OK… So here goes!!! (I feel like Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes! Actually, is he still on that show? I haven’t watched it in years…)
My husband set up my computer so that I get Google on my home page. It makes it really easy for me to read the headlines, since we stopped getting a “real paper” copy of the newspaper a few years ago. (I hope that I’m not offending anyone who works for the newspapers! It just seems that we can get all of our news online…)
Anyway, this whole Jessica Simpson thing has me fuming! I have caught my thoughts wandering recently (more than once) while watching a television show>>> wondering how the wardrobe people, the directors, and the producers could let some actresses wear clothes with no sleeves. I know that this sounds odd… I really do NOT have a hang-up about sleeveless arms! What I do have a hang-up about is seeing an actress whose elbow, wrist, and shoulder bones stick out of her skin! (Not to mention her chest bones sticking out… but that’s only if you can see them under the “natural” cleavage that seem to be the focus of the camera!)
Getting back to Jessica Simpson>>> I don’t own any of her CDs and I haven’t seen any of her television appearances or her movies but I do know who she is. Last week, I found it deplorable that she kept appearing on different outlets of the “news.” I use quotations marks on that word NEWS because, this was not a case of reporting the “news!”
She is a beautiful, young woman, and she finally looks like she is allowing herself to eat more than lettuce and carrots while running on a tread mill! This sort of “news” really concerns me! What type of message are we sending to our daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, (etc)?!?!?
It’s difficult to believe we have television shows that feature anorexic-looking women, who are actually celebrated and dressed up to be the “babes” of the shows (That word “babes” probably really dates me!) at the same time that Jessica Simpson appears all over the place, being ridiculed and laughed at because she looks like a woman with natural curves! No wonder we have little girls in elementary schools already watching their weight. I know that we want our children to eat balanced meals, but do we really want them to be subsisting on carrots, celery, and diet pops?
Well, I feel better already! I just needed to rant and rave a little about this very important issue! I wonder how long these terrible “role models” are going to be out there… (Don’t even get me started about magazines that are supposedly WOMEN’S magazines, which feature anorexic women with their “natural” curves on the covers!)
Petie says
Danna, I’m in total agreement with you on this subject! I don’t see anything even remotely attractive about ‘bony’ women and the danger that the entertainment industry is projecting when they glamorize these people. I’m 60 years old and remember when everyone wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett, Sally Field, or Cheryl Tiegs. They weren’t anorexic and very feminine. I work with a couple of women who have gone to the extreme to lose weight and are actually scary looking; they just don’t see it. And to me it makes them look older than their years. Thanks so much for ‘sounding off’ on this important subject! Petie
Danna - cozy mystery list says
You are so right, Petie! I remember the very same women you mention as being athletic looking… which was a wonderful change from the Twiggy days.
My daughter and I started watching a new show last year, and during the two-month winter hiatus that all shows take now, one of the leading ladies lost quite a bit of weight. She used to look great, but apparently the men on the show think that she looks better this way because she is always in sleeveless tops which accentuate her dieting success. She is so thin now that I find her distracting.
Jan says
Oh, Danna, as the mother of a daughter who has struggled with an eating disorder I found this “news” heartbreaking and disheartening too. What is really infuriating is the same media will turn around and criticize an actress for being too thin, but not until they are truly skeletal. Sad.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Hi Jan,
I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for a family of someone with an eating disorder to see this awful attention that is being paid to a woman who looks absolutely like a woman should!
I agree with you about the media glorifying extremely thin women>>> I always think of the Emperor’s Clothes when that sort of thing happens. They all adore the Ally McBeals, The Practice prosecuting attorneys, and the Pirates of the Caribbean female leads until someone from the very same media group finally says: “But you can see her bones!”
Upon hearing that, the media goes through the lemming-like 180° dance, criticize the actresses for about two weeks (or until they can stop selling their papers while exploiting the story) and then go back to glamorizing the very same women on the red carpet with the same bones protruding.
Jan says
Danna, Well said!