The 2011 Oscars: Playboy Barbie edition a.k.a. two steps forward, two steps back

Last year, I spent the days after the Oscars and Golden Globes talking about how much curvier the red carpet was, how women of all sizes should dress, and how Hollywood allows women of color to be curvier than white woman.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t talk about any one of these issues this year even if I wanted to because there were almost no curvy women or women of color on the red carpet this year.

So what happened? Where were all the women of color? And what about the curvy women? Where were they? Because the only curve I noticed on the red carpet Sunday night was the moon-shaped baby bump under Natalie Portman’s plum-colored dress.

Okay, so Penelope Cruz was showing off a little extra stomach, arm, and thigh (not to mention boob) post-baby, but other than that, the red carpet was curve-free. (In case you’re wondering, breasts alone don’t make a woman curvy.)

Last year there were nine curvy girls on the red carpet— JLo, Mo'nique, Meryl Streep, Gabby Sidibe, Molly Ringwald, Queen Latifah, Mariah Carey, Sigourney Weaver, and Kate Winslet (FYI... I wouldn’t call Winslet curvy, but since one reporter called her “big” that night, she deserves to stand with us)—and eight women of color: Mo'Nique, Gabby Sidibe, Queen Latifah, Mariah Carey, Zoe Saldana, JLo, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz. This year, real-sized woman dropped to two—Cruz and nominee Jacki Weaver—while women of color were down to just three: Cruz again, JHud, and Halle Berry.

And that wasn’t the only place women were missing. When Spielbeg introduced the award for best picture, the girls at BitchFlicks rightly pointed out that he mentioned eight films that had been previously nominated for—The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, The Graduate, Raging Bull—and won—On the Waterfront, Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather, The Deer Hunter—the best picture Oscar, but not one of them was about a woman or a person of color.

This was in stark contrast to last year’s Academy Awards, which, as I said then, was an evening focused on strong women—Sandra Bullock, Mo'nique, Meryl Streep, Gabby Sidibe, and of course Best Picture/director winner Kathryn Bigelow to name a few—and that those women thankfully had bodies of all sizes

And if women were more of an afterthought this year and women of color and curvy women glaringly absent on the red carpet, I can’t help but wonder if this means we are regressing.

Reese Witherspoon showed up in a look that was frighteningly reminiscent of a Playboy bunny (see picture above), and I visibly shuttered when I saw her on my TV screen. Are we going backwards instead of forwards? Will we be breaking out the corsets and bonnets next year?

The irony is that one of the only women of color on the red carpet was Jennifer Hudson, who, over the last year, has famously replaced her ample curves with ones that are more Hollywood appropriate.

Maybe the lack of curves on the red carpet was the reason why JHud’s new bod seemed to be all anybody could talk about when they saw her. Even the normally infallible Tim Gun felt the need to point out Hudson’s “amazing new figure.”

Even worse, when Ryan Seacrest interviewed Hudson, he said, “You must love getting dressed up now that you have that new body.”

It’s bad enough Seacrest felt comfortable giving Hudson such a back-handed compliment, but his comment is also offensive to the rest of us non-Red Carpet walkers because his message is that if we aren’t skinny, then we shouldn’t enjoy dressing up.

Guess what, Ryan? Real women—whether they be curvier than celebrities or more flat chested than them—like to dress up too!

The bottom line is that the more we talk about Hudson's "new" bod, the more we reinforce the idea there was something wrong with the old one. And, my God, the woman is gorgeous at any size.

After the Golden Globes this year, I wrote about how Seacrest’s superficial and sexist banter on the red carpet hurts us more than Ricky Gervais’ raunchy ribbing of celebrities, and this year’s color-and-curve-free red carpet makes me think it’s time for another course correction.

Over the past few years, we have seen a resurgence of curvy women and women of color, but last Sunday proved that, unfortunately, we’re falling back into old habits. This means that we have to re-double our efforts by continuing to demand more magazines and models with real women and by continuing to vote with our dollars and spend money on female artists of all stripes.

Recently, when asked if the new emphasis on curves would continue, a world-famous designer said that, in fashion, trends come and go pretty quickly, and he imagined that the curvier women we’ve seen on the runway over the past year would not return next season. But if trends come and go that fast, then we wouldn’t have seen the same Kate Moss heroin chic bodies for the past fifteen years. From my point of view, this sounds like an excuse—and one we cannot accept.

Why I love the guys at Project Rungay

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I make it a point on this blog NOT to criticize women who I feel are too thin.

As I've mentioned before, I think that would be counter-productive since it won't make curvy women feel any better about their bodies if we make thin women feel bad about theirs. And, let's face it, going off on any woman's body just seems wrong.

But I came across something the other day that I do want to share, something that in some ways falls into the category of discussing—or even dissing—the body of a thin celebrity.

I read this "something" on one of my favorite websites—Project Rungay, a blog run by two amazing and insightful gay men named Tom and Lorenzo, a.k.a. TLo.

Though these comments may seem a little mean at first, there is something really important that's being said underneath the surface cattiness.

