Stars of stage and screen

[Magggie]

What's your thoughts on the weights of the stars
not that I follow them at all, just mainly from a point of view like" oo, that's nice hair," or their frocks
but what's all this about the rush to be really thin?

I read yesterday that jennifer aniston is the same height as me, but only weighs 7stone 8lbs!
Her rival angelina weighs 7stone and is 5ft8!!!


I know they have to look skinny etc
but they are so bordering on the super untenable weigh stakes

don't you think

 

[margarino]

I think it is really irresponsible, they are outside of their healthy weight range, they are constantly in "girly mags" and media and so many vulnerable women and girls aspire to be like them. I find it really sad that they think they need to be that way (and that the industry forces them to be that way - but we are all responsible for our actions!) and i also think that they should be made accountable because they do hold power and could change things so that healthy body weights are promoted.

 

[Miss Demeanour]

First of all, 'celebs', actresses, professional clothes horses and the suchlike are *not* flagbearers or role models - and as soon as we realise (and instill in future generations) that they are simply people doing a job. One with much exposure, granted; but that's how they market their own particular brand of 'product'.

Most of them are quite thin. In the end, if they overdo it they look awful and are rightly villified - they look bloody awful, how is that something to emulate? Why would anyone want to? Ultimately, they have to be particularly thin in order to stay in work (not least because lenses 'shorten' and 'widen' the image recorded). I really can't blame them for that - some of them overdo it at times, but usually the pendulum swings back the other way. Hell, Reneé Zelwigger had to put on a couple of stone to be Bridget. A lot of it comes with the job description.

Quite frankly, I'm not that interested in the lives or weights of the rich and famous. But I think the increasing interest is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People are interested because they are told that they are by the media. Magazines are screaming at you from the racks telling you the latest detail and pointing out every last blotch and blemish - but if the media wasn't feeding the frenzy, would anyone actually give a s**t?

It's about time people (esp young people) stopped wishing they looked like someone else - even if you change whatever it is you dislike about yourself, you're still you underneath. I've known people who havn't quite grasped that, then spent thousands on changing something else... it never stopped. Changing the shell didn't take her one step nearer to being at peace with herself.

It's about time we all recognise it for what it is. Meaningless. As soon as we realise this it will lose it's sting.

In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter what anyone else looks like - but we are told it matters, so we believe it. Unfortunately we don't need a change in the media, but we need a change in the way we percieve it - it's nothing more than the emperor's new clothes. About time that was recognised.

Back to the original point - what do I think? Couldn't give a hoot, personally. Their body, their choice, none of my business. The only person I can change is me. So that's the only person's shape I'm bothered about.

[Needless to say I've put a lot of thought into this in the past 25 years or so - and our attitude to it needs to change, not the celebs, not the media...]

 

[margarino]

I couldn't agree with you more Miss D on the fact that 'we' (society) need to change our perceptions and attitudes towards celebrities etc, but what we are seeing is the exact opposite with young people growing up watching things like big brother and other such programs and thinking that they want to be beautiful, rich and famous. The media preys on societies deepest desires who doesn't want to be rich and beautiful? What i disagree with you is that not all people are capable of stepping back and looking at it critically like you have just done and many well educated or more aware people could do. I work in schools with children and young people, additional needs - including emotional and behavioural needs, and i see it so many times, where young people with so much potential and such low self esteem do things to get in with the popular crowd and then spiral downwards. If everyone on this earth was capable of making the right decisions then absolutely i would say that celebrities have no culpability because people would be choosing to lose weight, have surgery etc etc to try to be like them with all the right information in their hands and a well thought out decision. But this is not what happens, and it is the most vulnerable in our society that suffer. That was the only point i was trying to make. Of course we all are responsible for the decisions we make but media, advertising etc etc use a lot more psychology and underhanded methods to 'persuade' (brainwash??? have i gone too far ) us of what we should look like, what we should eat, what we should dress, what we should buy....

 

[Miss Demeanour]

Admittedly, it's taken quite some time before I realised that all this is is a means of selling - magazines, films, whatever. All it is, is marketing, and we fall for it. It only has a power over us because we let it. And now the younger society is suffering our indulging of the media.

