face of beauty.” In an interview with Rousey, Brown gushed,
I saw this beautiful picture of you and it
stopped me because you were in a bathing suit and you have the most beautiful strong
body. Before I even knew who you were I said, “Oh my god this is the new face
of beauty.”
“We are trying to push strong as the new sexy
as much as possible,” Rousey replied.
Indeed, and it’s working. Ronda Rousey and
other star athletes like Serena Williams and skier Lindsey Vonn (both of whom
Rousey beat out for the ESPY this year) are proving that strength is sexy in
men and women. They’re helping to
free women from the media’s expectation (demand, really) that their bodies are
merely to be looked at. They’re inspiring women to aim for a healthy new ideal.
Most women can’t strive to meet the body standard of a genetic lottery winner and
professional mannequin like Gisele Bundchen, but they can strive to be strong and purposeful and to adopt a winner’s perseverance.
In other words, they can strive, like Ronda Rousey, to be “femininely badass.”
From Acculturated, 8/7/15
