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It Is, As It Ever Was

by makeupandmirtazapine on November 6, 2012 in Body Image, Celebrity

“I was so skinny, they gave me the nickname stechetto – the stick. I was tall, thin, ugly and dark like an Arab girl. I looked strange. All eyes. No flesh on my bones.” ~ Sophia Loren

One thing I have been doing a lot of lately is watching old movies. To take my mind off all the unsettled uncertainty that’s been going on in my life at the moment, the other day I decided on a classic movie marathon.

I watched Casablanca, Sabrina, To Catch a Thief, and The Philadelphia Story.

And I was struck by how waif-like the actresses were. And the thought that those who slate movie actresses for being unrealistically thin, and bemoan this as a phenomenon peculiar to the modern media, can’t possibly have watched a single one of them.

Katherine Hepburn was tall, and slim, and reed-like. Audrey Hepburn was a mere slip of a thing. And Brigitte Auber looked like she hadn’t eaten a square meal in her whole life.

Grace Kelly had a fuller figure, but with roughly the same proportions as a Barbie doll. And Ingrid Bergman was hardly what you’d call curvy.

Now I’m not saying any of these things to criticise. I happen to think that the women I’ve just mentioned were some of the most beautiful film actresses who’ve ever lived. What I do think it suggests is that the case for condemning the modern media for supposedly putting too much pressure on women to be thin is overstated.

It is as it ever was.

The media has always held up impossibly beautiful women, with practically unattainable looks, and posited them as some kind of ideal for all women. And on the whole those women have always been thin. They’ve certainly never been plus sized.

I mean, sure there was Marilyn Monroe. But if you compare her to the other stars of her time you’ll find that she was her generation’s Beyoncé. The exception, not the rule.

And she was glamourous. They all were. In a way that was completely beyond the reach of the average woman of their day.

Whereas most people now could adopt the image of their favourite reality TV star if they really wanted to.

And, of course, I’m aware that the consumption of media, and in particular media images has increased immeasurably since the golden age of cinema. But then so have women’s opportunities.

I find it a stretch to believe the suggestion that consumption of magazines such as Hello, OK!, and Closer today exert a greater amount of pressure on a person to look a certain way than did the societal expectation of the 1950s that one simply must find a husband.

The experience of pressure to conform is not the same when one has other tolerable options.

Even as recently as my childhood there was an expectation that people would marry, and they would have children, and they would do both of these things young. And in order to marry, and to have those children, one needed to be pretty. And pretty meant thin.

And the alternative, the only alternative that many could see, was to end up as a crazy, ugly, unwanted spinster.

Of course there are many people who still believe that today, but it just isn’t the same. There are other options, and a growing number of people choosing to pursue those options.

So, while I don’t think the obsession and dissatisfaction of some of our present generation with their body image is a positive thing, I don’t think this issue is really as new as it’s often made out to be.

Cat-AWOL

by makeupandmirtazapine on September 4, 2012 in Celebrity, Miscellaneous

I’ve been AWOL again. This time I blame it entirely on Natalie Portman.

Natalie Portman is the kitten I adopted ten days ago after she was abandoned where I work.

It’s been a bit more of an adjustment than I was expecting. I had a cat when I was growing up, and I mostly seem to remember her sleeping all day.

But she was born when I was only very small myself, so I just didn’t remember the demanding kitten phase, where they want to be played with all the time and think that 5am is a perfectly reasonable time for everyone in the household to be up in a morning. Never mind that there’s nowhere anyone has to be until 10.30.

I’m ashamed to say that the clash between Natalie Portman’s abandonment issues and my commitment phobia actually had me contemplating trying to pass her on at one point last week. Albeit only briefly.

My furniture has had to be completely shrouded in towels to protect it from young Natalie’s claws, especially since she developed an interest in parkour.

She thinks that every piece of rubbish is a toy.

And after I spent a mini fortune today on buying her proper cat toys she’s spent the whole of this evening playing with a plastic plug cover.

