Just when you thought there wasn’t enough pressure on young girls to be skinny and conventionally attractive, here comes Miss Bimbo. An Internet game aimed at girls as young as nine-years-old, Miss Bimbo teaches girls how to “take care of their bimbos.” This includes taking diet pills and getting breast implants.
Apparently, the game was launched a month ago and has already attracted 200,000 players. Parents are rightly concerned about the game, “fearing it could send the wrong message about eating disorders and plastic surgery to young girls.”
From creator Nicolas Jacquart:
“If they eat too much chocolate in the game, it is bad for their bimbos’ bodies and their happiness levels compared to if they eat fruit and vegetables, which reinforces positive healthy eating messages.
“The breast operations are just one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to have them, just reflecting real life.”
Other creators of the game have labeled it as “harmless fun.” Harmless fun, my ass. I’ll give the game the one possible credit I can: As the creator said, it encourages healthy eating, but even that is tarnished by the reasons behind it. Eating healthily is great, yes, but there are no studies to suggest it will help someone achieve ideal weight standards. It’s funny how Jacquart decides what they are relaying to girls and what they aren’t: While both eating healthily and getting breast implants reward the players, the game is only encouraging girls to eat heathier, not get breast implants. Give me a break.
There’s really so much to say about this, but I feel that, at least for most of you, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before. This just feels particularly insidious because it’s a game marketed at girls, who get to seek virtual boob jobs and starve themselves on the monitor before them, all to become glamourous and get “a billionaire boyfriend.”
I love anti-choicers. No, I really do! Especially when they come up with stuff like this. It just reaffirms my nagging thoughts that they simply don’t view women as people. It’s no wonder they believe a woman should keep a baby no matter the circumstances, because she’s not really a person, just a baby container! Puke.
I came across your magazine the other day and noticed something I hadn’t before. Right below the title of your magazine, on the cover, are the words, “Your life made better.” Now, I thought about this for a while and decided I couldn’t come up with a way that Maxim magazine betters anyone’s life.
What draws most people to your magazine, it seems, is the plethora of (conventionally) attractive and mostly-nude women within its pages. I’m afraid the only potential benefit I see here is that your magazine then becomes a means for men to yank their pud. There are by far more negative effects than positive of your magazine. I am, I think, quite safe in stating that the emphasis your magazine places on an ideal—and impossible to attain—beauty standard is not beneficial to the
women of the world. Rather, your magazine is another instrument for oppression, as it reinforces these body image ideals. As women struggle to attain these impossible ideals, many become anorexic or bulimic. It’s no coincidence these conditions affect women at much higher rates than men. Your magazine, along with countless other forms of media, is, essentially, killing these women.
Now, I’m sure you’ve heard all of that before. With this knowledge, though, you, the editors of this widely popular magazine, can do something to live up to your claim that Maxim betters people’s lives. I challenge you to go against the status quo. It doesn’t have to be wildly radical, but do something different. I dare you to feature larger models in your magazine. I urge you to start showing off women’s intelligence or hard work rather than broadcasting them as pieces of meat to be inspected and drooled over. I have my doubts you’ll follow through, but who knows, you might surprise me. Let’s see if you have the “balls” to do this. I am very much looking forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Derek Warwick
Update: I should have clarified that I did, in fact, e-mail them this letter since that wasn’t made very clear.
Posted by Derek
Posted by Derek
Posted by Derek
