The words of a true Diva:
“I’ve been through my highs, I’ve been through my lows; I’ve been through the gamut of all things in this business. Being too thin. Being bigger...It’s noise I block out automatically.
I love my body. My boyfriend loooooves my body. My son is healthy and happy, so that’s all that matters to me.”
Christina Aguilera
It has been reported by someone actually saw Victoria Beckham eating – Stop the madness! well they saw her eating Arugula…
I never could understand why the rich and bony dine at the greatest (and most expensive) restaurants and don’t eat anything, it seems like such a waste of money.
Via Usweekly:
For a March meal at Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills (known for its risotto), fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, 37, ordered . . . lettuce! “All I saw her eat was arugula,” an onlooker tells the new issue of Us Weekly (out now). “Not even any salad dressing!”
It has been a while since Ashley Judd has been in the spotlight. I can remember when the world fell in love with her, and her face, when she debuted in Ruby in Paradise. She as always had that cherubic rosy cheeked girlish beauty akin to her mother’s Naomi Judd of the country duo The Judds. She has always had that youngest child “look ad me, see me” energy, and I get it she was not blessed with a voice (at least not enough of one to make the duo a trio when she was old enough too) and she grew up on the road where no doubt her famous mother and sister and their careers took precedence over her needs. So I get that energy that she gives off that demands that you acknowledge her almost like she had to prove that she was good enough, smart enough, talented enough – she has always displayed an enviable vocabulary and intellect that set her apart from her famous mother and sister.
Early on in her career it was these characteristics, her beauty, intellect an vocabulary, and her southern grit that put her on the map and set her apart from the pack of her day. You liked her but she could be kind of annoying with her know it all, let me explain it to you sort of manner. That having been stated, no matter how you felt about her or why, you always respected her. So She has come back on the seen with a new drama called Missing (ABC), a sort of throwback to the characters that made her famous (Kiss the Girls, Double Jeopardy) but now she is a mother, a CIA agent who is looking for her son. The drama started when Ms. Judd started her press tour and she looked well a bit…puffy about the face.
I have to admit I did notice it, it was hard not to, she looked different. I thought it was age or weight, (the weight that sometimes comes with age) I did think that maybe she had work done (a possibility) but if you look at her she looks “puffy” like bloated not over injected she was puffy all over not just in the smile line area, so I ruled that out. I chalked it up to weight and let it go. But the media outlets didn’t and that caused Ms. Judd to pen a response to the comments on the Dailybeast.com. She breaks it down, and makes some valid and truthful points! Check it out
by Ashley Judd
The Conversation about women’s bodies exists largely outside of us, while it is also directed at (and marketed to) us, and used to define and control us. The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted.
As an actor and woman who, at times, avails herself of the media, I am painfully aware of the conversation about women’s bodies, and it frequently migrates to my own body. I know this, even though my personal practice is to ignore what is written about me. I do not, for example, read interviews I do with news outlets. I hold that it is none of my business what people think of me. I arrived at this belief after first, when I began working as an actor 18 years ago, reading everything. I evolved into selecting only the “good” pieces to read. Over time, I matured into the understanding that good and bad are equally fanciful interpretations. I do not want to give my power, my self-esteem, or my autonomy, to any person, place, or thing outside myself. I thus abstain from all media about myself. The only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and my relationship with my Creator. Of course, it’s wonderful to be held in esteem and fond regard by family, friends, and community, but a central part of my spiritual practice is letting go of otheration. And casting one’s lot with the public is dangerous and self-destructive, and I value myself too much to do that.
However, the recent speculation and accusations in March feel different, and my colleagues and friends encouraged me to know what was being said. Consequently, I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle. The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about.
A brief analysis demonstrates that the following “conclusions” were all made on the exact same day, March 20, about the exact same woman (me), looking the exact same way, based on the exact same television appearance. The following examples are real, and come from a variety of (so-called!) legitimate news outlets (such as HuffPo, MSNBC, etc.), tabloid press, and social media:
One: When I am sick for more than a month and on medication (multiple rounds of steroids), the accusation is that because my face looks puffy, I have “clearly had work done,” with otherwise credible reporters with great bravo “identifying” precisely the procedures I allegedly have had done.
