Actresses show a lot of skinny

Here’s a news flash — young actresses these days are very, very thin. Reporting live from in front of their television sets, the editors of Entertainment Weekly and Us Weekly are shocked, shocked to discover that several female members of the cast of “90210” appear to have last eaten some time during the fifth grade. Since then, Jessica Stroup (who plays Silver, right in photo) and Shenae Grimes (Annie) have apparently subsisted on iced coffee and breath strips.

There is no denying that Stroup and Grimes look more than a little frightening — you have to wonder if the show’s producers tried to save money by casting by the pound. But it’s a bit disingenuous, not to mention tedious, for the entertainment press, which produces no greater praise than when a star sheds baby weight or other unsightly poundage, to dutifully trot out experts wringing their hands and disgorging boilerplate about the specter of an eating-disorder epidemic.

For one thing, unless you have the misfortune to be an aspiring actress, most eating disorders usually have roots far deeper and more complicated than wanting to look like Jenny on “Gossip Girl.” Despite years of television’s attempt to pare women down to skin and bones, we are in the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic; even the Gap carries size 16 nowadays.

“90210” is unusual only in its choice to buck tradition. Historically, the skeletalization of women on an ensemble show has followed a pandemic model — one horrifyingly thin actress (Calista Flockhart, Courteney Cox, Lara Flynn Boyle) “infects” the rest of the cast until by, say, Season 3, all of the women are shopping for negative sizes. And it seems a little unfair to pick on the newbies when over at “Grey’s Anatomy,” Ellen Pompeo remains so slender she makes Katherine Heigl seem heavy, and America Ferrera has lost so much weight, it looks as if they have to pad her to play her average-sized character on “Ugly Betty.”

Their talent isn’t thin
In fact, more shocking than the sight of today’s waif-like 20-year-olds are the ranks of underfed fortysomethings who star in some of the most critically acclaimed shows on television. Kyra Sedgwick of “The Closer” and Holly Hunter of “Saving Grace” are two of the more talented human beings on the planet — and if you put them together, you might be able to fill out a pair of size 8 Lucky Brand jeans. Hunter especially is so thin that whenever she takes off her shirt, which she does quite a lot, you can feel the sweat of a thousand reps rise off your own skin. The ladies of “Desperate Housewives” are so far gone in terms of resembling humans that it’s almost laughable to mention them, but even Felicity Huffman, self-described former “fat girl,” has lost so much weight that when she wears those plunging necklines you can count her ribs.

Much was made of how terrific the “Sex and the City” gals looked in their big-screen debut, but when Sarah Jessica Parker appeared whippet thin in skimpy pajamas, the value of body fat on a woman older than 40 was instantly and abundantly clear — do we really want to be able to identify whole muscle groups in the middle of a cuddle scene? Probably not.

For years, feminists have insisted that the paring down of women on television is political, that as women gain social and economic power, society attempts to achieve some sort of balance by belittling them. Literally.

Me, I think it comes down to the tyranny of the tank top.

When did it become mandatory for every actress, no matter what her age or natural body type, to look good in a teeny-tiny tank top? Not just good, but good enough to wear them on television. In every episode of whatever show they’re starring in. Cops in tank tops, lawyers in tank tops, fashion editors and stay-at-home moms. You know why the women of “Mad Men” look so fabulous? Because they don’t have to wear a freaking tank top.

What first appeared as adorable sleepwear on shows like “Friends” now has become de rigueur for any situation, on women of any age. Both Hunter’s Grace and Sedgwick’s Brenda live in T-tees and sleeveless dresses. Over on HBO’s “True Blood,” poor Anna Paquin is wearing tanks so wee they look like toddlers’ undershirts. “Weeds” is set in Southern California, so at least Mary-Louise Parker’s Nancy Botwin has an excuse for all those spaghetti straps and baby-doll dresses, but the ladies of “Lipstick Jungle” huddle over their lattes in sleeveless silk and linen, never mind that it’s autumn in New York and sleeting.

