Perhaps it is fitting that Shallow Hal, a film featuring stick-thin starlet Gwyneth Paltrow decked out in a fat suit in order to show that "it's what's on the inside that counts," was released just in time for Thanksgiving weekend, traditionally reserved for gluttony and gorging. After Americans stuffed themselves silly, they could trek to the theaters to learn that, hey, all of the weight they gained doesn't matter! We're still willowy, lithe, and gorgeous on the inside! Uh huh.
Paltrow can shed her faux layers of flab by stepping out of foam rubber and back into capris. Then she can chat sentimentally with Rolling Stone (as she did in a recent issue) about finding living life as an overweight individual "a profound, very sad, and startling experience."
What this all amounts to is a mockery of the very issues she and the movie claim to combat. I want to steer clear of writing a hackneyed diatribe on the overly-thin female stars that parade around movies, television, and music videos, and the discouraging messages they send to women everywhere. It's true, but it's been done. What I'm focusing on here is the media's coverage of such issues - its continued spotlight on Hollywood's battles with weight that do nothing more than encourage unhealthy eating habits and promote insecurity in readers looking for some way, any way, to lose weight.
In conjunction with the release of Shallow Hal, the Rolling Stone article speaks of the struggles stars have had with their weight. Yet the article, like most other pieces that tell how these women have significantly dropped in dress size, does not highlight just how dangerous the lengths taken are. Instead, they use phrases like the preposterous "Drew Barrymore, a size eight, has a healthy attitude about her healthy size." A size eight is "healthy?" Barrymore is essentially being portrayed as a weighty star - but oh, it's all right. She's got a healthy attitude. She's fine with being "big." Women reading this don't want to settle for simply "hearty but happy," so they'll look toward success stories that are conveniently laid out step by step, like this one:
"...in the late 1980s, the five-foot-three [Janet] Jackson put herself on a 900-calorie-a-day-fish-and-vegetable diet and an exercise regimen of boxing, running and sit-ups, and she trimmed down to 110 pounds."
Wonderful. A diet that doesn't provide nearly enough calories for a woman who isn't exercising, written in a national magazine, with no warnings of its immense danger, is explained as a method that worked beautifully for shedding weight. And this Rolling Stone story isn't anything close to an exception. No, Time and Newsweek aren't printing pop culture nonsense like this, but earlier this year, other less respectable but more prolific magazines (should I name People?) could not keep women like former Wilson Phillips singer Carnie Wilson, who underwent a stomach stapling surgery in order to shed lot of weight, off their covers. Wilson is then given ample magazine space in order to tell America how wonderful her life has been since losing all the weight and what a miserable experience she had growing up heavy. Then, readers are treated to accounts like the following, a tale from that same Rolling Stone article of how Jennifer Lopez toned the most famous ass in the country (and quite possibly the world):
"'Enough already,' she groaned that June, [in response to national spotlight on her derriere] and four months later her backside appeared less bodacious...'I'll have egg whites in the morning, carbs for lunch, and a salad for dinner,' she said - though she does admit to longing for a chocolate-chip cookie now and then."
And so we have a detailed description of the extremely scant diet of one of the most coveted women in the world, laid out for anyone to copycat. Stories like this crop up every now and then... maybe spotlighting Calista Flockheart and her troubles maintaining that yes, she does eat, and then on the next page detailing the trend of "thin Hollywood" by showing pictures of Jennifer Aniston pre-diet and 30 pounds lighter post-diet.
The media focus on weight loss is simply an extended advertisement for men and women to follow in their dangerous footsteps because, you know what? All they see is that Too-Skinny Aniston is now married to the most coveted guy on the planet. Nothing wrong with that, and so there must be something right with sticking to low-carbohydrate, high-protein, "I wish I could have a chocolate-chip cookie" regimens that take over your life. What is a teenaged girl, anxious to have boys drool over her like they do over these stars, going to think except that this is the way things get done?
Rarely are these articles accompanied by methods of safe dieting or a mention of the imminent dangers in the practices that some of these women employ. A quote from a nutritionist exclaiming that something is unhealthy, mirrored on the opposite page by a picture of the star, in makeup, smiling, and happy with her new dress size. All they show is the positive, and all readers receive are the surface benefits of unhealthy eating and living.
It's a sick fascination to see stars like Julia Roberts, who donned a 60-pound suit for this summer's lukewarm America's Sweethearts, or Paltrow mask their beauty to play Fat for a day. People flock to these features largely because of insecurity - the pleasure of seeing the statuesque stumble. It's a trend that I hope is left behind with all the other dismal films of 2001 - that, along with the unnecessary media hype surrounding starlets and the disturbing lengths to which they go to ensure the camera's extra ten pounds won't push them up to a size 2.