The pursuit of being rich, famous and beautiful is a means of instant prosperity without having to actually work for it. I entirely understand the draw! However we as a society has sadly lost the drive to work for something - winning the lottery, winning X factor or becoming a WAG seems now to be a valid career aspiration as it's gives instant celebrity and therefore instant prosperity - after all, who wants to spend a decade building a career from scratch, right?

But it' not real - and for the all but the extreme minority, it's unattainable. Therefore people will be tortured by believing something is achievable, then feeling a failure when it doesn't materialise. But in reality, the only success worth having is that which you have to work and fight for. The media gives the impression it just lands in your lap.

If you look behind the career of most slebs it has been hard graft to make it look effortless. Jordan (whatever you think of her) has been an exceptionally canny businesswoman. Most actors and actresses spent at least a decade or so grafting before they got famous. And fame isn't all it's cracked up to me - I don't fancy living behind razor wire and employing security. And it's all lost in an instant. The media's not so quick to point all that out - so therefore *we* should.

Specifically, I am utterly saddened about the rise of wanting to be a WAG. The concept of marrying well in order to live a certain lifestyle and maintain a place in society is appropriate for the works of Jane Austen, but it's a shame that young women these days are not more encouraged to have aspirations of their own, preferring to see the only way out is to live life on the back of someone else's achievements. So 21st Century... why are these girls so lacking in ambition?

And if any kid does turn out to bright and ambitious, they get a thorough psychological kicking for it. When the truth is, working damn hard and taking pride on one's own achievements is far more permanent that the fleeting superficiality of fame and beauty.

I was the fat, spotty ostracised geeky kid who hated myself to the very core of my existence. So I really do get it. I left school with an average string of GCSEs (which are pretty mediocre by todays standards) and not an A-level to my name, because I despised the sight of that building, and still do. (Made up for it in my 20s though.) I'm not blowing my own trupet, I'm just pointing out that I'm aware what things are like for the young. 'School days are the best days of your life' is the biggest lie going - I wouldn't repeat any of my first 23 years for all the beauty and riches in the world.

And if I knew what the answer was I'd start writing the book immediately. In fact, Susie Orbach has written a few worth reading - bit extreme in places, but makes the point well.

I'm just advocating a fight back, rather than pandering to it. It only brainwashes us, because collectively, we let it...

 

[Miss Demeanour]

p.s. - forgot to say, the way young people are these days actually makes my heart ache for them - it really does. I wish I could issue an psychological suit of armour to each and every one of them. However all I can do is make sure that at least my fianceé's niece grows up right.

 

[Magggie]

Would like to point out that when I was thinner, not that long ago (shameful eh?) I wasn't any happier
I felt much better for being a haelthier weight, the exercise I was doing then made me have loads of energy

but I wasn't any happier

one thing that made me exstatic was going to the red sea, going on a trial scuba dive, not minding being on nothing but a divesuit !!!! ( my god, I would look like the pilsbury doughboy does bad s&m at the mo)
diving down, loads of energy to swim for ages
bliss
Oh
and at that point
at about
10stone 7lbs
I would be classified as enormous by Hollywood standards

I get sick of the attitude that you are nothing, and have nothing worth saying after you hit 40

it's a weird twisted world the media live in

 

[margarino]

p.s. - forgot to say, the way young people are these days actually makes my heart ache for them - it really does. I wish I could issue an psychological suit of armour to each and every one of them. However all I can do is make sure that at least my fianceé's niece grows up right.

I just wish more children and young people had equally good role models to open their eyes - if we could make kids see how little the school playground has to do with the real world when you are an adult, maybe it would give them the strength and confidence to be themselves and not conform to the mould...

 

[Miss Demeanour]

if we could make kids see how little the school playground has to do with the real world when you are an adult, maybe it would give them the strength and confidence to be themselves and not conform to the mould...

Hear hear! not 'arf!

 

[Miss Demeanour]

I get sick of the attitude that you are nothing, and have nothing worth saying after you hit 40

Yep - and that's a load of BS too. And that's another bag entirely...

it's a weird twisted world the media live in

Yeah, but prob with solely blaming the media for all of this is that it gives rise to a Catch-22 situation - The media knows what sells, it is a business (and nothing more), and therefore they're not going to slaughter the cash cow...

They're not going to change the format until sales start dropping.

*sigh*