Now see, THIS is bad curvy. And also, who knows what asparagus is but not bananas?!
Celebrities may have million dollar mansions and designer clothes and an assistant specifically for carrying their miniature labradoodles but they pay for it in public scrutiny. Gone are the days when a star could quietly retreat to an island and emerge 6 weeks later looking so “refreshed” that their nose looked smaller. Today anyone and everyone is a target – whether it’s contempt for their cellulite, outrage over their weight gain or faux concern over their weight loss, so much is being said about celebrities (especially women) and their bodies that when I started researching this slideshow for Shape.com I ended up with a list of 57 different articles to read. Just to get caught up to a starting point!
Writing this slideshow was an interesting experience for me. Depending on the celeb, I either ended up liking them a lot less or becoming a gushing fan because of what they had to say about their bodies when answering one frequent criticism: CURVY. Just like 10 minutes ago curvy used to be a compliment. Marilyn Monroe was so curvy that she could play slip-n-slide in all the drool of the men that followed her like puppies. (Wow, that was a gross analogy! It’s late, I’m sorry.) But now curvy is an epithet. In most cases people use it as a euphemism for “fat.” I would argue that it really means “not adhering to our very narrow standard of beauty, why can’t you just skinny down like everyone else by golly!”
Despite all being criticized for being curvy, the celebs I profiled had wildly different body shapes. Jessica Biel, for example, was called curvy for being muscular. (And you really need to read her response to that – it was awesome!) While Christina Hendricks was called curvy for having the boobs and hips that have made Joan the standout star on Mad Men. (Her response made me smile and also want to hug her.) Weirdly, even Renee Zellweger made the “too curvy” list and she’s like a size triple zero! (Her response kinda made me want to slap her.) We live in a messed up world.
As I was telling my sister about it (I tell her everything – she not only knows when Jelly Bean last pooped she also usually knows when I last pooped too. Um, yeah.) and gushing about how many body-positive things these famous ladies had to say, she stopped me cold with, “And you actually believe them? Of course they pay lip service but what to they actually do? Most of them go lose a crap ton of weight anyhow.” I hadn’t thought of it that way before (I am also the girl who believed my ex-boyfriend when he swore he wasn’t dating anyone else…even after he showed up to homecoming with another girl.) but now I can’t help but wonder.
Now I have to ask you guys – do you believe what celebrities say about their bodies or do you think all that body-acceptance talk is just a PR stunt? P.S>Just to be perfectly clear, the point of this post and the slideshow is NOT to critique certain celebrity’s bodies or, heaven help me, to compare, but rather to look at the way we talk about body image and to show examples of strong women who have stood up for their healthy bodies.
Check out my full slideshow – 20 Celebrities Criticized for Their Curves – on Shape.com
Not feeling Hollywood today? Check out my post for Redbook on Things to Never Say to a Mom With a Big Family & Our Best Comebacks (people get really riled up trying to define what number = “a lot” of kids.)
Do you let your kids attend sleepovers? Check out my post for Shine!Yahoo and see what other parents decided. (My husband and I have talked about this a lot and recently decide that our house is the only one they will be destroying with toilet paper in sugar-fueled fests.)
And just in case you needed another reason to avoid fast food, check out my report on Fast Food PlayLands: Now With Less Fun and More Feces!
“do you believe what celebrities say about their bodies or do you think all that body-acceptance talk is just a PR stunt” :
I don’t believe it’s a stunt per se, but I also don’t believe everyone wants to sing kum-ba-yah about their body and love it no matter what and be all 100% comfortable in their own skin. No, I dont think that either 🙂
I dont buy it.
I wish I could but I just think they like the rest of the world struggle and while they WANNA believe what they are saying—they dont.
Their actions so frequently prove otherwise.
Wow, can’t believe some of the comments regarding big families!
I guess I’m glad they’re at least pretending not to be obsessed with their weight. I can’t tell which ones are actually comfortable with their own bodies, and which ones are lying through their beautiful white teeth. I think even those with a good self-image probably have to deal with career pressure to maintain a certain weight, so it’s sometimes hard to judge their psychological state by their actions. But it’s all pretty messed up when “curvy” becomes an insult.
Some of the comments sound pretty sincere. I’m sure celebs do have PR people who give them recommendations on what to say, etc, but celebrities also say some pretty stupid things sometimes which leads me to believe that not everything they say comes from a script.
