"A Healthy…Lowfat Or Nonfat…Healthy…Blizzard"
It absolutely pains me to report this, because Jamie Lee Curtis, although I am neutral on her in general and don’t much care for her as an actor, is married to Christopher Guest, who is a god. And so, do I want to tell you that Jamie Lee Curtis hates the fat people? I do not.
But here’s the story anyway. She apparently appeared in a photo spread a number of years ago looking less than svelte (after she quit drinking and gained some weight). And people saw the photos and enjoyed the message: imperfection is okay. Unfortunately, that wasn’t her message.
“So I think what some people took from those photos was: Love yourself, no matter what. And the problem with that is: What if what you’re doing is unhealthy? Are you to accept what you look like kind of in a militant way, like, this is what I look like — stop it! If you’re 50 pounds overweight and you have diabetes in your family, was I telling you that’s okay? No. But unfortunately what got distilled from this moment was every person who comes up says, ‘Thanks a lot for keeping it real.’ A lot of people misunderstood me — that being overweight was okay because that’s who you are.
Wow, I wonder what she says to these “not okay” overweight people who come up to compliment her. I shudder to think.
To her credit, she puts the focus on her own health and says she doesn’t need “external validation” that she looks good. She doesn’t cite her body weight, but she does cite her cholesterol numbers. And I am all for trying to be healthy. But of course, she is buying into that “overweight is unhealthy” equation, not just for herself, but for the world.
Later in the article, she goes on to say:
“There is obviously this obsession in this country with people’s bodies and I perpetuated that. I feel badly [sic] that my early career was so focused on what I looked like and my body. I do regret the message I sent.”
“You feel that you contributed in some way to women’s need for a perfect body?” I ask.
“Of course I did,” she says. “Of course I did. But again I was contributing to it in a genetic form, meaning that it was the currency of my family. The currency of my family was what you looked like. My father was arguably one of the most handsome men, my mother the most beautiful…So your looks were your currency. And they became my currency, even though for me it was trickier because I obviously was not classically pretty the way my parents were.”
I’ve always thought it must be tough to be the daughter of Janet Leigh (right up there with Kate Winslet on my list of most spectacularly beautiful women ever) and not be sterotypically “pretty.” But this is still kind of a weird quote. She doesn’t address the actual question. “Yes, women feel pressured to have a perfect body, because my parents were so hot.” That has nothing to do with her career, does it? Am I crazy? And she just comes across as so smug throughout this whole article. Maybe she’s a robot.
Thanks to Lucy Leaf for sending the link!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Media
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Eh, I’ve never really been a Jamie Lee Curtis fan. She’s always seemed a bit more full of herself than she ought to be (I mean, she’s no Meryl Streep :P) I remember seeing a clip of her flipping out on an interviewer on the red carpet; she was screaming at him that he should be so grateful that she even bothered to notice him, that he was nothing, no one, etc. It sort of tainted her image for me. So I’m not really surprised that she’s backtracking on this issue. It seems to be the way things are these days: accept yourself for who you are, but remember, there’s a limit to what’s okay!
I guess I don’t see what’s so wrong with what she’s saying. She’s talking about health and not giving up on taking care of yourself. I love reading your posts about being a fat girl at the gym, because that’s who I am. I’ve been fat and active my whole life, and I know the times I’m treating myself like crap by eating junk or not working out and it feels awful.
I may end up being the minority here, but I love her. I’m scared to post this, as I don’t want to get bashed, but some of her statements here are close to my own feelings. Being not-so-tiny myself, I completely accept that you have to love yourself the way you are. You should not be treated differently no matter your size, and I get all that. But, there’s also knowing that, for health reasons, I am not ok the way I am. I know that I’m a beautiful person. I know that I’m a funny girl. I know that I make people happy. What I also know is I’m 100 lbs. overweight. I have diabetes. I have PCOS. I have high cholesterol. There are things about me that are not good BECAUSE of my weight.
That is what I’m taking away from what she has said here. It’s fine to be comfortable in your own skin, but when there are health issues stemming from your weight, it’s not something to sit back and accept.
