Roxanne Edwards

For starters, I was impressed with the fact that we were going to be watching a video about a female body builder. Most of the time we hear about men working on their muscular outline, and women doing other things for fun. However, Roxanne appeared to be someone unique in my eyes, just from the original idea of what she represented in the female culture. Already having knowledge about Raymond in Body and Culture, I figured that Roxanne may be similar to him, robotic, emotionless, repeating the same daily routine over and over again. However, Roxanne shocked me because she had a lot to say for herself, and didn't just let her body do the talking. (I would like to point out that I don't know if this difference had to do with male v. female or if it was simply just a coincidence that Roxanne didn't just let her body speak for her brain and her mind.)

She was already going out of the loop, transforming her womanly curves into finely defined muscular shapes. She stood up for the idea of a woman, making them out to be strong instead of weak and delicate. She lets all of us know that women are all strong in their own way, but it was her goal to show it outwardly through her toned body. She was okay with pushing away ideas of the perfect woman in a feminist mindset, having big breasts and big hips, making the definition of a woman so much more than society conceives it to be. However, the photos she posts express that she still is a woman by the clothing she wears and also the style in which she poses. What I really enjoyed about her is how okay she was with herself. She wasn't just okay, she was great. She loved herself for the toned body she had, but she also loved herself for being a woman. Unlike a lot of the male body builders, she wasn't just boasting about her own accomplishments, she was expressing the beauty in other women and what they've done in their lives to make it worthwhile and feel the same sense of accomplishment as she should. I really like her because she wasn't overbearing with her own thought processes. Although the video was about her and what she has done with her structure, she didn't make me feel like there was anything wrong with not looking like her. She didn't make me feel like less of a woman because I didn't want to live the life she did. In fact, she made me feel almost better knowing that she acknowledged that every woman is strong in their own ways. She told the viewers that women should  be able to "define" themselves however they want to be - whether it be muscular, toned, thin, chunky, tall, short, etc, because no one in the media can tell them they aren't wonderful. This message, in my opinion, should be shared more often. In commercials and advertisements directed towards men, they often try to make the other men watching or reading feel worthless, building up a false hope in their minds that they can work hard enough with a product and in the end receive the same outcome. Roxanne didn't give anyone false hope, she pushed individual dreams outward and told everyone to embrace what they want to do or be.

Overall, Roxanne is a great role-model for the female community. Whether or not you believe in toning yourself to the extent she did, you have to appreciate her for believing in her own self-worth, and others. She not only talked highly of what she has accomplished, but she talked highly of other women as well. I only wish more people could speak out in this sort of tone, especially directed towards teenagers. I feel like if more people, both men and women, had the courage to come out and swear and be honest in the same ways as Roxanne, the way people take in messages from the media could go from negative to positive in terms of self-image.