The Hannah Montana Effect
Although we’re definitely not done with all the meta media aftermath (and Rachel has a good roundup today), I thought I’d take a break to share an actual post! About something else! Are you shocked? I was, when I read today that Miley Cyrus, the 15-year-old star otherwise known as Hannah Montana, thinks she’s fat.
According to Star Magazine:
Sometimes she can’t even eat and almost passes out on stage. She thinks she looks fat in fan pictures and that her legs and face are “all jiggly” to fans in the first row at concerts.
I sincerely hope this is something the tabloids have made up (like Jenna Fischer dating David Spade), and it isn’t how Miley actually feels. Although actually, that would be just as bad—as a story like that, true or false, can only make a beautiful 15-year-old girl feel bad about herself.
In trying to find out more about this, I also stumbled across this post from a mom:
Hollywood is ruining their young stars while making my kids have false expectations to boot. Already, I have to admonish my boys for thinking Sara Ramierez is fat. She’s a size 10. That’s not fat. Or even that Jennifer Love Hewitt isn’t fat. I mean come on, these two women are gorgeous. Just because they aren’t the size of the Olsen twins, doesn’t mean they are [fat].
It’s no secret that I think teenage girls suffer the most from the pressure to be extremely thin, particularly in Hollywood, where “fat” has been redefined to “size 4.” The response to pressure like that is so often to turn to drugs (Exhibit A: Jessica Sierra, who was called fat when she looked like this and is now on drugs and looks like this.)
Miley is beautiful and glowing. And girls everywhere look up to her. I hope we soon hear that she’s healthy, active, and happy with herself—as every teenage girl should be.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: American Idol, Celebrities, Feminism, Magazines, Meta, Miley Cyrus, Music, Tidbit, TV
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ok, i hope she doesn’t feel fat. It reminds me of that whole Jennifer Love Hewitt bathing suit thing. Oh my goodness, I actually looked at some comments people left on the pictures… so awful. People are f-ed up.
it is hard enough being a kid but to have the beauty pressures that today’s society deems “pretty” is ridiculous. i hope more moms can raise sons and daughters that combat this crap.
I agree with Sizzle and Sister Sassy completely. And there is nothing more destructive than hating yourself for who you are; get over it, you get one life and you’re stuck with what you get. Once more some innocent little girl is getting mentally drained and damaged by this kind of stuff, whether it’s rumors or true.
She’s certainly not fat and it’s sad that she thinks that. But to some degree, SOME people who are fat (and unhealthy) and want to change it shouldn’t be buying into “accepting themselves” as a reason not to work hard.
Mo, did you get to read this article from newsweek yet? it’s at [link]http://www.newsweek.com/id/105585[/link] and it’s really good, it’s about how people are diverting from the really skinny models to everyday people. I liked it.
skittle that is complete nonsense. Everyone has a right to accept themselves, be it fat, thin, healthy, unhealthy, unpretty or pretty by our social standards.
shaming and low self esteem NEVER helped anyone do anything positive for themselves.
Health is both physical and mental, and quite honestly its almost impossible to keep yourself in physical health when your mental health is in tatters. So many people make themselves ILL through depression, that it exhibits physically.
Dont EVER EVER say anyone doesnt deserve to accept themselves.
Hannah should not think like that. She looks beautiful not fat. I think the industry is obsessed with extremely thin women so a lot of girls knew they’d pick a thin girl not a plus size one. So some girls even started to starve themselves to look “wonderful”. That’s why they are much thinner than the average women. But that is “ridiculous”. I have read a book about the struggles of a girl with anorexia titled as “Diary of an Anorexic Girl”: dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=81584&ru=279 , when reading it, I really found pain from it. I really hope more kids combat this crap!
SOME people who are fat (and unhealthy) and want to change it shouldn’t be buying into “accepting themselves” as a reason not to work hard.
Let me just say this: There is no moral imperative that people must be healthy. Someone who admittedly eats crap food and doesn’t exercise does not deserve to be discriminated against and treated like a second-class citizen.
People engage in activities every day that increase their risk of disease and injury. We don’t discriminate against them and neither should we discriminate against fat people.
Wow, I, too, hope the media made that up about Hannah Montana. And I love your eloquence! We DO NOT “deserve to be discriminated against and treated like a second-class citizen.” Great writing!
Rachel, you’re exactly right. Someone who eats crap and doesn’t exercise shouldn’t be discriminated against – neither should people who are, for any reason, overweight.
However, that doesn’t mean that people can’t be overweight, or fat. I think that’s one of the real divides in the FA movement right now (ironic given the title, and that of this blog) – there are some who maintain that nothing (or at least nothing below 4-digit weights) is overweight, and that you should accept people because they’re “not fat.” Very different from accepting people no matter what they weigh, and allowing folk to be honest about the facts that some people do weigh more than others and that weight may have an affect on your health and/or lifestyle.
As for Miley being fat? Yeah, that’s pretty ridiculous. Besides, from her quotes, it sounds like she’s more concerned about not being athletically toned (also probably nonsense, but the “fix” for that is diametrically opposed from the “fix” for being fat, so its pretty important to know in what way you’re unhappy with your body if you want to “fix” it (as opposed to becoming comfortable with it) in the first place).