In response to Demi Moore's claim (in the cover story pictured above) that she finds it frustrating that most of the roles in Hollywood are for women who are between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, TLo said this:

"You know, we don't deny that there is sexism in the entertainment industry and rarely does the industry have any place for women over 40. But we look at these pictures and think 'You know, you might be up for more roles if you didn't look like, oh, say... a CRAZY STARVING PERSON?' It's the same thing with Nicole Kidman. There's a certain class of Hollywood women who have dieted and surgically altered themselves to the point where they really don't look like people. Not healthy people, anyway. There's a reason that the leading actresses in the over-45 category are women like Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren. Because they smartly realized a long time ago that the ingenue parts were gone forever and there was no use going after something they were never going to get again."

Obviously, it's the second half of their comments that really interests me. I've long been a fan of both Streep and Mirren and am always wowed by their amazing bodies, especially Streep's which is incredibly real.

But it never occurred to me until I read TLo's response to Moore that maybe one of the reasons that these two get so much work in Hollywood is precisely because they do look so real. (The same could be said of Emma Thompson or even America Ferrera.) I said in my post-Oscar post that I don't think women over thirty-five look attractive when they're still super skinner, and Streep's and Mirren's success may just prove that I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Maybe the truth is that we DON'T want to see women on the big screen who look like they're starving. Maybe we really DO want women who look more like us—sure, perfect, beautiful versions of us, but still us.

But if that's the case, then why the hell don't more people in Hollywood and in the media get it??? Why do we still have so many celebrities who look plain old hungry?

I don't know the answer to this question, but I do know this. . . I'm not giving up this fight until the women in the movies look a lot more like me.

The Oscars, Part II: Where are all the curvy white women???

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If you didn't watch the Oscars on Sunday, then you might not know that, in her acceptance speech, Oscar winner Mo'Nique mentioned Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar for her supporting role as "Mammy" in 1939's Gone with the Wind. Mo'Nique said, "I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she to, so that I would not have to."

The next day, commentators were discussing Mo'Nique's acceptance speech and one of them also included a video of McDaniel's original speech, which I watched immediately.

As I watched McDaniel accept her Oscar, it hit me rather suddenly that her body, like Monique's and Gabby Sidibe's, wasn't typical of Hollywood actresses.

And that made me think more deeply about an issue that I often don't talk about: the fact that in our society women of color are allowed to be curvy, and "white" women are not.

I'm not saying this is a hard-and-fast rule. There are certainly women of color—Halle Berry, for instance—who are super thin, and I'm sure there are "white" women who are not—Kathy Bates comes to mind. But, for the most part, in the mainstream media, women of color are given more latitude in terms of what their bodies can look like than their white counterparts. A quick glimpse at my Gallery of Gorgeous Women proves that.

Still don't believe me?

Let's do a quick rundown of who was on the Red Carpet . . .

Mo'Nique, Gabby Sidibe, Queen Latifah, Mariah Carey, and Zoe Saldana were the African American women who walked the Red Carpet before the ceremony. Four out of five of those women could not fit into the sample sizes used at Fashion Week.

JLo, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz were the only Latinas there Sunday night. JLo is obviously curvier than most of her "white" peers, and Cruz is on the fence—she's got some real curves, but she's also pretty fit. Diaz, on the other hand, has always been super thin and is the only one of these three who clearly fits into the waif-like model, but one could argue that most people are ignorant of Diaz' Cuban roots, meaning she has to fit into the "white" model of beauty despite her ethnicity.

And what about the "white" actresses?

That list includes Sandra Bullock, Kathryn Bigelow, Charlize Theron, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rachel McAdams, Carey Mulligan, Anna Kendrick, Amanda Seyfried, Helen Mirren, Demi Moore, Sigourney Weaver, Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Kruger, Kate Winslet, Nicole Richie, Miley Cyrus, Tina Fey, and Meryl Streep.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?*

Out of these twenty women, only two have slightly real bodies . . .

Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver.

Let me repeat that . . . only two of the twenty "white" actresses on the Red Carpet last week have a normal body, and both of them are not only older than the others, they are also already established forces in Hollywood, a feat I might add they both accomplished when they were still very, very thin.

And really, let's be honest . . . Streep and Weaver have phenomenal bodies. Neither one of them are the slightest bit overweight. Who knows what I would do to look like them? Certainly, I wouldn't kill for a great bod, but I might lie, cheat, and steal to get one. And in that sense, they really can't even be put into the same category as people like Mo'Nique, Sidibe, Queen Latifah, or even the always voluptuous Lopez and Carey.

So why the double standard, Hollywood? Why are you willing to accept women of color in all shapes and sizes but only accept "white" girls who look like they stopped eating after puberty? I mean, really, Hollywood, what gives?

I don't know the answer to these questions and I fear that racism has something to do with some of it, but I do know this: until we allow women of ALL races and ethnicities to be different shapes and sizes, we will never have a healthy idea of what women's bodies should look like.

*I'm also seeing that "white" actresses significantly outnumber non-"white" actresses, which is another problem, but not one that has to do with the themes of this blog.

The Oscars, Part I: A plea to all Hollywood starlets

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As I'm sure you all know, the Oscars were Sunday.

