cushioned curves
AJ points to a Details magazine story titled “Why Fat is Back in Hollywood” purporting that the new trend in Hollywood is “actresses who appear to have a healthy relationship with carbohydrates.” Among the examples they cite are Scarlett Johanssen and “Lost siren Evangeline Lilly.” OK, I’ll concede Johanssen is curvier than a typical Hollywood actress, but Evangeline Lilly? Speaking with all my while male heterosexual privilege, I’ll say that she is very, very hot, but she is also very thin! The story also includes a slide show that doesn’t reveal a current trend as much as it reveals shifting beauty ideals in the US. The photos include shots of actresses like Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, and Jayne Mansfield, who I’m sure were beauty ideals in their day, but not thin as today’s actresses. The many contemporary women included in the parade of hotties have bodies on the thin side of normal, if that. The one outlier might be Mae West whose humor often hinged on her lack of conventional beauty. Rather than celebrating realistic representations of women’s bodies, the article expands the body types considered “fat.”