Two: When my skin is nearly flawless, and at age 43, I do not yet have visible wrinkles that can be seen on television, I have had “work done,” with media outlets bolstered by consulting with plastic surgeons I have never met who “conclude” what procedures I have “clearly” had. (Notice that this is a “back-handed compliment,” too—I look so good! It simply cannot possibly be real!)
Three: When my 2012 face looks different than it did when I filmed Double Jeopardy in 1998, I am accused of having “messed up” my face (polite language here, the F word is being used more often), with a passionate lament that “Ashley has lost her familiar beauty audiences loved her for.”
Four: When I have gained weight, going from my usual size two/four to a six/eight after a lazy six months of not exercising, and that weight gain shows in my face and arms, I am a “cow” and a “pig” and I “better watch out” because my husband “is looking for his second wife.” (Did you catch how this one engenders competition and fear between women? How it also suggests that my husband values me based only on my physical appearance? Classic sexism. We won’t even address how extraordinary it is that a size eight would be heckled as “fat.”)
That the conversation about my face was initially promulgated largely by women is a sad and disturbing fact.
Continue after the JUMP
This is the excellent question posed by none other than Franca Sozzani the Editor in Chief of Vogue Italia at when she spoke at Harvard last Monday on the topic of eating disorders along with Arianna Huffington (of the Huffington Post) and Victoria Secret Model Doutzen Kroes. Sozzani continued :
“Why the age of supermodels, who were beautiful and womanly, slowly started decreasing and we now have still undeveloped adolescents with no sign of curves? Why is this considered beautiful?”
These are very good and relevant questions. One that should be seriously examined. Another one (that is one of the tenets of this blog) Why is it that most women hold a concept of beauty that often times excludes themselves?
I have to say that I am a huge fan of Ms. Sozzani, and I love the fact that she is the is the head of a fraction of a major fashion magazine. I feel like with he r passion and dedication to the cause, we might actually start to see some change!
Check out the rest of the article here
Ok it’s almost that time of year, where (for us East Coasters) it’s too early to put on a bathing suit it’s time to shop for one. We all know how the change of season makes us want to clean house, and purge our closets well we often want to start to undo some of the damage we did to ourselves during winter. I always want to emerge looking as if I had spent my winter in a warm place where I had done nothing but work out instead of the reality which has me on the couch with a bag of pretzels watching reality television.
So I am taking the matter in hand, I have been juicing in the morning for about three months now so I was sort of prepping myself for the full monty of going raw(ish). I’m hoping to slough off the sluggishness of Winter and jump start a healthy Summer season. If you are a Raw Foodie send me some tips to making eating raw yummy and exciting!
Here is my “True Blood Juice”
3 Stalks of Celery
Hand full of Kale
Hand full of Spinach
1 Small Beet
3-4 Small Carrots
1 Cucumber
Makes about 2 cups of Juice
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Some of you may only know Jamie Lee Curtis from the Activia commercials where she is hawking the yogurt that keeps you regular. Some may know her from Freaky Friday where she swapped bodies with a then healthier Lindsay Lohan. If you are my age, then Jamie Lee was the Teen Scream Queen who starred in thrillers like Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night, and Terror Train. Later in her years she was one of the first actresses to come clean about plastic surgery and she posed without the benefit of professional makeup, stylists, or Photoshop in More magazine in a sports bra and underwear.
So if you are familiar with Ms. Curtis, her take on this topic will not surprising, but she is so clear and eloquent in her sentiment and expression that it make you take pause and really reflect on why exactly we fight aging a natural process of life with such fear and fervor. Take a look!