It was a great day for women because Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman in history to take home the Academy Award for Best Director. And her film—The Hurt Locker—also won the Best Picture award.

I also felt like the narrative of the evening focused on strong women—Sandra Bullock, Mo'nique, Meryl Streep, Gabby Sidibe, and Bigelow to name a few—and that those women thankfully had bodies of all sizes.

But before the actual ceremony began, I found myself cringing during the Red Carpet show.

At first I wasn't sure why the Red Carpet didn't have as much appeal for me as it normally does, but after the first sixty minutes or so, I put it together: many, many of the women who walked it looked too thin to me. To the point that they almost looked as if they were sickly.

I've made it a point on this blog NOT to criticize skinny women or name names about women who I think look like they are at an unhealthy weight, and I think I'll stick with that decision because it doesn't really help anyone to attack the way certain women look—whether they be too small or too big. I've always said that the point of this blog is too help people accept themselves they way they are, and calling someone anorexic-looking doesn't really serve that purpose, does it? After all, it's just as easy to be naturally thin as it is to be naturally curvy.

But I do want to make a plea to the actresses and celebrities of our time, and that plea is this:

Please be true to your bodies! Please accept your body at the weight it should be rather than giving into the weight everyone else tells you it needs to be! We need you to do this for us! We really, really do!

My husband always says he believes that after we stop growing, people settle in at a certain weight, and that that weight is often where we are supposed to be.

And, for the most part, I agree with him.

It's the same principle as aging gracefully—meaning, accepting the fact that at the age of forty, you shouldn't have the same body you had when you were twenty. We don't expect our faces to look the same as we age (at least most of us don't), so why do people expect their bodies to look the same?

And when I see people—and by people, I mean, celebrities since I don't know ANY regular people who have this problem—who are my age but weigh the same or less than they did when they weren't even old enough to drink, it scares me. There is no doubt that there are some really young celebrities out there who are pushing the thin thing too far, but there are also plenty of middle-aged superstars who are simply way too skinny.

To be honest, I find that extreme gauntness actually ages women dramatically, making them appear much less attractive than they would with just five or ten more pounds on their body. Let's face it, at some point—maybe around the age of thirty-five—women no longer look healthy being the same weight they were when they were eighteen.

Don't get me wrong, I get it.

I get why they do it.

I get that the pressure—pressure from the media, pressure from casting agents, directors and producers—to be whippet thin in Hollywood is completely insane and insanely unfair.

I've even witnessed evidence of that insanity this week. Since the Oscars I've heard one fashion commentator say something like Kate Winslet (see picture above) "has always been bigger" and another point out that Molly Ringwald (pictured below) is "not a size 0."

I mean, why is it necessary for us to talk about Ringwald not being a size zero? Is that really supposed to be some kind of freaking ideal?

And in what universe could either of these women be called "bigger"?! That is complete crap! If anything, they look pretty darn thin to me. Maybe what these critics meant to say is that they don't look anorexic or unhealthy, and it scares me to think that not looking anorexic translates to "bigger" on the Red Carpet.

So, yes, I get it, but I'm begging all of you Hollywood types out there: Do not give in to this bullshit! Let your body be the size it wants to be!

If nothing else works, look at Meryl Streep, the most successful actor in history, and recognize that you don't have to be super skinny to be huge.

What's good for the goose . . .

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If you've seen It's Complicated, you know that Alec Baldwin appears in the film without his shirt on, sporting an extremely large stomach.

The reason his character has disrobed is so that he can seduce his ex-wife, played by Meryl Streep in the film. Unfortunately for Baldwin's character, Streep's is horrified when she returns to her bedroom only to find her ex stripped down to his birthday suit.

But what's really interesting about this scene is what happens when the characters talk about it the next day. Baldwin's character comes back to apologize, and when Streep's character asks him what he was thinking, he says, "I just thought you would find me irresistible," and he really means it.

Never mind the fact that Baldwin's stomach is a bit hippo-like. He really believes that she'll find him irresistible.

And what's crazy is that when he admits this, those of us in the audience kind of find him irresistible in that moment too. I mean, how can you not love someone who, despite his flaws, is that confident?

Of course, what we should all learn from this is that it's not the hot bod that we're attracted to, it's the attitude. Alec Baldwin is still a huge star not because he's as hot as he was in The Hunt for Red October (as pictured here) but because he believes in himself, and that's what makes him so appealing.

I'm sure you might be thinking that Baldwin, at his current size, wouldn't be able to get leading roles if he were a women, and you're right. In fact, it's incredibly frustrating to see Meryl Streep looking absolutely fabulous in this film even though Baldwin doesn't have to.

Unfortunately, that's how it goes in the movies these days, and this film makes it clear that Hollywood still has a double standard for men and women: men can look like real people, and women have to look like goddesses. (See The King of Queens, Still Standing, According to Jim, and almost any movie with Jack Nicholson for more evidence of this.)

But that doesn't mean that we can't learn something from Baldwin's character in this film. And what we can learn is that beauty is more about the way we see ourselves than the way others see us.

What this means is that the next time you decide to strip down and seduce your mate, you have to be sure to tell yourself the same thing that Baldwin's character believes himself . . . you're irresistible.