Body image issues can be particularly acute for people in entertainment, which also provides most of the icons and role models of appearance.

Toni Collette says, “I don’t understand why you have to look like a model to be a successful actor, what a character looks like is an extension of what they feel,” she says. “This is going to sound offensive, but for female actors there is a uniform of being you are meant to aspire to. There’s this new batch of younger women who all look the same: the same rail thin body, the same blond hair – it’s like they all go to the same hairdresser. It’s kind of scary, and not the kind of image you should be putting out. What audiences and I respond to is what you can’t see, what can’t be fully explained. What’s between the lines, unseen.” [Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2006]

Not that a lot of us don’t appreciate thin blond women, particularly those with talent, depth and passion, but thankfully there are women in film and television of other body types. Though not nearly enough.

continued in article: Body Image and Creative Expression – by Douglas Eby
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Toni Collette, acting and image, female stereotypes in Hollywood

Tags: critical thoughts, self concept, young actors.
01.30.06 |
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