Lisa, from what I’ve read of PCOS, it’s not weight that caused it, PCOS can cause you to gain weight and make it very difficult to lose. Diabetes is genetic and so is high cholesterol. Granted, some health problems may be aggravated by weight, but that does not mean the weight caused them. And it doesn’t guarantee that losing weight will cure them. You can probably get them under better control by eating healthy, but restricting calories can hurt more in the long run than it can help. I fully believe in managing what I eat to manage my health, but that is exactly the reason I do it, not to lose weight (and I’m about 200 lbs over what they say is good for my height). If healthy eating happens to cause some weight loss, well okay, but that’s not what I was aiming for. I’m aiming to be able to eat what my body needs when it needs it, know when I’m hungry and when I’m full, and not have to decide what is good/bad food. It’s all food.
I happen to like Jamie Lee Curtis too, but I don’t have to agree with everything she says. As an actress, I think she’s okay, not the best, not the worst. And she’s not someone I would look up to or want to emulate, but I can enjoy what she does in movies if I happen to see them.
She may not have said it very eloquently, but I think Jamie Lee Curtis had a couple of valid points in there – Yes, love yourself as you are and for who you are, but don’t use that as an excuse to be unhealthy. It’s possible that the fat=unhealthy statements that she made were just shorthand that she figured most people would relate to. No, that doesn’t make it accurate. But then, she’s an actor, not a doctor. I’m okay with cutting her some slack for verbalizing some garbled thoughts.
I’m with Madge- actors are not authorities about health and well-being! It drives me crazy that so many articles are about their “health” and “lifestyle” secrets. The smug tone rubs me the wrong way, but so many celebrities have it- I suspect it comes of having countless journos constantly asking you about your life and success and hanging on your every word.
It seems like she’s put off by becoming an inspiration to *gasp* ugly people! I think its best to separate the photo shoot from her personally. Her personal opinions echo a lot of tired cliches, but it could be worse.
The photo shoot, however, has a visual impact and could have positive consequences for people who see it, and she can’t control who responds to it and how.
It’s too bad that she’s not as cool as she seemed, but I think that’s probably true of a lot celebrities- the gestures they make are not always reflective of their opinions.
From now on, my default is to simply assume all celebrities would hate me on sight and I will never go up to them for any reason other than to tell them their hairpiece is on fire and here’s the extinguisher. Maybe. If they’ll believe it coming from me.
I’ve always figured she was so focused on having a fit and perfect body because it was implied to her by many that not only was she not as pretty as her mother, but she quite possibly wasn’t as pretty as her father either- which would be a bummer. But being that I have always thought of HER as being a cool mom- I was a little flabbergasted to not read a more “people are important for who they are not how they look” answer from her, to be perfectly frank.
My first roommate was Janet Leigh’s nephew. He had never met her, she ditched her working class Oregon roots as soon as she made it big in Hollywood. My roommate was a beautiful drag queen who resembled the family, especially his cheekbones. He had some very old family pictures of Ms. Leigh as a child and young adult, and she was sooooo beautiful.
No good reason I’m bringing this up as a response to your post – it’s just some trivia. As for Jamie Lee Curtis, Christmas With The Kranks made me lose all respect for her anyway.
I’m not a huge fan of Jamie Leigh Curtis, either, but I got what she was trying to say (although I don’t agree with that statement about if she was a doctor and her patient told her she smokes, she’d throw her out; too judgemental and callous for my blood) about being healthy. Personally speaking, my weight was affecting my health along with my sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, and (at the time) drug use. My joints creaked under the extra pounds I was carrying (a common complaint of overweight folks) and I was pre- diabetic. I’m not saying that weight is the cause of these things for everyone. I’m aware that many fat people are extremely healthy. I’m just saying it wasn’t healthy for me, hence why I could relate to what she was saying.
So the default assumption fat –>unhealthy –> OK to hate on is fine with you, then? I get so weary of seeing fat people hang their heads in shame when they get the hate shoveled on them for their weight. You don’t deserve that, especially not from someone who has seen fit to “diagnose” you and make broad sweeping assumptions about your character defects with a single glance at your rear end. And I don’t deserve it either.
P.S. It’s possible to get early-stage hyperinsulinemia under control without losing a single ounce. I did.
Jamie Lee Curtis’s breakout role outside of horror movies was as the lead in Perfect, in which she played an aerobics instructor. It wasn’t any great movie but it was a very big deal at the time in terms of body image and size and fitness. Her early career was all about her great body– that’s what she was known for, that’s why she got the roles she got. If you don’t have the backhistory the contemporary quotes read a lot weirder than if you do.
