Whispering, soft kissing, clothes being taken off, giggling – the sounds of two embarrassed 18-year-olds about to lose their virginity.

‘Wait. Turn the lights on. I want you to see me,’ says an assertive female voice.

The darkness recedes and Ana stands naked in front of a full-length mirror. What she sees is a full-bodied Chicana woman – someone who has cellulite, stretch marks and fat on her body. She doesn’t fit into a size seven dress, and her mother nicknamed her ‘fatty.’

Jimmy, her thin Caucasian boyfriend, stares from the bed.

‘Que bonita,’ he says. What beauty.

Sigma Lambda Upsilon and the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program celebrated Latino Heritage Month with a showing of ‘Real Women Have Curves’ last night in Kittredge Auditorium. It was followed by a discussion about the social issues the film addressed.

The main conflict in the film is between Ana and her mother, Carmen, who tries to shape her into someone she is not. According to Carmen, women are supposed to be thin, virginal and married at a young age. Ana is none of the these.

‘If you lost weight, you could be beautiful,’ Carmen says.

‘I like my weight,’ Ana responds. ‘My weight says to everyone, ‘Fuck you.”

Although Ana was accepted to Columbia University, her mother refuses to let her go.

‘I have worked since I was 13 years old,’ she says. ‘Ana is 18 years old. Now, it’s her turn.’

Ana spends the summer working at her sister’s dress-making factory that sells prom dresses for $18 apiece to Bloomingdale’s, which in turn sells them for $600. Despite the laborious work, the sweatshop is a source of strength for Ana. She comes to admire the other four Latina employees, who teach her the respectability of hard work.

One scene in the factory particularly empowered women who do not fit society’s standard of physical beauty. The women are warm and decide to take off their clothes. Wearing only their underwear, they point to all their flaws. Despite their cellulite, which runs ‘from north to south,’ and their fat, which runs ‘from east to west,’ they find beauty in themselves.

‘This is who we are,’ they say. ‘Real women.’

Society’s definition of real women differs from the one portrayed in the film. An info sheet compiled by Sigma Lambda Upsilon circulated after the showing challenged America’s standards of beauty.

‘If shop mannequins were real women, they’d be too thin to menstruate,’ it read. ‘If Barbie was a real woman, she’d have to walk on all fours due to her proportions.

‘Women who look and dress more like white women will have better jobs, salaries and social lives open to them than those who do not.’

It says that the average American woman weighs 142 pounds at 5’4′, the average model weighs 110 pounds at 5’9′ and Marilyn Monroe wore a size 16, along with 33 percent of American women.

Julia Salomn, a dietician and nutrition educator at Syracuse University, led the discussion that followed. She said that in other cultures, especially African, having meat on your body is considered attractive because it hints at healthiness and affluence.

‘Over the summer I went to Colombia,’ said Esther Avila, a junior public relations and psychology major. ‘People there saw my sister, and they remembered her being a lot thinner. They would just say to her, ‘Oh my God, you’re fat.’ People here just don’t go around telling their friends, ‘Hey, you look fat.’

‘But there, it’s along the lines of ‘Hey, you got a haircut.’ It’s not a big deal.’

‘Real Women Have Curves’ helps women recognize that there’s more to them than just their looks, Salomn said.

‘Ana basically says, ‘I am a real woman. I’m not 5′ 10’ or weigh 110 pounds. I have struggled in my own way,” she said. ‘She struggled to get into Beverly Hills High School. She struggled to get into Columbia [University]. She says, ‘I am worth something.”

SU students are especially concerned with body image, Salomn said.

‘Syracuse is a media powerhouse university,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of different majors that willingly or unwillingly have body image in the background, such as theater, drama, broadcast journalism, athletics. This is a university with a strong Greek system. There’s definitely pressure there. Sometimes it’s hard for students who are not so self-assured to say, ‘No, I’m fine the way I am.”

Eddie Campos, a law student and graduate assistant, said the film is about self-identity.

‘It’s about taking control of your own life,’ he said. ‘I hope Syracuse students can understand who they are and who they want to be. And I hope they take control of their life, like Ana.’

Published on October 1, 2003 at 12:00 pm