Seriously, it may be the most oppressive instrument of fashion since the chastity belt. Yes, Linda Hamilton looked great when she buffed up for “Terminator 2,”  but those biceps were necessary to save the world. Wouldn’t it be better for actors to spend time working on, say, their Southern accents than doing endless sets of pull-ups? Do we really want a generation of women with arms like Madonna?

You would think that producers would lighten up a little and let the tank top go. Or at least acknowledge that a woman can be sassy and attractive and still wear long sleeves (or even short sleeves).

For one thing, it would probably cut down on all the on-set drama. When you haven’t eaten in 17 days, when whatever free time you have is spent lifting free weights, when you face a wardrobe full of clothing designed for a 12-year-old, it’s hard not to be a seem a little “difficult.”

But, more important, a move away from tank-top skinny would improve the general aesthetic of television. The current cavalcade of wafer-thin, over-toned and stringy women can be quite depressing to watch. You worry too much about their general health. Are they smoking too much? Taking those weird Chinese herbs that are really just natural speed? Do they not remember when Jamie-Lynn Sigler almost had to quit “The Sopranos” because she got too thin?

The real problem with the eating-challenged actresses of “90210” is not that they’re going to jump-start a cult of anorexia but that they’re going to ruin their own show. How can you, the viewer, concentrate on the drama of the story if you’re worrying that Grimes and Stroup will literally collapse before your eyes?

-- Mary McNamara

Photo: The CW

Comments

[bjth]

Sometimes don't you wonder if the children post on here when their parents aren't looking? Do you wonder what people who post nasty comments really look like? I digress....Being fat or thin doesn't make you some special privileged person among the Universe, anymore than being young does. We're all going to get older and most of us are going to gain some weight, period. Some, however, doesn't have to be 100 pounds. You also don't have to shoot for weighing 100 pounds if you're 5'8" either. Common sense, time for a comeback. Somewhere between morbid obesity and horrifying anorexia, there's that happy medium. Why not shoot for that? Learn your body fat index and what is healthy for your age, height and frame and focus on that and that alone, not what the celebrity du jour weighs.

[AsiaA]

I'm thin...5'2", 100 Lbs....and I EAT.

It p*sses me off when skinny girls get attacked for being skinny. it's like, "oh, you're thin. you need to eat honey!"

no, you need to stay up out my business!!!

Yeah, the 90210 girls are on TV for other young girls to see and possibly look up to, but when I was younger and watching the orig. 90210, I wanted to have boyfriend who looked 20 in high school (Dylan) and I wanted to dress like Kelly....but my parents weren't going for that.
you know why? because my parents were on top of what i was doing...including eatting full meals and taking vitamins!

i know that this is not always the case, but stop expecting your child to have role models...from TV!

furthermore, i didn't think either 90210 girl was "too skinny"...same with Kyra Sedwick....or SJP.

when you don't have body (meaning no t*ts and a*s) you're basically gonna look like them.

and it kills me that if any one of these women DID gain some weight, the same people will say how they are getting fat and they must be having a crisis.

just because they are on TV, doesn't mean they don't have feelings. like when people got on Kyra Knightley for being "too thin", did it ever occur to you that those words and that judgment would hurt her feelings???

and what if she IS anorexic???

it kinda makes the situation worst.

i think people have become obsessed with monitoring if someone is the right size or not.

i feel like the message being sent right now, if you want to analyze crap, is that skinny people are bad. they have issues with their body, and they are shallow, mean girls.

even the precious Ugly Betty. skinny people on that show have bad attitudes and are talentless dip sticks, but the chubby Betty if kind, sincere, and fights for her beliefs...she such a smart girl...so is the seamstress gal from scotland...nice enough to have a baby for the sake of an estrange hubby.

even Ana Ortiz character is seen as dippy, and messed up her life by having a kid too young, and Chubby Betty gives HER guidance.