Ant Anti- Jamie Lee Curtis
Anti: against or preventing
Anti. There are many things I am against. Anti-discrimination. Anti-drug. Anti-oppression. Anti-poverty and sickness. And there are many I am Pro. I am pro-antiperspirant and I am pro-antibiotics and then there are many things I am just pro… pro-biotics (especially yogurt), pro-choice, pro-tein.
Why then are we obsessed in this culture by Anti-Aging? This very website, this morning, has something promoting it.
I am all for being against things. My favorite Steinbeck quote from East of Eden is:
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on the preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.
I am appalled that the term we use to talk about aging is “anti.” Aging is as natural as a baby’s softness and scent. Aging is human evolution in its pure form. Death, taxes and aging.
Genetics are the key to aging. I now resemble both my grandmothers, where when I was younger I didn’t see them at all, and if I am now looking at myself with the eye of one who can look back at photos and movies and commercials and miss the good old days, that would be a wasted life. We are ALL going to age and soften and mellow and transition. All of us, if we are lucky enough to make it through this hard life into older adulthood.
This life, my only one, is not to be squandered by listening fakirs who are touting the newest and most scientific ways to stop or slow the aging process. I am not talking about being mindful and changing habits that are not healthy. Smoking, overeating, too much sun, not enough sleep or water, but the actual process of aging is inherent in our humanness and despite the billions of dollars that are spent from every end of the ideological and financial spectrum, ethnicity, environment, climate… it all ends up the same.
We are in the chain of our ancestors, like it or not. These are truths to be celebrated and in other countries they are. The term older and wiser is actually in play everywhere but here.
In America, we celebrate youth and all youth’s indiscretions and follies. We cling to the shiny new thing, we stare at altered photographs and wonder why we don’t measure up. If you stripped away all the airbrushing and injectables and stylists and talented make-up and hair teams and the thousands and thousands of dollars spent on any one image, and you look at them in the mirror — the deep dark truthful mirror — you might just see yourself.
The drumbeat is getting louder as their hearing is getting weaker. Campaigns like Dove and Eileen Fisher are speaking to this.
Join the beat. Try to discourage your loved ones from falling prey to this system of dissatisfaction. Men, honor your women and girls. Tell them that they are beautiful and show them that you mean it. Pattern your behavior so that young men can learn about what are and are not appropriate ways to talk about women. There are plenty of things to be anti about as a family. Let’s try to stop aging as being one of them.
Now this is want 42 looks like and it looks damned good! There is nothing wrong with it, nothing needs to be erased or “corrected”. She looks like a real person not a wax figure or a painting and if you bumped into her on the street, she might even look like the cover, she might look like her real life self. Well I guess the magazine is called Intelligent Life for a reason, they are smart enough to know Blanchett with a smile line or too is flawless in her natural state! Kudos!
he magazine’s editor, Tim de Lisle, explained the reasoning behind the un-retouched image in his editor’s letter:
“When other magazines photograph actresses, they routinely end up running heavily Photoshopped images, with every last wrinkle expunged. Their skin is rendered so improbably smooth that, with the biggest stars, you wonder why the photographer didn’t just do a shoot with their waxwork.”
Oscar-winning Blanchett talks of her job as joint artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company and return to Europe to star in an Australian production of a German play. She posed for the cover quite simply, in her working clothes.
“She looks like what she is” continues de Lisle, “a woman of 42, spending her days in an office, her evenings on stage and the rest of her time looking after three young children.
‘We can’t be too self-righteous about it, because, like anyone else who puts her on a cover, we are benefiting from her beauty and distinction. But the shot is at least trying to reflect real life. It’s a curious sign of the times that this has become something to shout about.”
I wish we could see more of this or less of the overly photoshopped pictures that are pasted on the covers and in the editorial pages of magazines. There is nothing wrong with a crease, or wrinkle, or even a bulge, it could serve to remind readers that even stars, or models are not impervious to the physical evidence of life lived, because they too are human and that is normal. Perhaps if this became a norm we could all start to let go of this unrealistic expectation of perfection that we are on running towards on a habitrail getting nowhere fast!
