But Not Too Curvy

This ad seems to be championing body diversity and fat acceptance, but once you realize it's only acceptance for a certain kind of fat, it seems a little less wonderful.

 
At first glance, this ad for Curvation seems like a righteous fat-positive call to action.  A plus-sized woman struts around the set in her undies, whipping her hair back and forth while making body-policing messages disappear with the force of her confidence. She is clearly not having this shit, and it's amazing. A bunch of other fabulous fat women in bright colors and stripes appear, strike a pose, and model-walk their way off camera together.

It seems righteous. Except it isn't.

Not as much as it could have been, anyway. It knocks erasure of body diversity, except I don't think any of those models were larger than a size 20. So, what, only women who are within a size or two of the national average deserve to be in a commercial about fat positivity?

(Fun fact, that would exclude some of the most influential plus-sized fashion bloggers who helped define the "fatshion"movement in the first place. Think about that one.)

Even more confusing is the fact that the commercial, though it sounds like it would be for Torrid or Fashion to Figure, is for bras. Bras that only run from 42C to 44DD. Do only plus-size women, within a size or two of the national average, with a bra size between 42C and 44DD get to be "the shape of beauty" and wear bright, stripey clothes with confidence while everyone else is stuck with bigshirts and tunics? This makes me sad. It isn't liberation for plus-size women, it's just another cage.

I was so happy to see other fat women in flashy clothes outside of the fatshion blog-o-sphere that this almost didn't register. And when I did accept that this ad was body-policing, too, I almost wanted to forgive it and take what I could get, lest I never see another remotely fat-positive ad again. But accepting this ad as "the best the media could do" for fat women isn't fair to fat women.

This was a good try, media. But you can try harder. We deserve it.