Dear Moey,
(Remember that nickname? :) )
I just discovered this site about a week or so ago. I love what you’re doing with it, and I love your writing as much as always–
and as an aside on that note, yesterday morning I was in a meeting at work and I noticed, for the first time, I swear!, the size of a colleague’s bust… and as I wondered whether she would consider her boobs to be “Jiant” it was all I could do to confine the laughter to inside my head.
–but I disagree with your take on Jamie Lee’s attitude as presented in the interview.
I haven’t read the other comments yet, because I wanted to go with my impressions of the article itself first. To wit:
Her use of the term overweight as quoted above is about the only occurence of the term in the interview, and when compared to her multiple references to salt and poor eating habits, the impression I got was that she was critcizing unhealthful living. Unhealthful diet/eating habits, unhealthful drinking and drug use habits, unhealthful thought patterns, unhealthful fixations on body image, etc.
For example, there’s this passage on the body image stuff:
‘ We arrive at the photo shoot five minutes early. “See?” she says, “right on time.” We’re greeted by some people she knows and others she’s just met, and all say some version of the same two things: “Wow! You look fabulous!” And, “You’re so skinny!”
‘ She shoots me a glance, comes up to me and whispers: “Do you hear it? That’s what I get. All the time.” She seems vaguely disgusted by the comment, but also vaguely grateful, a confusing mix of emotions. “I had a friend of my mother’s come up to me this Christmas,” she says. “She’s a dear woman, she has a heart of gold. She came up to me and whispered in my ear: ‘You look like you again.'”
‘ It was not, to her mind, a compliment.
‘ “I didn’t know what to say. Because the problem is that’s what I traded my life on. That’s what I get everywhere I go. Everywhere I go. Am I nothing but a body? Am I nothing but someone who talks about her frickin’ body?” ‘
I don’t think her comments were critical of people who are fat for their being fat; I think her comments were critical of people who are unhealthy and accept that they are without caring that they are.
Whose business is it if someone is unhealthy, accepts it, and doesn’t care? It’s not mine, I’m not paying for their insurance, their health care, or their groceries. And you can’t always tell by looking at someone whether or not they are healthy. I’m fat, my numbers are good, but to look at me, you wouldn’t know it. I know thin people who eat crap, sit on their butts all the time, and get sick all the time. Is that my business? No, I don’t judge them, it’s their life to live, just as my life is mine, and Jamie Lee’s is hers. If she has a problem with her size and health, then it’s up to her to do whatever she thinks she has to do to improve both. But making broad generalizations about all people based on her thoughts about her body and health is not justifiable, IMO.
vesta44, you make a fine point; what difference does it make what Jamie Lee Curtis thinks about anything?
What difference does it make if Jamie Lee Curtis hates the fat people?
What difference does it make if Jamie Lee Curtis says it’s okay to be fat and love yourself?
I don’t think she said the former, and she seems to deny having said the latter, but whether she said either one or not, whatever it is she thinks, what difference does it make?
I only meant to suggest that my read of the interview differed with Mo’s. I read an interview wherein Jamie Lee Curtis seemingly objected to having been misinterpreted which Mo interpreted one way and I interpreted another.
But whatever it is that Jamie Lee Curtis thinks, whyever should I care?
““There is obviously this obsession in this country with people’s bodies and I perpetuated that. I feel badly [sic] that my early career was so focused on what I looked like and my body. I do regret the message I sent.””
I like this part. I tend to cut actresses some slack that are trying to (still, if you’re over 35 or so and not Meryl Streep) trying to have a career here in modern day America. The current administration leads to Ann Coulter run amok leads to Me!Me! Roth leads to women over size 0 being afraid to open their mouths and say anything that’s not the party line, let alone feed themselves.
OF COURSE, if she’d brought her lunch to the interview in a “Remains of the Day” lunchbox, she’d be a WHOLE LOT HAPPIER!!!
Hee hee hee hee …
“So the default assumption fat –>unhealthy –> OK to hate on is fine with you, then? I get so weary of seeing fat people hang their heads in shame when they get the hate shoveled on them for their weight. You don’t deserve that, especially not from someone who has seen fit to “diagnose” you and make broad sweeping assumptions about your character defects with a single glance at your rear end. And I don’t deserve it either.”