SKinny= going to hell
Fat= you have a soul

[Michael]

Does everyone have to fit your view on looks? Speaking from experience...years ago, people said I was unhealthily underweight, I am 5'11" man usually 140 lbs. Ironically, at 40 years old, people think I am under 30. I can run 5 miles, swim 2 miles, with ease, rock climb, etc. ect. I date several Very beautiful girls, healthy girls, who love sport, and eating light....and I dont need to use viagra with them. Maybe they feel great & healthy. Did you know them personally? From the look of this 'incriminating" photo...they look happy. If anyone missed "Sean's" post above, take a look, and ponder. So, all I an surmise is that, if we went to Africa, the fat Africans are ok, but, the real skinny ones, who are often amazing athletes, are not ok? If we look for the longest living people in the world...Japanese, we will be told that they are "shockingly" and "frighteningly" underwieight? Mean while they live longer and built the most successful and peaceful society since WWII. Maybe we should tell them to get fatter, which is starting, since they now adopt more American fast food and urban sedentary lifestyle. Maybe we Americans will go up on the average lifespan chart, as our fattening lifestyle brings down other peoples. Fat has a place in our lives, as needed. But if you dont need it, you don't. We are not all required to be polar bears, since, many of us do not put our bodies into hibernation. Anyway, I am going to call up a girl I met at the taxi stand, she weighs in at a petite and lovely 90 pounds, and the doormen stumble to make a way for her....

[AVY]

I agree to with Ferret. I don't think Holly Hunter and Kyra Sedgwick are the 40 year old equivalent of the young women on the new 90210. I think we should also recall that women's dress sizes have also been adjusted, where my wife used to be a size 4 or so can now barely fit into a zero. I mean we have a weight issue, on both extremes, in this country and it is time we also addressed that. Hunter and Sedgwick were unfairly criticized here, since I feel that they should be seen as positive role models. I mean we need to realize that our normal is overweight and overweight is not healthy. The media shows us one thing, but we also have the people we see everyday and I can assure you they are larger than they used to be. I think both people who suffer from eating disorders (in whatever size they're currently in) and people who neglect their bodies through denial and stating "we all should be overweight since that's normal" ought to be put into the same category. I just think this columnist went too far.

[arb]

I was once 5'3 and 85 pounds. Watching girls like this doesn't help.

[lady_wraith]

Yes, yes let's keep pbsessing about the way all women and television look, that'll help the cause!! You know what I find disgusting? not the skinny teens on tv, but a grown up woman writing about it not noticing that the more she judges bigger the damage; why is it that all of us have to be curvy and healthy to be considered "normal"?? tv works how it works, actresses can choose whether they want to fit its standars or not, no one's forcing them, there ARE averare size actresses, not every woman has to look the same, the way other girl looks doesn't say anything about the way you look or should look, stop looking at other people and look at yourself and deal with what you see in the mirror and point your fingers at it, it's not a responsability artists have to fulfill that of telling us what is acceptable or right, if so we dont have to obbey, free will anyone? Let's ot fool ourselves this is so not about the health of those girls that none of know or care about in real life it's all about our own insecurities we're afraid to del with, lets not be hypocrites not to this gross degree, shall we?

[mel]

Shenae Grimes is fine. Jessica Stroup is too thin.

[Sunny]

Madonna's veiny, strippled arms are horrific. I think that alarmed look on Guy Ritchie's face is from having those cold bony ligaments clutching him every night. With that said actresses are rewarded for being thin and are criticized if they gain weight. It's not different in the real world, so the change will have to start with us.

[Kevin Amanse]

i luv 90210... actually my brother luvs it!

[mamaV]

The regularity of stories such as this is comical. Hollywood is simply following the fashion industry which has striveled their models down to walking skeletons, and we can't wait to all be a part of the grisly show.

I have served as a voice of reason for women through my blog mamaVISION dot com, spending the past 2 years talking to girls all over the world who are killing themselves trying to fit this ideal. As a Paris model at 16 years of age, I went down the same path, and nothing has changed (except for the fact that the demands to be thin are worse than ever- they are deadly).

We glamorize this skeletal look, then we all sit here pretending to be shocked.

Stop watching the show.
Stop buying the magazines.
Stop feeding the massive marketing machine that keeps us going round and round.

