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

[ByCoolWriter]

I've been looking at videos of the lovely Cynthia from the Wicked movie a few years ago. She looked wonderful and healthy. Now her face is all sharp angles. The same for Ariana who looks dangerously thin. I've heard many say that it's the gruelling film schedules etc but I don't see the male members looking like a lettuce leaf would fill them up.
Isn't it sad that actresses still feel this need to look a certain way whilst men don't

Ariana has had more than 'just some subtle work' done. Compared to how she looked in Victorious and Cat and Sam (aged 17 to 20-ish,) she looks like a different person. And I agree she is bone thin now. I hadn't looked properly at how she looks in 'Wicked' and thought 'oh well she has always been petite.' But right now she is so thin that she looks gaunt and fragile. And her hair is very thin too. She looks ill!

Pics 1 & 2 are Ariana from around 11-13 years ago at around 18-20 years old, and pics 3 & 4 are her now at 31. The difference is staggering. It's very sad that she felt she had to change how she looks, and look a certain way - because she was very pretty before. Now she looks really ill.

I know people change/evolve over the years (especially from teens to mid to late 20s,) but this is not a positive 'before and after!' And almost everyone I know looked/looks like the same person at 30 that they looked like at 17-18, just maybe a bit less puppy fat and a different dress sense and a slightly different hairdo.

My old primary school teacher who I hadn't seen since I was 11 (when she left the area,) saw me when I was 36, (25 years later) with my children, and recognised me instantly. Ariana is unrecognisable from her former self. I would NEVER have thought pics 1 & 2, were the same young woman as pics 3 & 4. (Just over a decade later!)

.

Conversely, Victoria Justice who was in Victorious with Ariana... First 2 pics were her in 2010 (aged 17,) and second 2 are her now, aged 31. Looks virtually the same, and doesn't look like she has had anything done! I wonder why? Less worldwide exposure maybe? Stepped back from fame a bit? She is gorgeous!

Jesus Christ she looks like a different race

The face lifts, nose jobs, fat removal and injectables are awful too. This week there were pictures in the press of Christina Aguilera - she's totally unrecognisable! And look at Sharon Osborne - she looks like a cadaver after taking Ozempic and all the face lifts and other procedures she's had over the years. The number of actresses and singers who look nothing like their original selves is horrendous. Their faces have been so altered by procedure after procedure that they barely look human any more.

There are a few men though that look bloody awful too - Mickey Rourke, Zac Efron, Sylvester Stallone, Tom Selleck, Michael Jackson, Barry Manilow ... there are loads who look dreadful.

Yes agree about Efron and Stallone, Jackson looked like a wax works. Just because we found and created such drugs and procedures doesn’t mean they are good things.

Madonna frankly scares me.

Hopefully one day the world will look back in horror at these plastic celebs.

Zak Efron has ruined his face. He blames breaking his jaw back in 2013 whenever it was, but his face was completely normal up until a couple of years ago! He looks like a different person now. Ridiculous!

Zac Efron was in a serious car crash so had to undergo facial surgery.

Also quite a good example of the toxic body standard for men in Hollywood - no way he wasn’t abusing steroids for the Iron Claw.

Oh thin is VERY much back in

Seen Victoria beckham lately? Always been very very slim but now looks frail and extremely unwell.

Her eyes and jaw are a completely different shape.

Since when ?? Whenever he's spoken about his jaw he said it's because he broke it and the muscles in his face kept growing

@Salacia He is huge in that film, I agree

I’ve noticed that older male actors seem to have dyed hair more than they used to. Or
maybe they always have and I’ve only just noticed 😊

I agree with you- I always thought Madonna could have led the way in being a woman in the public eye who allowed herself to age.

I haven’t seen Wicked yet but I have seen the Swarkovski ads with AG in and she looks like a child- this is not healthy.

I work in a mental health trust and our children’s wards have many patients with EDs, now I don’t work with patients but in my role I hear about how devastating it is for the staff working with these children and how poorly they are. I wish people would understand that this Hollywood look is not something to attain for - it’s deadly.

