What the world is reading: The ‘wrong’ body?

Tackling the problem of how women are shamed about their bodies in the professional ballet world.

Tackling the problem of how women are shamed about their bodies in the professional ballet world, a new ad for a sporting wear company stars American Ballet Theater soloist Misty Copeland, who in the past has been criticised for having “the wrong body”. Hana Glasser writes how the father of American ballet, George Balanchine, set the bar with “very particular aesthetic” regarding dancer’s bodies. “Then there’s Copeland,” writes Glasser, “who’s 5 feet 2 inches, has curves and is black”. Though Copeland overcame her “non-traditional appearance, the ballet world is often harsh”. Glasser recounts horror stories: girls weighed before class, instructed to get breast reductions, scolded for having “not good enough” feet. “In a discipline where girls habitually mutilate their bodies in search of a rigid idea of perfection, Copeland is welcome,” ends Glasser.

The Los Angeles Times

Celebrity punditocracy

“If you prefer your global-news disasters through a Hollywood lens, there seem to be plenty of options these days,” Steven Zeitchik writes. That’s why instead of having a proper debate about Gaza, there’s a proxy one between Javier Bardem and Jon Voight. And if you want the latest on Ebola, you can consult the screenwriter of Contagion as he wrote a piece in Time. “Possessing the skill of impersonating someone should not correlate to a higher degree of authority about Putin’s foreign policy,” Zeitchik writes. Even so, actor Jared Leto found himself on the “right side of the ledger” when he commented about the situation in Venezuela and Ukraine at the Oscar podium. So “in this summer of cataclysmic news, Hollywood should be the last place one should look for insight”. Except when the remarks are made in the right context.

THE BBC

Love story in Kenya

“Kenyans on Twitter are in a distinctly lovey-dovey mood,” reports Cordelia Hebblethwaite. “A village Cinderella story,” tweeted one woman. The discussion is on the hashtag #MyBukusuDarling and the couple in question is a 25-year-old Kenyan man from the Bukusu ethnic group, Timothy Khamala, and a 24-year-old Kenyan woman of Indian descent named Sarika Patel. Patel is the daughter of a wealthy businessman while Khamal is from a poor family. They met four years ago when Khamal was washing her father’s car. Sarika has now moved in with him and is considering marriage even though her family “strongly disapproves”. “These are the kind of stories Kenyans love — they are tired of politics,” says Lindah Oguttu, a news anchor at KTN Kenya. “It stretches the parameters.”

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