Start living already,
mamaV

[WhatAhJoke]

There is a very big difference between being of a healthy weight and being too far in either direction. I honestly believe that those girls are too skinny. This is America not Ethiopia. Eat some food already.

[Ker]

i have a few things i wanna say ....

one.... i feel that if girls are starving themselves to be skinny then yeah that is grose. and is a problem

two.... there are some people that can eat and eat and eat... and never gain a pound. its not their fault they are skinny... it is in their genetics.

but noone ever thinks of that they just automatically asume that they are starving themselves when they arent and thats what pisses me off. i am one of those people. i have been trying to gain weight since high school... i eat more than some chubby people i know... and i never gain anything. i have a very high metabolism and thats just how my family is till they get older. i even had my son and hoped i would keep my baby weight but it didnt matter how much i ate it pretty much fell off of me in a month. and after 2 or 3 months i was my pre pregnancy weight again. i was back in my jeans only 12 days after delivery. its not my fualt. its just how i am. i would give anything to gain like 15 pounds... but i cant. i try so hard and nothing happens.

to those kind of people i say dont be so hard on them. dont automatically asume that every think girl is starving themself to look like a celebraty cause thats not true in all cases.

[Michelle Taylor]

I've been saying for years that unless women fight back against this oppressive skinniness fad which is killing a thousand or more women and girls yearly, and psychologically harming tens of millions, the dieting and clothing and exercise equipment industries will continue indefinitely to harm self-esteem, and to exploit women and girls both economically and psychologically, but, even more, physically.

[Michelle Taylor]

I've been saying for years that unless women fight back against this oppressive skinniness fad which is killing a thousand or more women and girls yearly, and psychologically harming tens of millions, the dieting and clothing and exercise equipment industries will continue indefinitely to harm self-esteem, and to exploit women and girls both economically and psychologically, but, even more, physically.

[divastatus]

I am almost 5'8 and I weigh only 111 pounds. I am 21 years old. However, I refuse to believe that I am "too skinny" because this is the weight that God made me. I am naturally svelte and I believe that it is wrong to pick individuals out and attack them for being an undesirable weight (whether it be "too skinny" or "too fat"), because "undesirable" and "desirable" traits are in the eyes of the beholder. I know that many men believe that I am "too skinny" and that I need to gain weight (lol trust me I've tried and it's totally NOT happening), but there are just as many men who think that I AND MY BODY are beautiful and that I shouldn't change. If you want to talk about having a healthy lifestylye, do so, I encourage and support that. But I think it's more of an issue with self-confidence! If you are confident in your size then it is of little importance to you what the women in Hollywood weigh. You simply appreciate your differences and live your life! Ex- Rihanna is one of my favorite singers, and she is not skinny. I think that she is gorgeous and her body is amazing! I accept the fact that I will probably never have her body, but I don't let that bother me and I don't attack her for it!

Behave, walk, talk, and speak, as if you are beautiful! Confidence is attractive; low self-esteem is not!

[Stop Complaining]

People really need to stop complaining.

Look at it this way, both too skinny and too fat are not healthy. But if you measure it out, being too fat causes much more health problems than being too skinny (which most actresses aren't). What is the most healthy? Being average. But there is no way for being average to be what people look for in media because the point of actresses (like sports players, musicians, etc) is to be special.

So would you rather have media be full of 300-400 lbs women or 100-120 lbs women?

And besides, these girls are beautiful and there clothes are awesome! I'm glad media is full of skinny people (I can probably go in if I am better at acting :D)

[Amber]

I found this text, after I watched weeds and was sad, because Mary Louise Parker is over 40 and has body I have had in academy days and she gave birth and I didn't, I now have 132 pounds and 5´7 (I gain weight in gym instead of loosing it and I can´t slim down even if I try hard, my friends trying to be nice to me say it is muscle now and I am only 30 and i am noticing my metabolism is little slower then in my 18, in 12 years I got about 12 pounds)

And when I read this text I fleet a better for today, not so fat :-)
I always try to remember that in my job look is not important at all but creativity...but still fell painful because when I was young before it was easy just skip dinner and in morning I would be tinnier now seems nothing is working...