Sorry for linking to a terrible publication (except when Cadell is the author!), but this caught me by surprise. They're absolutely right, esp:
- Imagine if Melissa McCarthy had made so many public comments about food and McDonald's. It wouldn't be cute or funny, it would be schtick. Look at the fat woman, being human and hungry for something bad for her! How grotesquely humorous it is when fat people eat! When Jennifer Lawrence makes these comments, it's acceptable, because her body is still pleasing to our cultural expectation of voluptuous, slim-waisted, long-necked female beauty.
We're caught in this creepy trend towhere women need to weigh less than the celery they're eating to the extent that the girls who are poster-children for weight independence and food-love and so on aren't even remotely fat anymore. Maybe that's an even bigger problem than the one we had before. Jennifer Lawrence's weight, which would be considered perfectly normal or on the skinny side at any other time in history, is now a major talking point everywhere she goes. We've shifted the cultural norm so damn far that no one even knows what fat is anymore, or cares. Isn't this frightening?
Read the part where the author talks about Melissa McCarthy. Dead on.
Tumblr idolism has always scared me. In fact, Tumblr has always scared me, with its 4 frame gifs and inability to create high-effort content. I remember the exact moment I quit tumblr. I had written a 750 word post about my thoughts on Pokemon and its impact on the childhoods of tons of kids, how it helped them with learning how to read and make friends. I felt really good about the piece at the time. It was barely glanced over. The post above mine was a gif-set of Charizard. Hundreds of thousands of responses. Perhaps that's just be being whiny and wanting people to view my content - which I suppose isn't the most important thing - but at the same time, it's why I'd choose Hubski over Tumblr any day. Sorry, I hit another fringe-comment rant again.
See, I never Tumbled expecting that people I didn't know and who didn't follow me would read my shit. I didn't really see it as the venue for that. Maybe Medium would be a better fit for you. Sorry for the Reddit link, but this is the only reason I go to Tumblr nowadays, and it's hilarious.
Um, I've seen both Hunger Games movies, and there is no doubt that she did some serious training for the role. How about she is allowed to be a body-positive role model, because she obviously works really hard to keep a good body, no matter how health conscious she is when it comes to food choices. One can feed oneself and still have good body and feel good, too, if serious exercise is thrown into the mix. Genetics aren't a choice. Sometimes, the food we eat isn't as much of a choice as we want it to be, given access and economics and so forth. But exercise is very much a choice. It costs nothing but time to go out and walk a mile, do some push-ups and sit-ups, etc. I don't understand the point of this article. It seems to say that Jennifer Lawrence is a bitch, because she isn't skinny or fat, and is unapologetic about that. Other than that, I didn't take away anything from it. HuffPo never fails to miss the point, that's for sure.The reason Jennifer Lawrence is allowed to be a body-positive role model to young girls and "chubby" women is because she is representative of conventional beauty.
Part of me thinks this article is saying "Boo, your attempts to send a positive message aren't quite good enough so don't even try, hiss" but still it's spot on about the fact that the she's regarded this way only because she is fit and attractive. Now I wonder what would happen if, having the cult of personality she has already, she gains 50 pounds. Would she still be a tumblr idol?
I'm going to beat my head on a rock. That's what I'm going to do to deal with this. Is it possible for Lawrence to be considered "thin-shaming" when thin is the desired norm? Kind of like how endemic racism doesn't occur against white people? This is a poorly articulated comment. I can't wrap my head around Hollywood.