Most celebrities, especially young women, are obsessed with how they look. Because everyone else is, and, as you point out, they not only comment on it, they write headlines about it. (My personal favorite in ridiculousness was “ANGELINA looks PREGNANT!”) They’re shelf lives are very short in Hollywood, so they are fairly obsessive about their appearance. To the point where they lie about how little they work out and how much they eat, when it’s the exact opposite. When there are magazines articles with titles like “Stars With Cellulite!” with their so-called flaws magnified and circled in teacher-red ink, it’s hard for them not to obsess.
Oh, and their agents and managers are on them about it, as well. All. The. Time.
Who works in a grocery store and doesn’t know what a banana is? And couldn’t they have ASKED? 🙂
Probably it depends on the celeb. I hate all of that – it’s just looks. When I read the comments, I either heard “oh, whatever, I can do what I want with my body because I’m awesome anyways” or “Leave me the F alone, it’s my body.” I tend to like the latter answers better.
Further, I hate magazines like Shape that pretend to be all pro-women and showing how we can “make ourselves better” yet they’re still photoshopped to hell and put people who are ultra-unhealthy-skinny on a pedestal. It really annoys the hell out of me.
Ha, the exact same thing happened with me and one of my exes, and I totally believed him too! It’s amazing how blind we can sometimes be. Ah well.
I think that celebrities do the exact same thing us “normal people” do – they make statements in public that they might WANT to believe. Like saying, “I don’t care if people say I have cellulite etc., I think I look awesome the way I am!”. I think we all sometimes say things like that even if we don’t ENTIRELY believe the statements. We want to think a certain way to feel comfortable with ourselves and to be kind to ourselves, and sometimes that means we say things (which can in turn change our way of thinking). I don’t think it really matters whether or not they themselves are being truthful when they talk about body acceptance. They’re being good role models to others by doing it, and they’re probably feeling a little bit more confident about themselves every time they continue to make comments like that. And I think that’s awesome.
Charlotte, I am fairly technically inept. How do I close or hide the Fit Parenting and Fit Sugar icons that are hovering over the text of your Shape peice and preventing me from reading what you wrote?
I usually don’t believe them. I can’t really fault them either though. When your paycheck depends on how you look, you’re bound to have screwed up priorities.
This reminds me – the other night I was watching the Crossfit games with my husband. I was sitting there in awe and drooling and trying to figure out where to fit crossfit into my schedule. His response? “They look like dudes.” Beautiful, fit women, and he couldn’t get past the fact that they didn’t look like the hollywood ideal. I don’t blame him, but if I ever get that rocked and he says I look like a dude I’m going to bench press him.
I agree with Kim. I am truly bothered by womens magazines that promote “health” but then have tons of adds for weight loss supplements.
This is why I would hate to be famous. You couldn’t win regardless of what you did.
For me, getting healthy and looking “normal” was the most exciting thing…I could never be the hollywood ideal, and I’d hate having people tell me every single day how they wanted me that way…I usut don’t see how weight = beauty. I really don’t.
Great list on what not to say to a mom with a big family. People are going nuts in the comments. My definition of “a lot” of kids is when your family can’t fit in a minivan.
Sometimes it can be a publicity stunt, but if a celebrity wants to say she accepts her body and then decides she wants to be more fit we shouldn’t criticize her for that. Just because they accept themselves doesn’t mean they can’t look at the picture and say, “Gee, perhaps I do need to get into the gym a few more times a week or cut out that daily latte.” Celebrities are jus people, and there are a lot of women out there in “the real world” that say things about liking themselves the way they are and then go out and lose weight anyway. It seems to be a natural reaction to criticism.
I agree with Miz & Crabby & others…. I just don’t always buy it but the pressure is immense! I hear them say it but I want to look behind the eye that say it & hear what is being said in their head!
I believe very few celebs when they make weight comments. I think they react as they would in that moment and when they lose weight will come up with different reactions to defend their change. Usually the one’s I believe are naturally curvy and have never really been “sticks”.
As to the too many kids article. I really believe how many children families have is their business and nobody else should say a word. If they can support them, then it’s their choice. I just had my second daughter and I have people saying, “so your done now, right?”. Actually, my husband and I aren’t closing that door just yet. When WE decide it will be based on what we feel is best for our family of four. I actually get really offended when people start giving me their opinion about how many children my husband and I should have.