Richard said, “there are some who maintain that nothing (or at least nothing below 4-digit weights) is overweight, and that you should accept people because they’re “not fat.” Very different from accepting people no matter what they weigh, and allowing folk to be honest about the facts that some people do weigh more than others and that weight may have an affect on your health and/or lifestyle.”
Disclaimer: I am not a moderator or even an official card-carrying fat/weight/body acceptance activist/advocate. (But I am going to stick my nose in anyway, because the Internet is for unsolicited opinions, not just porn.)
I thought that accepting people, however they look and however much they weigh, is exactly the point of this blog. That’s the message I get from mo and anne and the fabulous Ms. Bix. The message I’ve been hearing is not, “I’m not fat. I’m beautiful.” but “I am fat/thin/somewhere in between AND I am beautiful.” In otherwords, fat and beautiful are not mutually exclusive terms.
Not even going to enter into the discussion on whether or not it’s OK to be fat because it’s no one’s goddamned business and you shouldn’t treat someone different if they ARE fat.
Anyway, I hope that Miley doesn’t really think that about herself but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did :-(
Also, just adding- I don’t think there really is anyone who thinks that anything short of a 4-digit weight isn’t fat. And news flash to people who don’t know this, but fat people KNOW they are fat, and, in fact, telling them that they are not fat does NOTHING but make you look like a liar.
At least in my opinion. I know I’m fat. Don’t tell me I’m not. Also, don’t tell me to lose weight. That’s a decision I need to make for myself and if you say that to me, then, well, it’s almost like you’re taking credit for the decision if I do lose weight.
okay, i am a little disturbed by this topic.
first, it is obvious that miley is being robbed of a beautiful childhood that will never be enjoyed. she is already the prodigy of a very famous father who could more than provide a rich lifestyle for her. i don’t understand why she is an actress and performer at such a young age.
second, my daughter owns two of her “barbie” look-a-like dolls. and both have very small, brazilian style (thong?) panties painted on. this is disturbing to me. and if these dolls were not gifts, we would have thrown them out already. is miley endorsing this doll? does this doll represent the kind of society we live in? do teen age girls really wear thong underwear? and if so, why?
and lastly, i wonder why she has self esteem low enough to think she looks flabby and would starve herself to the point of exhaustion…? the media is an evil force among us.
Speaking of young girls thinking they are fat … moms, how do you protect your daughters from this kind of thinking? Over the holidays, I heard one of my nephews jokingly tell his 6-year-old sister that she was fat — which she is not. He didn’t mean anything by it, but it immediately worried me. I am not around these kids much and what if he teases her about that often? Might she come to believe it? I didn’t know what to say, and didn’t hear him do it again, so I think it was an isolated incident. I’d like to be prepared if it did happen again, though. What would you have said?
Hm, I hope that’s not the case, but sadly, it may well be. I hope those who care about her don’t let her become malnourished!
I believe that I saw something about her having hypoglycemia – I just recently saw something on Entertainment Tonight about how she has to eat constantly during her concerts – apparently she does a lot of costume changes during the show, and she takes a couple of bites of a sandwich every time she changes clothes.
Richard, maybe you should leave it up to the individual to decide if they feel good or not. It’s pretty damn obvious that I weigh more than others. But why is that any of your damn business? I’m tired of people poking their noses into my fat – stop telling me how to feel about myself, k? That is MY job alone.
It’s the same old, “I did it! So can you!” mantra that I’m sick of.
People are different. People are ALLOWED to be different.
My daughter watches Hannah Montana. I was watching it with her the other day and Hannah was onstage in a pair of tight jeans and I was thinking how lean she looked and how similar she was to my 13 year old in body type. My daughters are naturally lean, so I didn’t think much of it other than that brief thought – which you just now reminded me of.
No matter what your size is or how you look, if you don’t stop worrying all the time that you don’t measure up to somebody’s standard, you are going to be miserable.
The fact of the matter is that no matter what you or a star or anybody looks like, somebody will like it and somebody will not like it. The most important thing is to just eat healthy food, exercise, be passionate and loving and forgiving and try to accept the love of others.
“second, my daughter owns two of her “barbie” look-a-like dolls. and both have very small, brazilian style (thong?) panties painted on. this is disturbing to me. and if these dolls were not gifts, we would have thrown them out already. is miley endorsing this doll? does this doll represent the kind of society we live in? do teen age girls really wear thong underwear? and if so, why?”
I wonder if leaving the painted underwear off might be better? The doll isn’t anatomically correct, I should hope. It should be safely androgenous south of the border. The painted thong just seems kind of unnecessary and provocative. Just my opinion, though.
As for Mylee thinking she’s fat, well, I’m not surprised when young girls are bombarded at every turn with the kind of beauty standard they are expected to live up to.
I heard something else that disturbs me more, actually. I don’t know how valid it is, but I heard she legally changed her name to Hannah Montanna. Somebody tell me this isn’t true. Why on earth would her parents let her DO that?
She legally changed her name to Miley Rae. Her former real name was Destiny Hope.
Destiny Hope? Really? ~wince~ Eit. No wonder she changed it.
Ha ha!!! Awesome!
I hope I\’m famous enough someday to totally blow off Miley Cyrus and Kanye West. The only thing I can do now is continue to not buy their albums.