It's a shame that Hollywood results in women ruining their looks whilst the men carry on regardless (Wicked)

BMI is about health, not appearance. It is as healthy to be towards the top end as the bottom unless you are eg SE Asian. AG is clearly not at a healthy BMI at all.

I thought AG's performance was fabulous as Galinda- funny but also nuanced and her voice was stunning in a very challenging role vocally.

@LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway Totally batshit! Sounds familiar in that my "ideal" bmi weight is 8.5 stone to 11.5, I'm 5ft 7. But at 9.5 I was so boney I couldn't sit down for long, periods stopped, my head looked like a skull etc. I kept thinking I must be okay as I'm still a stone away from being underweight. I was still a size 10 though.
I just have a wide skeleton!

Yep, and 1990 was 10 years ago, and 2009 was the year before last! 😆

The problem with this role is Galinda is revered (falsely) as good mainly because she is pretty. It is meant to highlight the problem with ascribing looks to virtue. Which means the whole film is holding up AG and saying look how marvellous she looks, so pretty, so glamorous.

Which is really problematic regarding her weight,

I really believe it would be better to have cast an actual 18 year old or early 20s rather than someone in their 30s trying to look younger. It just exacerbates the problem. Stage musicals don’t matter as much - there is more suspension of disbelief and less up close focus. But film the actor needs to be the right age.

Batshit isn't it?! I remember my 5 ft 9 husband having a telling off from the GP for being 'too fat.' He was 14 stone. (Had been 12 stone maybe 2 years before.) He was 10 stone 5 when I met him, and he was quite scrawny/skinny. He was more appealing when he filled out a bit and got to 11 stone/11 and a half stone. (He still looks OK at 12 and a half stone though!)

The GP showed him a 'weight chart' and it said his ideal weight is between 9 stone 3, and 11 stone 11!

Just over 9 stone FFS! He would look like he was ill and had 6 months to live if he was that weight. As I said, he looks his best at around 11 to 11 and a half stone.

Similarly these weight charts tell me MY ideal weight (5 ft 3 female,) is between 7 and a half stone and 9 stone 5. I look ill at 8 and a half stone (never mind 7 and a half!) I look my best at around 9 and a half to 10 stone! But still look pretty OK at 11 stone!

Ffs nearly 100 years??? Are you trying to give me a heart attack 😂😂

the 1970s was only 25 years ago! 😉

But Kathy Bates has Type 2 diabetes. She was clearly obese. Her father died from health issues related to his weight. She took Ozempic for the exact reasons you’re supposed to take it. And she’s 76, has been big throughout her mainstream career, and is still a long way from tiny.

I don’t disagree that there’s a dangerous obsession with looking young and skinny in elements of the entertainment industry. But it’s disingenuous to suggest “Even Kathy Bates is at it”.

except that Kathy Bates has just lost a tonne of weight recently on Ozempic, so even older character actors feel the pull to be tiny:

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/kathy-bates-ozempic-weight-loss-b2626767.html

Definitely.. BMI calculator says my anorexic weight is ideal.. infact I could have lost another stone and still been "ideal"
No regards for shape and skeleton width etc

On the other hand...when the production calls for someone who actually needs to look older, a bit less in-perfect-shape or both...there's a fairly short list of A-list actresses who could even remotely pull that off - all the efforts they put in during their 40s and 50s to try to look like they're still in their 20s (which nobody's ever going to realistically believe) work directly against them.

Look at Kathy Bates, for example. She's never really bothered with all of that nonsense, and she's actually done more work as she's getting older, not less. And, frankly, she looks brilliant - precisely because she looks natural.

This. I am 5ft 1.5 and my ideal weight is somewhere between 9 and 9.5 stone. I may be short but I am not slight in any other way. Medium/large frame, wide shoulders and hips, large hands and feet, big boobs.

Personally I think it’s unfair to expect this or that actor/actress to be a good “representative” of anything just because they’re in the public eye: what a young black actor should be, what a great 20yo actress should be, what a 68yo stage actress should be etc. A tiny handful seek out the representative role, or accept it when it’s thrust upon them. The vast majority just want to be themselves - just like the rest of us.

That said, it takes a certain personality to at the very least not shun the public eye let alone enjoy it or even seek it out. Many an actor/actress has made choices that mean they don’t have to be in the public eye; many an actor/actress/performer will tell you that fame is the least appreciated aspect of their professional life.

So for those who play the game, I don’t really buy the “pressure” argument. If these people weren’t in the public eye, I imagine they’d be less extreme versions of what they are.

What does piss me off is that we, the paying public, have such limited choice in what’s rammed down our throats. Nicole Kidman has never, in my eyes, been a good actress but for probably financial reasons (she’s bankable) she still gets major roles. So this very mediocre actress, who can’t move her face (unhelpful for screen acting) to emote or express, and who has the most tragic American accent is forever hogging roles which could go to far better qualified women who don’t stretch our credulity. And to make the pill easier to swallow, we’re meant to suspend our disbelief to the extent of being asked to consider her looks actually aspirational. It makes no sense. Completely backwards.

This is why British television drama is so successful and is sold all around the world. The women don’t look like Desperate Housewife-style actresses. They look like normal women, and they can act. The audience believes them. There’s nothing better than that.

We all can relate to and feel for Ariana Grande as she used to be. Now, she’s estranged from us, we don’t relate to her, accuse her of being a poor example to our daughters (poor thing having to shoulder that responsibility), deride her - all when it’s obvious to anyone with a grip on reality that she’s not well, physically and/or mentally.

