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.

Where have you gone, Molly Ringwald?

I hope that those of you who celebrate Christmas had a wonderful holiday. As for me, I took a few days off, which is why I didn't post anything new last Thursday. It's the first time I've taken more than one day off in a few years, so it was incredibly relaxing, so relaxing that it feels odd to get back to work.

But the new year is approaching fast, which means I've got to start working on appreciating what I have accomplished this year and getting back to my regular schedule.

The good news is that part of relaxing means watching more movies, and tonight I was lucky enough to find my way to a television broadcast of Sixteen Candles, the John Hughes high school classic.

Sixteen Candles was released in 1984, the year I started high school, so I have always felt a kinship with Samantha Baker, the main character who is masterfully played by Molly Ringwald with a heavy dose of teenage angst and longing.

I suppose another reason I connected with Samantha is because she seems so normal—she's cute but not perfect looking, attractive but not head-turner hot. She's just a regular girl—like the rest of us—and that's what makes her both likeable and relatable.

But as we were watching Samantha moon over senior hearthrob Jake Ryan tonight, Dave turned to me and said, "Would Molly Ringwald get this part today?"

He didn't have to explain because I knew exactly what he meant. Molly Ringwald was/is a regular girl, a girl who has perfect skin and big teeth, adorable freckles and a wide forehead, a button nose and a flat chest. And it is these contradictions that make her so beautiful.

But anymore we don't see young women like Ringwald in film or television. We don't see young women who look beautiful but still real and, more importantly, flawed. No, instead we get only young women who have perfectly straight capped teeth, flat-ironed artificially extended hair, plump collagen lips, flawless and perfectly powdered skin, and a facsimile of Ringwald's button nose.

And that's why I had no choice but to say no when Dave asked me that question.

No, as much as I hate to admit it, the young Ringwald would never be cast to star in a movie about teenagers today. (I'm not even sure that her male equivalent would be cast in his role either.) And what that means for our society is that teenage girls today are taught that there is only one way to look and one way to be: perfect.

I can't help but wonder what that will do to their self-esteem in the long run. I know that it can't be good, and I'm saddened to realize that though the Hughes' movies gave my generation an opportunity to watch characters with which they had things in common, this opportunity doesn't exist for kids today. Instead, when young people go to a movie or turn on the TV today, they almost always only see people they will likely never be.

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

192 pounds
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.