I agree that curvy is usually code word for fat these days. Sort of sad. I was in Hong Kong last year and needed to buy a new top (it was so hot, I was unprepared to be sweating through clothes within minutes of stepping out my hotel room – best trip ever, though – can’t wait to go back!). In one of the shops I stepped out and one of the customers said: “Wow, you have such beautiful curves. You need to buy this top!” This wasn’t code for fat. She legitimately was excited about my smaller waste and bigger butt 🙂 That’s “positive curvy!”
PS – I believe some celebrities but not others.
Charlotte – you said it all when you said we live in a messed-up world. When did society’s focus shift from what is really important in life (health, family, kindness to one another, food, shelter, clothing, basic necessities for all…. I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get my drift) to appearance? Everywhere we look, from Hollywood to high schools (elementary schools?) from health and fitness blogs to the bathroom mirror, appearance seems to be all that matters.
I think I’m gonna go out to the pasture and commune with nature for awhile. The cows don’t care how big Beyonce’s butt is! (On the other hand, I don’t exactly know what the cows talk about when I’m not around… do you think they criticize each udder’s udders? ….”Can you believe how Daisy’s draggin’?”…)
hahaha, your last comment about the cows made me laugh out loud!!!
Of course they are not 100% honest. Most of us, even the most beautiful ones are not confortable in our body.
But these women, the celebs, are models for young girls (and even older ones) and, I think for the sake of these girls, it’s ok for the celebs to be like “I am confortable in my skin, I accept myself”.
It’s a good message, why change it?
I really think it depends on the individual, just as it does in real life – sometimes people say they’re super comfy with the way they are, but truly are not… I think you can tell the difference based on whether or not a person’s body has gone through drastic changes or a roller coaster or different weights.
Kate Winslet, oh ye of Titantic fame, has maintained the same body shape since she was in that movie. Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep have also, though experiencing some body changes due to age, maintained their sizes for the most part.
I think when anyone, celebrity or not, owns their body they don’t actively work to transform it constantly. I think that’s when you can believe what they say.
I believe some of the stars. However, I think that our society is rigged so you never, ever really feel happy with how you look. When your young you want to look older, if your heavy you want to be thin, if your really thin you want bigger boobs and when you’re older, you want to look young again.
Oh gosh what a post. First things first, sorry for being commenting MIA this week, hubby was on vacation so making up for lots of time lost.
Second I would like to believe what Jennifer Garner, Jessica Biel and other “genuine” celbs have to say. I truly respect and love some of them and would hate to think they are just saying BS.
It seems to be kind of a double (triple? quadruple? multiple!) bind. Your body should fit a rather narrow ideal shape! Oooh, but you’re not supposed to care whether or not it does because we’re supposed to be above all that. Oh, and if it doesn’t fit that narrow mould and you aren’t panicking about it, then you’ve Let Yourself Go and you’re a slob. If you ARE panicking about it then you’re promoting an unhealthy attitude and shame on you. By the way, even if your shape does pass muster, you’re still modelling unhealthy behaviour, tut tut. Unless you genuinely aren’t dieting or exercising to maintain it, in which case you’re obnoxiously privileged and probably causing someone untold pain and envy.
Since this is basically unwinnable, I find the easiest thing is to firmly not care whether anyone cares how much you care, because it’s nobody’s business but your own what you look like and how you feel about it.
(By “you” I just mean – one. Anyone. Not you-in-particular.)
Holy CRAP, there is some heavy vitriol going on in regards to “a lot of children”.
It makes me sad that some people feel the need to get so uppity about what is,
at its core, and incredibly personal decision.
Oooofdah.
This may be a bit off topic, but I think part of the problem is in how people use the word “curvy.” It used to have more positive connotations, but I think the problem is less about people today thinking the idea is stick thin, and more that people use the word much more liberally these days. Curvy used to mean someone was very fit but had an hourglass body type (which is a very positive and sexy thing). Today, in almost a form of denial, you have women who are flat out obese trying to say that they are “curvy.” (None of those celebrities above!). But as a result, “curvy” has become a word that is a euphemism for overweight, instead of meaning what it once meant. Given the two meanings the word now has, it’s no wonder everyone is confused.
Does that make any sense?
Maybe I’m doing somethig wrong but I can’t get to the article where it shows what the celebrities had to say about body criticism directed at them.
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