Hallie Vs. Alley
I was out of town this weekend unexpectedly (and it was awesome) so I didn’t get a post together for today. Instead, I’ll recommend Weetabix’s post over at Elastic Waist about Halle Berry and Kirstie Alley:
Here’s a picture of Kirstie Alley exiting a restaurant, but what’s striking is the commentary: the anonymous writer has snarky theories on what might be going into Kirstie’s mouth and imagines that Kirstie must be ashamed of herself, then comes right out and says that they do not approve of her current state of fatness and advises her to go to the gym. WTF?
In contrast, there’s Halle Berry’s traditional “Wow, she just had a baby six weeks ago” post. A pseudo-envious post-pregnancy update such as this in the tabloid blogs is, as far as I can tell, the female celebrity version of winning an Oscar. But where is the speculation on her food intake? What about questioning her gym attendance? What about the moral judgment on how she might have cared more about getting red carpet ready than caring for her daughter? Nope, Halle just gets lots of envy. Imagine that.
They Halle link doesn’t seem to be working, but the Kirstie one is. Feel free to talk about it here or there, and I’ll be back with my regularly scheduled posts tomorrow!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Fatism, Kirstie Alley, Magazines, Meta
I didn’t know where else to put this, but I just read this story and its… not what I would call a good fat acceptance technique.
We know about this, right?
http://jezebel.com/384321/tyra-tackles-the-weighty-issue-of-fatsploitation
The comments on the x17 site about Kirstie are good. People telling the author they can pretty much shove it. Which I agree with.
I recently read a news article about everyone clapping for Victoria Beckham at her birthday dinner because she ate some ravioli. If ravioli gets a clap, then I deserve a standing ovation!
I blogged about a similar topic regarding Angelina Jolie feeding her kids cheetos.
I don’t really like the unstated assumption there that there’s something wrong with Halle Berry, as a parent or as a person. I don’t think we know a lot about celebs, and this idea that she must have been being a bad parent in order to get down to a particular weight really leaves me feel chilled.
I wonder if anyone has done any kind of study on why so many people feel it is necessary to punish people for being fat? Fat people clearly elicit some kind of deep fear in certain people that makes them react defensively, even viciously.
And Anna .. FWIW, I don’t think anyone is actually suggesting that Halle Berry is a bad mother because she lost weight quickly after her pregnancy. They’re just trying to illustrate that people make weird assumptions about fat people’s moral failings based on the fact that they ARE fat, but they don’t do the same for thin people.
I agree with Anna. I think post-baby weight loss is even more dependent upon the particular person than other kinds of weight loss. In my mother’s group (about 30 people) we have all different body types. Some of the women were overweight to begin with and claim that having a baby was the best weight loss plan ever — two of them are more than 20 pounds below their pre-pregnancy weight with no particular effort. One mother, who was thin before she got pregnant, is having trouble keeping weight on and looks emaciated in spite of eating enormous amounts of food. Some people (myself included) are having a very different experience in spite of healthy eating and lots of exercise, and it really seems to be very dependent on factors that are really hard to pinpoint.
I am not on board with judging anybody, famous or not, for postpartum weight gain or loss. Halle Berry’s nice ass is not evidence that she is a bad mother.
I think, as Cindy pointed out, the Halle Berry criticism was deliberately ridiculous. At least that’s how I took it.
It was intended as sarcastic hyperbole, as Cindy S suggested.
It may have been intended as sarcastic hyperbole, but you went for a target that’s pretty acceptable to attack, as targets go. Attacking a woman for not being a good enough mother based on the size of her ass is a low blow– and it’s still a low blow even when you claim it’s a joke. And it’s out of place on a blog that’s by and about women.
I stopped reading the bulletin boards at IMDB after I got sucked into a thread about what awhale Bryce Dallas Howard was when pregnant, and when one dude said he wouldn’t *let* his future wife get that fat when pregnant.
I got a good laugh for a second, but then I felt sick. It’s all about managing the female body, isn’t it?
Lisa, if that’s what you call an attack did you read the article about Kirstie? That’s an attack and those people weren’t being sarcastic. Women are always going to be targets whether it’s to each other or anyone else. We’re always targets and we’re always attacked. Sarcastic jokes are meant to alleviate even though some people will take everything to heart regardless.
tabloids really get on my nerves…i hate how they turn good into bad and vice versa.
What was said about Kristie Alley reminds me of a saying, “love and hate aren’t much different, both are about spending time thinking about the person”
I wonder what the person who wrote the article about Kristie Alley would think, if he was mistaken as a fat “fetishist”. I mean fantasizing about what Kristie must be eating, that sounds like someone who’s attracted to something.