Not to mention that she follows me everywhere I go when I’m at home, she’ll only go to sleep if she’s allowed to do so on top of me, and she resents me leaving her for work so much that I’m faced with twenty minutes of strident miaowing every time I come back.

Although her attempts at overcoming her innate fear of water so that she could join me in the shower were quite amusing to watch.

But I think we’re just about settling down and getting used to each other now.

I’ve learned that her absolute favourite thing to eat is sardines.

Or whatever I’m having.

Even if it’s broccoli.

And she’s learned that it doesn’t matter how hard she tries she will never succeed in convincing me that there should ever be more than one five o’ clock in a day.

Or more than one six o’ clock for that matter. I only have a fifteen minute commute to work for Christ sake’s. And that’s on a truly horrendous day.

And after all, she does look like this:

Why I Don’t Feel Sorry For Jennifer Aniston

by makeupandmirtazapine on August 25, 2012 in Celebrity, Sex, Dating & Relationships

I picked up a magazine for the train ride home this weekend. It was Grazia or something like it. And the front page story was something about how we should all feel sorry for Jennifer Aniston for some new relationship drama or other.

As someone who spends a considerable amount of time in doctor’s waiting rooms I’ve read a frankly ridiculous number of Poor Jen articles over the years. So while it seems that this latest crisis is already passed, and Poor Jen is now actually engaged, I’d be willing to bet this blog that the next one is just around the corner.

Which is why I’m still going to go ahead and post this list that I wrote on Sunday of the reasons why I’ve never found Jennifer Aniston a pity-inducing figure.

1. She looks like this:

2. Friends.

Jennifer Aniston was a cast member on one of the most successful television series of all time – making her one of the most successful actresses of all time.

Her ten-year career portraying Rachel Green in Friends netted her an Emmy in 2002 for Outstanding Lead Actress in Comedy Series, and was the spring-board to an unfathomably successful film career that has spanned another decade.

Aniston reportedly collected a $1 million pay check for each episode of the final season of Friends which also, along with her colleagues Courtney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, made her one of the highest paid actresses of all time.

3. She’s fabulously wealthy. Aniston’s net worth is estimated as being somewhere between £110-150 million dollars.

4. She appears to be the picture of health:

5. She has an adorable dog:

6. Brad Pitt.

Yes, I know they’ve been divorced for the last seven years, but Aniston had him during his best years, when he was the All American Poster Boy. Before he adopted the Ozzy Osbourne meets life-long homeless guy look that he’s been sporting throughout most of his relationship with Angelina Jolie.

And since divorcing Pitt she’s dated a string of the most eligible men in Hollywood. Every one of them apparently handsome, charismatic, and successful.

7. She has a beautiful home. Three of them, actually.

8. George Clooney.

Since divorcing Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston appears to have lived essentially the same lifestyle as George Clooney. Yet while Clooney has been lauded as a playboy, acres of news print have been devoted to how sad and lonely Aniston’s life must be.

It’s not so much the double standard that bothers me, because I don’t think George Clooney’s apparent inability to sustain a long-term relationship, despite being one of the most eligible men on earth and able to attract almost any mate he wanted, is particularly enviable either.

What bothers me is that no one seems surprised by the ongoing coverage of Aniston’s life. No-one appears to question the idea that a highly successful woman with so much going for her should be written about only in terms of her supposed desperation to hold on to a relationship.

No magazine editor appears able to comprehend the possibility that she could be happy on her own terms, with her own life and her own staggering successes.

And not only can they not imagine that she could be happy without a man, they insist that a woman who must have preternatural self-esteem is trying to cling on to any man who’ll have her for all she’s worth.

Otherwise she will never be ‘complete’.

Now, maybe this is actually the reality of her situation. Maybe desperation, rather than the pressures of intense media scrutiny and the difficulty of maintaining a normal relationship in the context of such a global level of recognition, or even plain old incompatibility, is the reason that she has remained single.

After all, no relationship could hope to withstand the pressure of such insane expectations.

But somehow it seems unlikely.

No, I think that Jennifer Aniston knows that her life is a pretty good gig. The engagement’s just the icing on her cake.