It's been awhile now since Nicole Ritchie got pregnant and put on weight, so I guess everyone had to start looking for someone else to turn into a bulimic wreck. The focus has now been shifted to Shenae Grimes (Annie) and Jessica Stroup (Erin Silver) of the CW's 90210 reboot (what, is AnnaLynne McCord's Naomi an obese cow?). Apparently, the girls are setting a bad example for their young viewers by being too thin, and now rumors are swirling of an intervention being held by the 90210 cast, encouraging them to gain weight. Yes, there are string beans with more meat on them than these girls, but should the focus really be on them? Hit after the jump for who's really to blame.
So yes, the girls of 90210 are too thin. But guess what? SO IS EVERYBODY ELSE ON TV. And in movies. And music. And on Broadway and just about every other kind of performing art. It's been long recognized that the camera adds ten pounds, and so every female who faces a camera these days is rail-thin. These girls are not to blame, it's the industry itself for putting the pressure on the girls (and all women) to be thin. It's no secret that these industries (and the tabloids that follow them) seem to have a secret chart of ideal weights:
Size 00: Too skinny
Sizes 0-2: Just right
Sizes 3-4: "Curvy"
Sizes 5+: Prey for Captain Ahab
So, because the girls of 90210 appear to be on the slimmer side of size 0, the media has allowed them to take up the mantle previously held by Nicole Ritchie and Lindsay Lohan. Now, even stars of other shows are chiming in on it. Recently, Penn Badgley of Gossip Girl told the press that the girls of 90210 should "eat a double cheeseburger". Maybe Badgley should be saying the same thing to his own girlfriend and GG costar, Blake Lively. While Lively isn't quite as thin as the 90210 girls, the perception of "all girls must be skinny" put forth through these TV characters is still personified by Lively's Serena, as well as all of the other girls on GG. And while we're at it, this could have been said to The OC's Mischa Barton and Rachel Bilson as well. In this week's issue of People, they claim that GG's Leighton Meester and Lively are "curvy". If these girls are curvy, what does that say about everyone else above a size 2? To claim that the GG girls are putting forth a healthier body image than the girls on 90210 sounds downright insulting to a gender I'm not even a part of.
Everyone also seems to be forgetting the fact that Grimes has been on TV for awhile now, and yet nobody seems to have cared what her weight was while she was on Degrassi: The Next Generation. Maybe Canadians are too nice to openly criticize a girl's weight, but here's the kicker: She looks exactly the same now as she did while on Degrassi. While Degrassi has never reached the number of viewers that 90210 does, the fact of the matter is that her weight hasn't changed, so if you didn't complain about it back then, you shouldn't now. These girls on 90210 are having their first shot at stardom, and they're being cruelly investigated not because of anything relevant like their acting quality, but just because the tabloids need a new flock of weight scapegoats. Welcome to Hollywood, ladies.
One last thing; If everyone is going to take shots at the female leads for being uber-thin, when is it going to happen that they start criticizing how unrealistic their male counterparts are on these series? Last I checked, not every guy in high school has toned biceps and rippling abs. The only thing more unbelievable may have been Adam Brody playing the unattractive nerd on The OC. If there's pressure on girls to be skinny, there's just as much now on guys to look like gym slaves. Think I'm wrong? Tell it to the 15 year old who's doing 300 ab crunches a day so he can look like Chace Crawford.
0 comments:
Post a Comment