Kate Winslet: walking the walk AND talking the talk

I've been a fan of Kate Winslet since she was a curvy nineteen-year-old in Sense and Sensibility sixteen years ago (pictured to the left). She was beautiful in that film but she also looked like someone we could all aspire to be, which is the kind of actress we need to see more of in Hollywood.

Around that time, Winslet's co-star (and Sense and Sensibility's Oscar-winning screenwriter) Emma Thompson told Winslet that if she ever became one of those anorexic-looking actresses found all over Hollywood, Thompson would stop speaking to her.

What Thompson said must have had an impact because Winslet has never become that kind of actress, the kind who looks malnourished.

Yes, she's more thin now—presumably she's lost her baby fat since S&S—than she was then, but she's also not too thin, and I have to give her credit for not caving to industry standards that require most actresses to look underweight.

Because of this, I shouldn't have been surprised when Winslet recently opened up in a completely honest and healthy way about her past weight issues in the April issue of Glamour magazine.

After the Glamour reporter asked Winslet about being called "blubber" as a young girl of eleven when she was 5'6" and 200 pounds, Winslet said, "Looking back on it, I really wasn't that heavy. I was just stockier than the other sporty, whippy-looking kids."

What that means is that Winslet is admitting that 200 pounds isn't really heavy for a five-foot-six woman, but rather, as she says, stocky. This is obviously something I've believed for years, so when I read about Winslet saying the same thing, I wanted to put my copy of Glamour up to my mouth and give it a big old kiss.

But it gets even better.

Because Winslet also admits a slight irritation with the backhanded compliments she used to get at that weight. "People would say to me," she explains, "''You've got such a beautiful face,' in the way of, like, "Oh, isn't it a shame that from the neck down you're questionable.'"

I know exactly what she is talking about. As I discussed in my "I don't care what anyone says—I think you're hot" post, people feel completely comfortable making these kinds of comments that on the surface sound like praise but in truth are laced with implicit criticism.

So when Winslet admitted this had also happened to her, I felt like I'd found my soulmate.

Finally, when asked about whether or not she considers plastic surgery, Winslet said, "I don't have parts of my body that I hate or would like to trade for somebody's else's or wish I could surgically adjust into some fantasy version of what they are."

All I have to say is, Kate Winslet, will you be my new BFF?

Why I love the guys at Project Rungay

196 pounds

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.