The skinny on Hollywood stars

When I saw that picture I almost fell out of my chair! She looks weird.

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I know I have issues with my weight, heck I'll say it I'm overweight. All women have issues with how they look one way or the other...but reducing your self to a skeleton for me is just wrong and ugly. I hope this trend soon passes because unfortunately hollywood stars are trend-setters and young girls grow up trying to be like them winding up with eating disorders and unhealthy.

Finding the right balance is difficult but this is just plane insane. Skin and bones is not HOT. Plus it encourages people to only focus on someone's look and not character and soul. Looks fade away with years, then you're left to deal with the person inside.

I appreciate your forthrightness on this touchy subject.  It still amazes me that some Hollywood women find it necessary to succumb to someone else's idea of "thin".  Kristen Johnson just started me...she looks terrible!  

 Sorry, but emaciated doesn't equate to hot .  Give me a woman with some substance--and I don't just mean a brain!  

And don't forget Sara Ramirez! She is shrinking before our very eyes as well!

Sara at the Aids Walk in 2007 on the right, and Aids Walk 2008 on the left. Big difference, I'd say! You can really tell in her face and arms.

(Photos courtesy of http://www.sara-ramirez.com)

And how about Sara Rue..Damn she got skinny! She dropped so much weight, I couldn't even recognize her!

I love Yancy Butler and was totally addicted to Witchblade, but I cried when I saw this recent photo from the release party for the series on DVD:

It's like comedian Maria Bamford says in her spoof of a celebrity doing a Loreal commercial, "Holding myself to an impossible standard of beauty keeps me from starting a riot." 

It's true, the more time women waste hating themselves and their bodies, the less time they can spend getting a higher paying job/promotion or demanding equal rights for women. Naomi Wolfe, author of The Beauty Myth, suggests that over the past few decades standards of beauty for women have gotten tougher and more absurd (which they have) as a way to neutralize the threat of women gaining more and more economic and social equality. 

Once women start addressing these standards as part of women's systematic repression, then they can begin to stand up to them. As long as we continue to think of maintaining beauty as part of some ridiculous inherent role for women, the longer we will continue to assistant in our own repression.

Okay, now don't hate me for this, but sometimes a woman CAN actually be fat. Don't get me wrong! I think Queen Latifah is one of the most beautiful women around, and my perfect woman is a combination of Nigella and Monica Bellucci. But I think America Ferrara looks better now than in the days of Real Women Have Curves, though she doesn't have to look like a bobbleheaded Nicole Richie to look great. I think there's a difference between slimming down (eg America Ferrara, who is still actually considered large by Hollywood's standards - compare her to say, Kate Bosworth or Mischa Barton, or even AE favourites Leighton Meester or Padma Lakshmi) and becoming ridiculously emaciated, like poor Kristen Johnson. She looks like she's been on drugs.

There is definitely the male/female issue though - men can be fat, while women generally can't. Kirstie Alley vs John Travolta - no one talks about how tubby Mr Saturday Night Fever's become, while Kirstie Alley's had to make a new name for herself by capitalising on her weight (or weight loss).

It doesn't matter if you are a size 0 or a size 14, what matters is if you are healthy. Can you walk a mile without getting winded? Can you lift things around the house without injuring yourself? Can you participate in the activities you would like to do or your friends are doing? What are your arteries and lungs like? You can be skinny and still die from a heart attack if the things you eat are fried or filled with fat. So what if celebrities are getting skinny. The question we should be asking ourselves is, are they healthy? And actually, forget the celebrities, but are WE heathly?

I have to say I disagree about Christina Ricci - as someone who has publically talked about her struggle with eating disorders in the past, I think she currently looks healthier - and more balanced - than she previously did. It seems like she's doing well and is at a healthy weight for her height. The same goes for Portia - she's thin now, but looking at how she has recovered, I applaud her strength and hope that she continues to keep healthy.

Hollywood's obsession with weight is twisted and wrong, but sometimes it's easy to forget that some of these people - who on-screen seem tall and glamorous - are actually short, and that's why they're small. I am, at 5'3", a size 0-2 which just happens to be within the healthy range for my height. I imagine Christina, America, and even Jeaneane are all on the short side, and while it may seem to us like they're 6' and 100lb, they're actually just small people. America, by the way, looks amazing in both those photos and her curves are beautiful at an 8 as well as a 12!

By the way, another very skinny woman who comes to mind (and is not in this post) is Kate Moennig. Why is it okay to disregard her obviously underweight body, which if you remember Young Americans was NOT always this gap-thighed? Is it because we have come to know her a "tomboy" allowing her traits to be seen as 'masculine' and therefore okay? Why does she not have to explain herself when 'femmes' do?

I'm sad to see how skinny Kristen Johnson now looks... I've always quite liked her - in fact, my girlfriend nad I have had debates about her because I quite fancy her and my girlfriend doesn't - and part of the attraction was her curves. She looked much better and healthier before than on this recent picture of her!

