Hollywood, although crazy, is at least predictable. Overpaid directors with over inflated egos will preach to us about how we should be living and how very bad we really are. Sex will be sold. And way too much emphasis will be placed on how people look (Michael Bay, I’m looking at you). Also, there will be explosions, lots of happy explosions.
A lot of good entertainment is also had along the way though, which I like, so I admit that I lack the willpower to boycott Hollywood for its shallow ridiculousness.
I’ve noticed a trend recently though that particularly bugs me… the slimming down of certain actresses. These actresses of which I speak weren’t actually “fat” to begin with, they were just sort of closer to average. To start, they were all around the size I want to be when I’m done losing weight. I mean those curvy, sexy girls with nice tracts of land.
I’ve been seeing them turning up in advertisements for Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers as famous spokespeople, taking off the twenty to thirty pounds or so they need in order to be closer to the Hollywood ideal.
It bugs me because I’m wondering, are people out there in La La land saying to these girls; you better loose that weight if you still want to have a job? It’s probably closer to: you will work MORE if you loose that weight. But it still bugs me.
I complained of this at a social gathering last weekend, and one of my friends pointed out to me that I shouldn’t judge – because for all I know all those previously average sized actresses might have had high blood pressure or high cholesterol that they needed to loose weight to correct for health reasons.
Perhaps.
But I’m very skeptical.
There are many people in LaLa land who tell actresses that they have to lose weight in order to succeed. I can think of only one recent exception to the rule: Christina Hendricks. She's what we Jewish folk call zaftig (not grossly overweight, but broad where a broad should be broad, if you know what I mean) - but I think she works as much as she does because she's a fiery redhead who can get away with it. Maybe the trick is to become a redhead, so people will notice your hair before your body? :-P
ReplyDeleteThe dropping weight that annoys me most is Kate Winslet. She always had that teeny little bit of chunk/padding by Hollywood standards (she even protested a magazine cover's Photoshopping of her), and as soon as she became the spokesmodel for...um...Lancome?...she got skinnier. Coincidence? I think not.
Hiya Jess!
ReplyDeleteI am a huge fan of Christina Hendricks, for many of the reasons you state. Maybe subconsciously that's why I make my hair this rather bright shade of red I'm wearing right now... lol
And I'm sorry to hear about Kate Winslet, I didn't know that. She was always one I'd admired greatly for her curves too.
Perhaps what your friend was also (apparently unsuccessfully) trying to point out was that these actresses don't always get too skinny. I'm thinking of actresses like Sara Rue or Nicole Sullivan. Sara Rue did get too skinny for a bit, but seems to have settled on a skinny, but still healthy looking weight. The same goes for Nicole Sullivan and Marie Osmond.
ReplyDeleteWhat your friend wanted to say was maybe instead of complaining about it, we can applaud these people for finding a way to lose this weight. As we know, it's a long struggle, so let's support people who are losing weight instead of bashing them for doing so.
I think Carolyn's point was not to bash people losing weight (otherwise she'd have to bash herself, too), but to bemoan a superficial subculture that glorifies unhealthy skinniness, forcing people who don't need to to lose weight.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Christina Hendricks, sadly, caved in, too, and lost weight. She still looks great, but she's not as zaftig as she used to be.
The problem isn't what body image is chosen as ideal; the problem is that anyone (particularly women) outside it is made to feel bad about themselves. There are women skinnier that Hollywood would like who would like to gain weight but can't, and they are made to feel bad too.
ReplyDeleteHollywood is trying for an ideal that will sell to the broadest market, but they're losing me because of the deadly dull sameness of it. The other day I watched the recent Harry Potter movie and then two hours later was in an online discussion that mentioned Emma Watson and I had to look up who she was. I'm not saying that there's some ideal weight Emma Watson doesn't match; I'm saying I'm bored of them all looking the same.
Give me some actresses with variety like normal people.
My mom watches a BBC soap opera called Eastenders that has a cast I always found startling. The whole group of them looked just like normal, everyday people with interesting differences and varieties.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if that's the BBC in general or just that one show, or if it's even still the case now. The only BBC shows I watch regularly are the new Dr. Who and Being Human, both of which have very typically Hollywood gorgeous casts.