nineteen

a recent post by prettyface, on the subject of the scrutiny of female celebrities' weight, got me to thinking; more specifically, these two questions really played upon my mind:

"Doesn't seeing that starlet having put on an ounce of weight give you just a teensy bit of sick satisfaction? Doesn't seeing her then looking strangely skeletal provoke a tiny spark of jealousy, which you then have to disguise with the correct amount of disapproval?"

part of me does not want to admit it, but these are feelings that i recognise- probably moreso the latter than the former, but still, both have fleeted their way across my mind in the past. nowadays, my response is more likely to be concern than jealousy, something which makes me feel both lucky and relieved; to me, it represents a move forward in my relationship with beauty, my body and both self-acceptance and the acceptance of other people's bodies. but it leaves me with sourtasting questions: why was this feeling of worry and sorrow, of sympathy, not always my response? why are underweight stars referred to as 'lucky'? why was my own slenderness (especially in high school: i grew upwards before i grew outwards, leaving me looking, in my opinion, somewhat two-dimensional) the one thing classmates constantly sighed and cooed over, using my body as a weapon with which to beat themselves?

we all know the old line about beauty not being skin deep, and that the phrase has been used time upon time to emphasise the importance of personality over physicality; but what about when the surface is thought to embody qualities and desirable character traits? the body has been taken as a signifier of character traits for hundreds, thousands, of years: Gareth, a nobleborn who eventually becomes a knight of the round table, for some reason disguises himself as a kitchen boy in his youth; but his beautiful white hands (um, yeah) hint at his concealed nobility. to me, the jealously felt when you see the slender reediness of some hollywood star cannot just be due the aesthetics of slimness, of slightlytoothinness, but the aspects of character that thinness implies.

maintaining a certain weight takes self discipline, control and willpower. the personal trainers of the famous have themselves become famous, indicating our interest in the gruelling exercise regimes of celebrities. low calorie diets bear the names of actresses and models, giving us insight (be it factual or supposed) into the regimented food intake of the 'beautiful'. through this we are able to construct an idea of how we think the famous eat, exercise and live- and then line ourselves up against it for comparison. did you have that chocolate and not spend half an hour on the exercise bike? that's not what gwyneth paltrow would do. BAD YOU. did you get up at five this morning and kickbox for two hours before breakfasting on a fruit smoothie? no? madonna did. did you eat something not on your dietry plan? you don't have a dietry plan? where is your self-discipline. tsk.

thinness can- has- become a way to signal your 'positive' characteristics; and in the same way, fatness now equates with greed and compulsion. there have been times when plumpness showed fertility, wealth and health. nowadays? well, fatness is weakness. you didn't say no to that food. you overindulged. in 2005, the nhs announced that they were considering plans to refuse treatment to people whose lifestyle was largely to blame for their state of ill health and yes, you've guessed it, obese people were on the list of lazy, inconsiderate fools who didn't deserve free healthcare. fat is demonised everywhere we look, as indicative of the stupidity, laziness and unhealthiness of those people with it (see this post from the feministe for a prime example of how such themes are played out in the media).

are we so convinced by these discourses that the sight of a young, too-thin woman first sparks that flicker of envy, before we swallow it down and remark on how someone should send her a sarnie? and even if we don't look at the extremes here, it surely cannot be denied that many female celebrities, the world's 'most beautiful', hover just below a healthy weight. when we praise their beauty, are we also praising their character, their ability to keep their body in a certain shape? at the same time, are we by extension, using them as a way to punish ourselves, and our deviance from the (good, controlled) lifestyle we believe they lead?

why is super slimness the ideal of beauty in our culture? what does fat, and the lack of it, actually represent to us? discipline and lack of control are two aspects of it- not by any means the only aspects, but ones that i find intriguing. the language used to describe fatness and thinness focuses alot on such concepts, and means that in order to understand our reactions to celebrity bodies, we must address the deeper questions of what a body can signify to those observing it.

(i apologise for the hastiness of this post, and the undoubted absence of many MANY other issues. it's more a train of thought than polished argument. and i'd very much like your input on the matter; lots of minds are better than one, obviously).