i read some very silly celebrity blogs, but make a point of staying away from the ones that make fun of them for being fat, sad, whatever. i like the ones that simply make fun of them for wearing ridiculous things.
that said, AYYY! does a “puzzle corner” every monday and blurs out the faces of people in a similar theme (i.e. child star pics of current stars). a few weeks back, they did one of women who are currently very twig-like, but once had some very nice curves on them.
so, let’s pretend we’re playing the puzzle just like any old monday morning. do you think you recognize any of these stars? i’ll admit, i only had guesses for a couple of them.
so, let’s have the big reveal, shall we?
1. Renee Zellweger, 2. Nicole Richie, 3. Madonna, 4. Amy Winehouse, 5. Lindsay Lohan, 6. Jennifer Connelly, 7. Christina Ricci, 8. Courtney Love, 9. Teri Hatcher, 10. Sophie Dahl
and here are the same women today.
now, i want to put a disclaimer out there that i’m not trying to body shame anyone here, fat, skinny, in between, or whatever word you prefer to describe yourselves. the point i’m trying to make here is that these women have ALWAYS been beautiful. they were considered beautiful enough to be stars with their curves, so what made them think they needed to lose them? based on their older pics, i’d say that these are not women who are naturally this thin. i’m sure we all know at least one of those women and they get their share of shame (no boobs!) and guilt (gawd! you’re so lucky! i wish I could be that skinny!) from people daily. i’m not here to add to that.
what i want to know is what changed? what happened between the 90s (when several of those pics were taken) and today? you can see evidence of the skinnying of hollywood over many decades, but it seems like it suddenly sped up to an extreme point in the last 10-15 years. what are your takes on the social/political issues that have made this shift occur? my guesses include a lot of conservative blowback against the liberation of women, but i’d really like to know what you think.
*title unapologetically stolen from ayyyy.com, the inspiration for this post
beautiful all
Jennifer Connelly always beautiful!!!
what happenned to our society that is making us believe that the second set of pic is beauty and health???
Boulimia, Anorexia, cigarettes: a false positive on beauty
ugg starvation beauty…no thank you!
What happened is that society decided that any “extra” weight was disgusting, made you appear gluttonous and weak so now all these women who had skinny bodies already are now to the point of starvation, or worse. I think you’re really on to something when you name conservatism as a cause, for nearly a decade society became more and more irrationally conservative and now all that conservatism means is irrationality. I pray that we will get past this whole “fat is evil” and “obesity is everywhere” bull without more lives lost. Too many healthy people (I don’t mean just thin or “normal” weight) have become genuinely sick (gastric bypass, anyone?) and even died from buying in to these hideous myths that are constantly forced upon us all.
This post is extremely frustrating, as I find very little evidence to suggest women today are more pressured to be thin than their counterparts pre-”liberation.” Although studies reveal that super models today are thinner than those forty years ago (http://consumerculturejam.blogspot.com/2007/08/twenty-years-ago-average-model-weighed.html), this is hardly an argument that today’s women are more weight conscious. To suggest that this is some backlash of patriarchy – one that manifested in the last ten years, no less! – misses some key cultural facts, like the average weight of women has been steadily increasing (http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/healthcare/a/tallbutfat.htm) or that men report preferring average-weight women over the skinny-minnies in magazines (http://livenews.com.au/news/ms-average-has-sexier-body-than-playboy-bunny-study-finds/2009/6/11/209600). Even from an anecdotal standpoint, your argument is erroneous as tiny women (e.g. Audrey Hepburn) have dazzled us in magazines and on the silver screen since before bras were getting burned. Drawing such quick conclusions and then using them to promote an ill-informed feminist platform is demeaning to the women in these pictures.
What these pictures don’t tell you are elements of these women’s pasts that inform their weight fluctuations. For instance, the first picture of Renee Zellweger was taken shortly after filming Bridget Jones’ Diary, which she had to actively gain weight to play. In interviews, she reported eating copious amounts of junk food in preparation for the role; and I think we can all agree that eating three donuts a day or pints of ice cream in one sitting for weeks on end is not conducive to one’s “healthy” or “set point” weight. This would suggest that the second picture is likely a healthier weight for her than the first, though who’s to say? Folks like Nicole Richie, Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, and Courtney Love have all openly struggled with drug problems, something that guarantee weight fluctuations, and it’s equally demeaning to assume their drug problems stem from a desire to control their weights and not, say, untold abuse histories. Christina Ricci has come out as struggling with an eating disorder, something anyone with any ED sensitivity knows is not actually about weight or “looking good,” and Terry Hatcher has come out as a sexual assault survivor, a common trigger for the genetics of EDs to kick in. Madonna is aging and losing some of her collagen and elastin, so instead of looking ripped, she just looks tired and, well, old. Seemingly, she’s become more fitness-oriented in the last few years, and while we could speculate that this reveals some mounting obsession with her body, she could also be trying to ensure a long, healthy life because her priorities have changed. I’m pretty sure (though not positive since I’m not familiar with all these celebrities) that none of these “before” pictures are from the beginning of these celebrities’ careers, which means they could have PUT ON weight post-stardom, then took it off because of pressure to maintain what they started with. And we can’t ignore that most of these women are actors paid to embody characters: weight gains, losses, and all. There are a lot of explanations behind these before and afters (the most obvious being: they’re human!), and to trump up allegations that they’re victims of some nefarious anti-woman conspiracy is reactionary at best. If anything, they’re victims of a culture of a capital that fetishizes the celebrity as object – spectacles to be consumed in the check out lane at the supermarket while we buy bananas and shampoo. How lucky they are to have their bodies imparted with meaning by strangers on the internet!
To that end, what is this talk about women’s liberation? Are we REALLY any more liberated than we were forty years ago? The shift seems lateral at best, and I think a telling illustration of that is women in the workforce. We act like women with jobs was some hard-earned privilege of the sixties and seventies when women have been proud members of the proletariat since the birth of capitalism. What’s “new” is middle class women with jobs, which reflects new pressures on an otherwise dwindling middle class as well as a burgeoning class consciousness (i.e. being able to chose work and having the educational background to secure better jobs). But while the number of women at work has increased, the experience of having a job as a woman remains mostly the same: women are still underpaid, overlooked, and harassed. Also, while women are putting in less time at home (I think an average of five hours less), they’re still the primary caretakers of that sphere, meaning women today get to be treated shitty at their jobs for forty hours a week, then get taken for granted when they come home! Today’s woman is working more than ever – and NOT at dismantling patriarchy. “Liberated” women? Please.