Pinar
I’m a female dancer. I dance flamenco. Yes, I can do ballet, I can do modern dance, folk dances but I “dance” flamenco. I love it. It’s me. I’ve been dancing since 5 and I’ve been dancing flamenco since 20. Now I’m 32 and still dance flamenco.
I’m 1.75 and 68 kilos. I have big bones and muscles. It comes from family but since my childhood I was very active. I always loved to force my body. About age 12, 13 I used to get on my bike and ride as fast as i could for like 2-3 hours everyday.
I was born with a belly. My mom says, “You had a belly like a muffin when you were born”. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of it. It’s always there with me:)) I dance 6 hours a day and that muffin is still there. People who don’t know me or see me dancing asks, “You are a big girl and you have a little belly, you carry too much weight, how can you dance?”, or when they hear I’m a dancer, they give that look from tip to toe. I see the question mark on their faces. “Well, she doesn’t look like a dancer”. People think dancers should be like ballerinas, thin, skinny. I’m too big for a dancer.
I got suspicious about myself. I was unhappy, I thought, “no matter what I do, I’ll never look like a dancer, I’ll never make them believe.” Because this is the structure of my body. How far can I change it? How far can i play with it? Is it important? I dance damn good. I’m athletic. I have fast footwork, I love my arms and my back and I love my impression.Yes, I’m heavy but I’m powerful. I’m used to dance with that weight. I educated and treated my body the way that it can go on and on with carrying weight. I worked more but you don’t know it. You criticize with what you have in mind.
It’s better to stop what people think. Our bodies are not commercial products. We dance for life, we don’t dance to sell our bodies. It’s not sun tanned skins. It’s not Super Man. It’s not a Greek monument. Dancing is beyond body. And my body is mine. It’s mine to decide what i do with it.
Have a nice day:)
I like food. I don’t really diet or anything. I’m miserable when I’m dieting and I like the way I look. I’m really sick of all these actresses looking like birds.
If you don’t know who Jennifer Lawrence is then you know her face- she has been everywhere of late and after March 23 you will have a hard time getting away from her body and her image as she portrays the Katniss Everdeen, protagonist in the cinematic rendering of The Hunger Games trilogy. With the opening of the first installment so near the cast have been on a whirlwind press tour so more and more interviews and snippets are coming to light. I found these snippets where Jennifer is talking about not having body issues and finishing all of her friends food! It’s nice to hear an actress say that she is not “Hollywood” Weight obsessed and look like she’s not s well. (I put that in quotations because I see the weight issue in Hollywood as being more intense then the off camera world in so far as working in Hollywood hinges on the way that you look)
Jennifer is 5’6/5’7 and (reportedly) a size 6 (which in Hollywood earns you the stamp of curvy) and looks womanly, she has hips, breast and even meat on her arms. She looks like a real woman.
On Her Athletic Build: “I’d rather look a little chubby on camera and look like a person in real life, than to look great onscreen and look like a scarecrow in real life.” Flare Magazine
I am loving learning more about this young woman who is talented evidenced by her Winter’s Bone Oscar nomination and seems to have a level head on her shoulders. I hope as she becomes the new trilogy gal a la Emma Watson and Kristen Stewart she will contribute more healthy ideas not just about the body but about how to present yourself as a young woman in today’s society!! You Rock!
In this third segment of our conversation we talk about whether or not ANYTHING is “hard” for her, how Alexei Ratmansky is pulling things out of her as a dancer and artist that she never knew she was capable of in their rehearsals for his Firebird. She talks about how she was pegged as a “contemporary” dancer in the ABT company because she is an easy mover, but yet she was not considered to be “classical”. She speaks about how she started to believe that she was in fact NOT a classical dancer because she was so good at contemporary roles and what people were saying to her. She says she lost sight of the fact that she was TRAINED Classically and only classically. Hear what Prince helped her to realize, and helped her see herself another way. It is truly a cautionary tale that speaks to the power of words!!!
