They are the butt of countless jibes and satirical pop culture references, but there's no doubt that a lot of celebrities, especially the females one, find their dieting practices fueled by the same driven personality traits that enable them to rise to the top of their craft.
This understandable, if unfortunate, fact of life, though, is all too often absurdly demonized by certain people who want to lay blame at the feet of the mass media and its unholy influence on people's lives. In addition to the platitudes about showbiz glitz, the other supposed villain of the piece is the alleged puerile consumerism of the unwashed public who consume those media images. These patronizing assessments though cloud over more than they reveal; everything in the lives of successful film actors, singers, or other media celebrities is subjected to the drive and ambition which allows them to achieve their professional success.
Can it really be surprising then to discover that turning those personality traits to a determination to control their weight would unleash the same kind of obsessive focus? Christina Ricci, in her irreverent way, illustrated this hard driven personality feature of celebrity eating disorders when she remarked to the Guardian newspaper, in 2004, on how her own eating disorder experience began with an odd introspection while watching trash television. "At the time that I was starting to diet and stuff, I saw this TV movie, and I thought, 'Ooh - anorexia. I could probably do that.'"
Other celebrities, for instance, Geri Halliwell of Ginger Spice fame, point out that the real cause of celebrity eating disorders can be found in the challenges of coping with life's usual ups and downs. It's debatable whether or not celebrity contributes to heightened daily stress. When you consider the occupations of many others that seems kind of improbable. But, even if you do believe it, whatever the pressures involved, they don't dictate the specifically chosen coping strategy.
The backlash against the innocent, ironic tweet of the ever entertaining Lady Gaga, from 2012, though is typical of the victimizing machine of the mass media and the self-appointed morals police. Young girls everywhere, it would seem, are in constant danger of the corrupting influence of social expectations. Even Lady Gaga, already on record as encouraging girls to develop a healthier sense of body image, couldn't acknowledge resisting a craving for a cheese burger without the self-appointed busy bodies raising hell. (Whether a cheese burger would actually constitute a healthy meal choice is of course another matter.)
If a celebrity already on record as alerting her young fans to the dangers of eating disorders cannot joke about her own freely chosen dietary deprivations what exactly is going on here? It seems that there is a large, invested concern to deny such celebrities freedom to take responsibility for their own choices. Somehow they have to be treated as victims, presumably so that any admirer of such celebrities can also be easily convinced she too is a victim. But who benefits from this?
The lesson from all this is certainly not to be misconstrued as implying that eating disorders are unique to celebrities. What is true, though, is that in the case of such celebrities, it is valid to regard those disorders as a product of the determination and strength that they already had to draw upon to achieve their professional success. This is not a denial of environmental pressures and stresses, in the end though, celebrity or otherwise, the bulimic or anorectic are making their choices.
If this seems unfair, blaming the victim, maybe this is seeing it in the wrong light. If the cause of celebrity eating disorders really was the Hollywood glamour machine, the only solution would be to leave Hollywood. The great number of success stories, of celebrities who overcame their eating disorders, without needing to retire from their careers, shows that just as the cause of the eating disorders lies in the celebrity, so too does the solution. This should be encouraging to everyone who suffers eating disorders: however difficult your own circumstances may be, the very strength and determination that holds you to the strict regime that leads to your eating disorder, is also there in you, that same strength and determination, to draw upon, to change your life.
Is that not encouraging, exciting, even exhilarating? Stop letting others cast you as the victim of your life. It's your life; you're the star and the writer. How you live your life is up to you. Reject simplistic excuses about mass media pressures and social expectations. You have the power to take responsibility for your life. Be the celebrity star of your own story.
This understandable, if unfortunate, fact of life, though, is all too often absurdly demonized by certain people who want to lay blame at the feet of the mass media and its unholy influence on people's lives. In addition to the platitudes about showbiz glitz, the other supposed villain of the piece is the alleged puerile consumerism of the unwashed public who consume those media images. These patronizing assessments though cloud over more than they reveal; everything in the lives of successful film actors, singers, or other media celebrities is subjected to the drive and ambition which allows them to achieve their professional success.
Can it really be surprising then to discover that turning those personality traits to a determination to control their weight would unleash the same kind of obsessive focus? Christina Ricci, in her irreverent way, illustrated this hard driven personality feature of celebrity eating disorders when she remarked to the Guardian newspaper, in 2004, on how her own eating disorder experience began with an odd introspection while watching trash television. "At the time that I was starting to diet and stuff, I saw this TV movie, and I thought, 'Ooh - anorexia. I could probably do that.'"
Other celebrities, for instance, Geri Halliwell of Ginger Spice fame, point out that the real cause of celebrity eating disorders can be found in the challenges of coping with life's usual ups and downs. It's debatable whether or not celebrity contributes to heightened daily stress. When you consider the occupations of many others that seems kind of improbable. But, even if you do believe it, whatever the pressures involved, they don't dictate the specifically chosen coping strategy.
The backlash against the innocent, ironic tweet of the ever entertaining Lady Gaga, from 2012, though is typical of the victimizing machine of the mass media and the self-appointed morals police. Young girls everywhere, it would seem, are in constant danger of the corrupting influence of social expectations. Even Lady Gaga, already on record as encouraging girls to develop a healthier sense of body image, couldn't acknowledge resisting a craving for a cheese burger without the self-appointed busy bodies raising hell. (Whether a cheese burger would actually constitute a healthy meal choice is of course another matter.)
If a celebrity already on record as alerting her young fans to the dangers of eating disorders cannot joke about her own freely chosen dietary deprivations what exactly is going on here? It seems that there is a large, invested concern to deny such celebrities freedom to take responsibility for their own choices. Somehow they have to be treated as victims, presumably so that any admirer of such celebrities can also be easily convinced she too is a victim. But who benefits from this?
The lesson from all this is certainly not to be misconstrued as implying that eating disorders are unique to celebrities. What is true, though, is that in the case of such celebrities, it is valid to regard those disorders as a product of the determination and strength that they already had to draw upon to achieve their professional success. This is not a denial of environmental pressures and stresses, in the end though, celebrity or otherwise, the bulimic or anorectic are making their choices.
If this seems unfair, blaming the victim, maybe this is seeing it in the wrong light. If the cause of celebrity eating disorders really was the Hollywood glamour machine, the only solution would be to leave Hollywood. The great number of success stories, of celebrities who overcame their eating disorders, without needing to retire from their careers, shows that just as the cause of the eating disorders lies in the celebrity, so too does the solution. This should be encouraging to everyone who suffers eating disorders: however difficult your own circumstances may be, the very strength and determination that holds you to the strict regime that leads to your eating disorder, is also there in you, that same strength and determination, to draw upon, to change your life.
Is that not encouraging, exciting, even exhilarating? Stop letting others cast you as the victim of your life. It's your life; you're the star and the writer. How you live your life is up to you. Reject simplistic excuses about mass media pressures and social expectations. You have the power to take responsibility for your life. Be the celebrity star of your own story.
About the Author:
For insight into a hot pop culture phenomenon, see Mickey Jhonny's recent hit post on The Walking Dead Fanfiction at Pretty Much Dead Already .
No comments:
Post a Comment