It’s just so fucked up. And for what? Why are all these women putting themselves through this?

Exactly!

Within a few minutes, a load of posters rushed onto the thread to tell everyone about how a BMI of 22 is fine, but they prefer to keep theirs between 16 and 19

There is an odd obsession with BMI on Mumsnet! It was only ever meant to be a quick calculation that gives a very general idea of where you fall regarding weight ranges. The devil is in the details: muscle mass, fat distribution, age..."Healthy" can't be determined by a simple number.

Yeah there was a thread on here yesterday asking 'is a BMI of 22 OK/healthy?' Whilst 22 IS OK, and not too low or 'thin,' it is fairly low, and you would be rather slim.

Within a few minutes, a load of posters rushed onto the thread to tell everyone about how a BMI of 22 is fine, but they prefer to keep theirs between 16 and 19. 🙄

Then some others came onto the thread and started saying their ideal weight is 8 stone, and they would be like a hippo at 9 stone. (They were between 5 ft 4 and 5 ft 6.) The OP said 'oh my ideal weight is less than 9 stone, and 9 and a half stone is OK. If I get anywhere NEAR 10 stone though, I will be doing something about it!

And yeah you're right. I have seen many people commenting about how it's very easy to still be chubby at 8 stone when you're 5 ft 4!

@Fizbosshoes yep

@Fizbosshoes I know,
it's crazy isn't it? I hope you're doing ok now;
eating disorders are really really tough. 💐

I had an ED in my teens and early 20s and I try not to read some threads because they are like pro Ana, although obviously I'm attracted like a bee to honey sometimes. Any thread where someone questions whether a model looks healthy is met with 100 posters claiming they are 5'11 and naturally a size 4, they love exercise and salad but never diet or count calories and the old favourite "we've lost sight of what a normal weight is"
I saw one thread about intermittent fasting and someone said they fasted for 3 days at a time....and this is meant to be a healthy way of eating??

this nails it.
Even Mumsnet normalises eating disorders.
I've seen numerous threads with competitive
comments about weight and sizing.
"oooh I'm 5ft 4 and weigh 8 stones but am chubby" responses to with "well yes, it's possible to be 8 stones and chubby at 5ft 4"
Posters saying that a size 12 is chubby and overweight etc etc etc

Oh, another thing, when I was 50 (nearly 10 years ago,) I moved back (with my family) to the little town I grew up in, into a private let between homes, just for a year. We all registered at the local GP Practice. After a few weeks, I saw a male GP I hadn't seen since for nearly 20 years - I saw him last when I was 30-31.

When I walked in, his eyes widened, and he said 'wow, you've aged, and put some weight on since I saw you last!' I though 'WTF?!' I think I must have looked visibly stunned, as he looked down and said 'I suppose it happens to many people!' I left feeling quite angry. I thought 'how fucking DARE you?!' I never went to him again. I mean he was still thin! But he had aged almost 20 years too, shockingly!

Yep, see also, Pamela Anderson. Someone posted on Twitter the other week, 'can you believe THIS used to be the most beautiful woman in the world?!'

It was a man who posted this - obviously! Horrible misogynist c*nt. As you say, women can't win. 'Ewww, full of botox and fillers, look like a different person, barely look human anymore,' OR 'wow she looks so OLD now.' and 'hasn't she aged? Yikes!'

Pamela was stunning in the 1990s, (in her early-mid 20s,) and she is stunning now (in her mid-late 50s.)

What makes me sick is that women can't win.. they are criticised for looking "done" and plastic, and yet I saw a facebook post on Ulrika Johnson (who hasn't had anything done) going on about how old she looks for her age, there were honestly so many comments criticising her.
Can't win if we go smooth, can't win if we are wrinkled. Why does it fucking matter so much! It's stuff like this that makes me hate society.

I personally think it's quite obvious that AG has anorexia.

2 reasons

1. a measuring tape or weighing scales or some BMI calculator are not necessary; it's perfectly visible that she has virtually no subcutaneous body fat, you can see it in the lines around her mouth. I expect if it wasn't airbrushed she would have visible lanugo.

2. Why anorexia and not some other cause? She posts relentless images emphasising her tiny size, her entire IG is basically a pro-ana account, and the stuff she says like she's eating the "healthiest ever". Her childlike style.

Though I sympathise with her* - as if my assumptions are correct then she's mentally unwell - I honestly think that she and other celebrities who are obviously dangerously underweight should be blacklisted. Wicked should have cast somebody else. She has a beautiful voice but EDs are both socially contagious and deadly - her appearance in Wicked is a health hazard to girls and young women, and that actually matters more.

Incidentally I don't think she's had that much facial work - she looks very different facially because she's extremely thin. The places where you expect subcutaneous fat have changed the most, cheeks, chin - lips are disguised by filler that's it.

Natalie Dyer is another completely obvious, in your face, dangerously underweight anorexic and has been from the moment she hit the small screen. This look doesn't come from being "naturally thin". We can see approximately what both of these young women naturally looked like compared to their peers, before they developed eating disorders circa about 14 years of age. They looked normal.

*Honestly I used to buy into the whole we shouldn't judge by or even comment on appearance (because I do feel desperately sad for these actors) but until audiences loudly reject these actors who are dangerously thin and obviously anorexic, it seems that industry will take no responsibility and they will continue to be cast. So they have to be called out, and it has to be loudly said that their appearance is spoiling the work that they are in and making it unwatchable. Because ED is killing young girls right now, or if they survive very often blighting their futures. And they matter just as much as AG's career.