It's All Good

Politically Correct Barbie

In these relaxed times, with more than 30 million Americans on antidepressants, it seems appropriate to eliminate certain standards and have nobody be better than anybody else. That sounds good to me. In fact, I have been fighting for that ever since my son was in nursery school and every little thing had to be fair for all the children. (Ha -- what a bad life lesson that turned out to be!)

Of course, without standards none of us would have anything to work towards and striving would be frowned upon. The very word "strive" would be stricken from all dictionaries, not that we'd need dictionaries anymore since any sound anyone makes would be considered okay. For example, my former business partner was given to saying her daughter had graduated from Boston Universary and while I found it ridiculous, I knew what she meant. (I also knew I had to stop being her business partner.)

What's got me thinking this are two recent developments that at first glance seem unrelated but upon closer inspection are cut from the same cloth. First is the fact that an 18-year-old Australian woman with Down syndrome is now a fashion model and will be strutting the runway during New York's famed Fashion Week next month. Second is the unveiling of a new line of "designer" clothing by the obese and talented actress Melissa McCarthy. I call her obese and talented because she is clearly both of those things, qualities that have contributed equally to her incredible success. Unlike many established couture designers who prohibit anyone over a size 10 from wearing their creations, McCarthy's line will include sizes 4 through 28 since, as she says, "women come in all sizes."

Say what you will about designers exploiting Down syndrome to sell their clothing, fat mannequins in store windows (another new development) and the retiring of the term "plus-size," it's clear that regular people are sick of trying to live up to standards of perfection that they see in magazines and on TV. I get that. Still, I doubt that the parents of children with Down syndrome are worried about what their kids are wearing. And fat people in designer duds will still suffer from heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension and other ills associated with their poor diets. Oh well, at least they'll impress the paramedics when they come for them.

As the current popular saying goes, it's all good. At least for right now fat is beautiful, Down syndrome children are just like other kids, and there's nothing wrong with anyone since we are all perfect replicas of God's image.