The NYT got a lot of complaints about the article:
"Helen Berkeley, a reader from Baltimore, said she was dismayed at the column’s “fat hatred, class bias and nasty humor.” Kristin Anne Carideo of Seattle said that mocking people who want fashion but cannot afford designer clothing “is myopic and offensive.” Sarah Looney of Harrisonburg, Va., said the column was “saturated with disdain for the type of clothing that the average person wears, and, what is more troubling, the size of the average woman.” Others found the column “a voice for class privilege,” “hateful,” “genuinely cruel” and “smug.”
Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, was unhappy, too. The column, he said, “would make a fine exhibit for someone making the case that The Times has an arrogant streak.” Keller said his mother was a Penney’s shopper for much of her life, and she would have found the review “snotty.” He told me that he wished it had not been published.
The column raised an issue that The Times and other news organizations sometimes struggle with: What is the difference between edgy and objectionable? Or, as one reader, Daniel Harris-McCoy of Boston, put it: How do writers “navigate the fine lines between observation, satire and snark,” and when should editors step in to restrain them?
Although Trip Gabriel, the Styles editor, said the lines can be blurry, it seems to me that they were crossed and left far behind in this case. Wilson’s editors should have saved her, themselves and the paper from the reaction they got from readers, who concluded that the humor was at their expense, not for their benefit.
Keller said, “The key, I guess, is to imagine that you are writing for an audience with a broad range of views and experiences, and to write with respect for them.” Dismissing a point of view “with a contemptuous sneer is not only bad manners, it’s bad journalism.”
This author sounds like she needs to get in touch with reality. With the millions of people who live in NY, I'm quite sure not all of them are a size 2 and can afford regular shopping trips to Barney's.
I may be a midwesterner, but at least I'm not a provincial thinker.
Dawn
"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You have to set yourself on fire." anonymous
Posts: 4533 | Location: Indianapolis, IN | Registered: March 15, 2004
since i lost the 4 dress sizes of my past...i need JC Pennys. i am a thigh girl-- one continuous magnificant chinese thigh--that is ME! and I don't give a S___T if New Yorkers love my thighs or not, because they get me up killer hills and I can kick the living daylights out of a punching bag. not to mention carry a 30 pack of bottled water up the stairs. and Pennys is one of the very few places that carry jeans I can wear becuase of my thighs.
the article had such an air of arrogance and snarkiness! I always tell dd--you can look sharp and proud without spending a lot of money, which is so true. i get some of the best compliments on dresses i found at Target and at the Thrift shop. I have a good friend who owns her own real estate business (vacation rentals) and she always has the smartest looking scarves. where does she find them? at our thrift shop.
Goals: 1. Enjoy life! 2. Be aware, be awake, pay attention. 3. One word 2010: faith
Posts: 2653 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: November 11, 2006
In 2002 I went to NYC with my son, who would have been 12 at the time. It was less than a year after 9/11 and security was still heightened - guards and road blocks all over.
The one place ds wanted to see was the UN. Security was tight there. They had an extra fencing around the building (like a bike rack - up and down piping). To get past a group of Japanese tourists rushing off a bus, I got a little too close to the hook on one of the fences and it grabbed the pocket of my seersucker shorts (newly purchase at Goodwill just 2 weeks before!). The moon was NOT over Miami that day. It traveled all over Manhattan trying to find something to replace it.
Now, mind you, it was July and so hot that I even had shorts on - something I wouldn't normally do (made me look like a tourist -horrors).
I called my cousin to see where I should go - while protecting my left side the best I could with a tote bag. When I did get to a store that carried misses' clothing I was definitely looked upon with the most disdain I have ever experienced informed me they don't carry my size.
I was not as big as I am now. I would have been in an 18 or 20. Heaven forbid.
It took another store to find a pair of capris that I bought on sale for $22. (That was on sale?).
Later my cousin said she should have just had me come to her office she could have made a wrap skirt for me with fabric she had in the office.
Ah, well. I still have those pocketless white capris as a reminder of that trip.
I don't shop much at Penny's (use their hair salon) except that when DD and I were doing Girl Scouts we could find most of what we needed there without having to go to the Girl Scout store in downtown Atlanta.
When we were growing up, Mother made most of my clothes. What we did have that was store bought came from either Rich's or Sears. Mother worked there and got a discount. And all the seams in the store bought clothes were "re-stitched" by mother before we wore them.
I have been to NY a couple of times but was not impressed and see no reason to go back.
I would have had to have been naked most of my life without J. C. Penney who carried a tall size I could afford and my size 11-1/2 extra narrow loafers.
I never knew I should have been looking down my nose at them.