 I hope they don't get Beth Ditto too...

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It is said that when Carrie got the role of Princess Leia that she would lose 10 pounds. However when Joss Whedon cast Jewel Staite it was on the condition that she put on weight. As Jewel Statite has said, Joss wanted her to look like she enjoyed a cheeseburger and that she was immersed in life. I think Joss Whedon's attitude is much more healthy. Jewel looks beautiful on firefly as does Carrie Fisher, who failed to lose the weight.

Another apology, I just remembered that I probably said this before on other threads on this board. I like that poeple like  Queen Latifa and America (Sorry I can't spell her last name) have curves. I didn't see too much of a difference between the two America pics.

I think it is a shame that so many celebrities are falling into this trap. I remember when Sara Michelle on Buffy was quite curvacious, I didn't notice the weight loos too much and attributed it to the fact that other the years Buffy seemed to become more and more worn out as the burdens kept falling upon her.

Sorry double post

This is a great article. I hadn't seen Kristen in quite some time and had I seen a picture of her without her name I wouldn't have recognized her. It's sad how grossly thin some of Hollywood's leading women are getting. There becomes a point at which it's just not healthy.

Did anyone see Christina Ricci on Carson Daly last night - her face sort of looks like it's about to cave in - I'm wondering if maybe she's in the thick of an eating disorder right now. Remember her in Sleepy Hollow? She looked much different then. And I thought Janeane Garofalo looked great back in the day (remember Reality Bites?).

I also think it's one thing to just be naturally thin but it's another story if maybe you're just naturally a bit "chubby" (not sure if that would even be the right word to use) and you're killing yourself trying to get to "the perfect weight".

I can't judge these actresses because I don't know their motivations for losing weight. Maybe some of them just felt out of shape and decided to start working out more or maybe they went to an audition and someone told them they were too fat for the part so they went to the extremes. I would just like to see women in Hollywood celebrate the body they have and take care of themselves and be healthy - no matter if they are 100lbs or 200lbs or anywhere in between.

of these women looks better than they did before. What is wrong with curves?!! Normal women are sexier. Dear lord, what is wrong with Hollywood?

All hail the Queen.

With some curves. There IS something wrong, however, with being unhealthy. Some women are naturally skinny and some are a little curvy... it doesn't automatically mean they're unhealthy. I find extreme thinness as unappealing as morbid obesity... it shows a lack of attentiveness to one's own body and that is never a good sign. Most of the women you listed above need to eat a sandwich. They make millions of dollars, I'm sure they can afford one.

And Queen Latifah.... mmmmmmmmmmmm. She's just beautiful.

I feel I have to come to her defense. When Air America Radio started in 2004 she was a co-host of The Majority Report and she talked about herself some times. One of the things she talked about was her self image problem. She told her audience she has stopped drinking, 99% vegetarian (weakness is bacon), and have been trying to stop smoking. Also, she hasn't been sleeping much since the Supreme Court of the USA gave the presidency to George W Bush. I give her credit for taking care of her physical self. She came across the radio as a major smart.

Kristen Johnso, America Ferrera, Janeane Garofalo and Sara Rue THESE WOMEN LOOK HEALTHY NOT SKINNY!.

-Nathiest
the devil is in the details

It's an unfortunate truth that to get jobs in the entertainment industry today, you have to be super thin, and/or have big boobs... This is especially true in Hollywood and the film industry..Unless you are super-talented already, you are going to be told to lose weight to get the job....Sure, you may start out being normal-sized (?) but eventually the pressure will be on to lose more, and you will get caught up in the competition,. Unfortunately, no one can predict in which decade all this "skinnymania" will end... 

I feel really lame for this....

But the guy on Buffy spells his name Xander... not Zander. Because... you know... it's short for Alexander...

she looks so scary - especially in the previews for the new movie (which I won't watch, for that reason). Every time I see her, I just want to feed her and feel very worried for her babies.

I wanted to find comparing pictures, but it just makes me too sad to see her beauty from way back and now the walking skin and bones that she is. 

"At that point, you could have all gotten naked, gotten in your pool and had four bottles of champagne in your house."  ~~ Stephanie March

Why is there so much hate for being thin. Granted I agree, that the actress from Witchblade looks sick and unhealthy. The other women do not look that bad. Being thinner makes one look better. Sorry for the bloody bad news, but it just does. Clothes look better on thinner women. And as for Queen Latifah, are you kidding me on that? Who the hell wants that body, it is disturbing. And I doubt that it's the actresses joining the cult of being waif. Rather maybe they just came to their senses. And the women all of your are hot for, like Angelina Jolie, Kate M. , Sarah Shahi, well they are all thin. The ideal body for me, is that of Kate Moss and Milla Jovovich.