Meowser,
That is not what I said at all. I said (and I will say it again) that being fat was unhealthy for ME (not that I look like a ballerina now). I didn’t say that it was all right to hate on fat people, and I don’t recall saying that I hung my head in shame about it . I was just stating the facts about MY health and MY experience. I even said that I was aware of the fact that my story wasn’t the case for everybody, and no I DON’T believe that fat folks are deserving of the sweeping assumptions about weight. I think it’s fantastic that you got your condition under control without losing weight. It just proves my point that fat doesn’t equal unhealthy for everyone. I will say (and I don’t care if it’s politically correct or not) that I’m glad that I changed my lifestyle and lost weight. I’ll even go as far as saying that I’m proud of myself for it. Why? Because I was getting sick and I did (the way I knew how) something about it. I also chose to be vegan (main cause of body change). However, I’m not going to say that it’s the right choice for everyone, but once again, it was the right one for me.
I’m not responding to anyone in particular, just in general I think there is too much of a tendency to swallow the whole party line about weight rather than agreeing with the things we think are valid and rejecting the parts that are based on prejudice or what have you.
There is a lot of debate about whether simply being overweight is that risky for your health. But I think you can believe that it is a health risk and still not be an apologist for people who are rude, prejudiced, or insulting toward fat people. I can be an unhealthy human being (though I personally am not unhealthy that I know of, luckily for me) and still be a human being, who doesn’t deserve to be treated like a child or an idiot or to have basic rights taken away.
Similarly I can buy (although I don’t, necessarily) Jamie’s arguments about how you shouldn’t just “accept” poor health, without condoning her overall disapproving, paternalistic tone or broad stereotypes of fat people. Even if you disagree with me and you think being fat is a ticking health time bomb, a person is not required to be healthy to deserve some basic level of respect and human dignity. You can even agree with the asswipe gym owner in the new post that it’s a good thing for people to slim down and get healthy (again, not saying I do agree, in fact I think it’s ridiculous to get up on a pedestal and decide what other people do or do not have to do to become acceptable to you… I don’t see him tossing cigarettes at smokers so clearly “health” is not the issue here in any case) but totally reject his “tough love” (barf) approach and nasty personality because of the objective fact that he is a shitstain.
I don’t have to “agree” with a person just because they advocate for health and I am also in favor of seeking good health. People are wrong and misguided about a lot of stuff and obviously they cloak a LOT of sterotypes, sexism, and other ugliness in “health” and then get away with never having to reflect any further on these flaws in their thinking. If they are not going to admit that a lot of what they think is rooted in prejudice, then I’m not going to sign on to their assertions. Not saying JLC is necessarily a terrible fat hating person, just that a lot of people are, and her comments reflect a little of that societal ignorance.
Oh, and I think her comments also imply that people can simply change their weight, permanently and at will (based on her “A lot of people misunderstood me — that being overweight was okay because that’s who you are” statement). That is another really questionable assertion that I like to think I would call her on if I were having this conversation with her in person. What the heck does she know about that?
Wow. It sounds to me, a bit, like she’s playing that old song of, “It’s okay to be overweight and feel good about yourself, but if you’re REALLY fat, that’s not okay.”
Which, a) I fail to see how that’s demonstratively different from “Only thin people are okay,” and b) is pretty strange coming from a woman who accompanied her un-retouched, un-made-up photo shoot in More a few years ago with a children’s book about self-esteem.
I say this as someone who really liked what she was saying then, and thought the world of her for having the nerve to have those photos taken and published. But this… I find really disappointing. Because again, it sounds like “healthy” is being used as code for “thin” and that leaves me wondering – exactly which kids did she intend to help develop strong self-esteem with her book? All kids, or just the ones who aren’t “too” fat?
Jamie Lee – another thin person who thinks she understands why fat people are the way they are. It is so easy to feel self righteous when you have the genes that make it easy to avoid.
I’m adopted, and when I met my birth mother and her family, I was shocked to find all the women were about my size. There has to be more to this than what we’ve been taught to think. I’ve given up feeling guilty about the way I was made and JLC can kiss my fat ass. She has no credentials or personal history to give ANY advice to people who are larger.
Check out http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/ to read about hundreds of studies that debunk the myths about being fat – and there are sooo many.
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