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Wednesday, February 09, 2011

pam.


In the March edition of the mag Redbook -- Jenna Fisher (or "Pam from The Office" for people like my girlfriend that never know any celebrity's real name) talks about actresses obsessing over their weight.

In her words --

In a normal job, if you gain or lose a few pounds, it's no big deal," Fischer, 36, explains. "But in my business you have to tell someone so that the next time you go to a fitting, the clothes are the right size.

It's really embarrassing to have to say to your manager, 'I'm now a 6 pant instead of a 4,'" she says. "Emails go out, and they CC the agents: 'Jenna would like everyone to know that she's now a 6 pant.


Personally, I loved the humorous tone of the whole situation from her perspective -- I instantly tried to imagine a memo to my own CEO.

**
To: Jen's boss lady
From: Jen's waistline
Re: Chinese Food

Will be unable to do that whole community organizing thing today due to bloating from oversalted kung pao chicken. Will be in touch once I am able to transition from elastic to something with a zipper.

**

I know that people responded to the article with a lot of "That's what you deserve for being famous, etc. blah blah," but 1) I don't really care much for those people and 2) I don't really think it's fair to assume that women that want to act are necessarily thrilled about being judged for things like the dimensions of their thighs or whether them or the most current reality star 'wore it better'.

I know - celebrities are an easy target. After all, there's a false sense of bravery behind something as anonymous as going all hater on the CNN blog on a Monday afternoon. It's easy to take cheap shots ... to most of us, these women are just shiny faces on magazine covers. While it may be difficult to imagine ourselves harshly criticizing our best friend's decision to start incorporating faux fur in every outfit, it's sometimes easy for us to do it with the next it girl.

We are all guilty of this. But in our best gentle-teacher-voice -- it's still girl on girl hating ... which is just a waste of our time and our energy, friends. No, we don't need to start handwriting love letters to the Housewives of Bravo. But maybe, if we started talking about good things about ourselves and each other (yes, even the famous celebrity ladies) -- these things like obsessing over weight and our pant size could become less important.

Ok - that may sound a little simple ... but sometimes the world seems so complicated - I love the idea of simple things. Like naps. Or chocolate chip cookies. Or love pizza.

5 comments:

Amber said...

girl on girl hating needs to stop. i mean who has that kind of energy or time. lets just be nice to each other and eat cake :)

sydney said...

it's so strange how girl on girl hating is so ingrained as our minds as normal. i hate it. but i love jenna fischer, she is beautiful and so funny on the office! :)

Celia said...

agreed. nice post, jen.

Mrs Amber Apple said...

lovely post! I think I could browse through your blog for hours!

Shauna said...

I'm with Amber...cake sounds much better to me than hate. :) In fact, I saw an episode of "House" last night in which chocolate cake was actually the "cure" for his patient's "disease!" Really though - National Eating Disorders Awareness Week is coming up (2/20 through 2/26), and I'm trying to plan some events at RISD for it. Your post inspired me to remember Love Your Body Day (October 21) and hold events that focus on being kind to ourselves and others. While eating disorders exist and need to be talked about, I think we'll make more progress if we focus on loving ourselves and each other. So - thank you, Jen! :)

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