I’ve been as thin as AG currently is twice in my life. My healthy weight is just over 8stone. I’m 5ft tall so people call me “tiny” even though I’m currently overweight for my height at 9stone and a size 12. First time I looked emaciated was when I worked in a school that was a 30 min walk uphill from my home. That was enough exercise to drop my weight to 7stone, despite my diet not changing at all, but probably because I was already small. AG was also already small, so an increase in physical activity could easily have caused her to drop a stone.
The second time I looked this thin was after having a baby and breastfeeding. I went from size 10 pre preg to size 6. I did have hyperemesis through my pregnancy so that may also have been a factor. I didn’t put on much weight until 2 years later and then piled on the pounds during lockdown.
Just saying, it’s not necessarily an ED when a small person looks very thin. Clearly it can also be, but none of us know, in this case.

It is really scary being a parent to teenagers these days. There has always been the thin models and celebrities, but not to this degree. How do young girls learn to accept themselves when this is what their role models are doing to themselves.

I saw a photo of Kate Beckinsale recently. I still don't believe it is her as there is no resemblance to how she used to look.

There is also a very vacant look in their eyes so much now. What is that all about?

@gannett there is another thread running on the movie Wicked itself and the talents of the stars, which most have concluded are pretty amazing, vocally, but this one is about the worrying appearance of one of them and wider reflections on the quantity and health risk of that type of cosmetic work and weight-loss in the industry. My concern is genuine- I have a daughter recovering from an eating disorder, and AG is giving me those 'signs' which are not just about body weight as it happens, it also shows in the face and is not just about being an angular or a low weight body person naturally, it's also about muscle distribution on arms etc. I can see it because I recognise it and of course I'm concerned that this is being played to millions of young women on large screens without comment, because I also know how toxic the TikTok and Insta cultures are, again, not the eating disorder ones, but the ones about 'snacks' and 'clean eating' and trying on clothes- there is a huge move towards fragile and stick thin bodies which might be natural for a tiny proportion of people but not for most- plus the ramifications of being very low weight BMI carry on after weight is restored, the heart is a muscle and when muscle is lost through extreme dietary restriction the heart muscle itself is damaged.

But at 9stone and 5ft you are still in the healthy category.

@CharlieMagenta I hear you, I was 'tiny' as a youngster and also affected by exercise like walking, just naturally very small. The health risks of low BMI still exist whether you are doing it deliberately or not which is why rapid weight loss or very low BMI needs to be reversed or treated by a doctor. If you are seven stone and 5ft you are still (just) in the healthy category anyway and that's not where I believe AG would be at all.

..,,,plus the ramifications of being very low weight BMI carry on after weight is restored, the heart is a muscle and when muscle is lost through extreme dietary restriction the heart muscle itself is damaged.

This is what killed Karen Carpenter. She was 32, a year older than AG is mow.

There will be some truth in that their weight will have naturally dropped due to the film being so physical and demanding- a good example is when Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman did Black Swan, they said in an interview that they initially felt pressure to ‘get down’ to the size and shape of a prima ballerina but found that the dance and general training for the role was so intense they found they dropped a lot of weight quickly without really adjusting their diets much at all. In fact they both said they enjoyed eating more as there was such a calorie deficit with all the exercise.

However, I think AG is using both a punishing physical regime coupled WITH restricted eating. I too can see the signs and to me there looks to be early signs of muscle loss as she’s lost every ounce of fat she had.

Just over 9stone and just into the overweight BMI. I carry all my weight on my waist (size 14) despite size 10 hips. I look 6 months pregnant.

The actresses you've listed are all British. And Britain tends to not be quite so perfection oriented as America.

Well, no, the roles open to men and women are not exactly the same.

But I think you are falling pry to some very serious confirmation bias here, and only thinking of films that fit into the idea you already have.

People like Tom Cruise or Liam Neeson are not getting the same kinds of roles young men in their 20s are getting, and even though they don't do superhero movies they are not guys with jiggly bodies - they are exercising and watching their diets.

Guys like Russel Crow, who is now very jiggly, are not playing roles where they are being presented as hot romantic leads, and he's sure as heck not taking his shirt off. He's able to get great roles because he's a great character actor even if he's no longer a heartthrob.

Young actors and the few older ones who are still doing superhero stuff are busting their asses staying fit in a way that's not all that healthy, and which in an older man takes a huge amount of time, and watching their diets. Hugh Jackman is not treating his body all that well and is likely to be feeling the effects of that.

And actresses who are older do actually have some very good roles now. Particularly on television which at the moment has a lot more for actors in general than film, and not just the ones who have managed to look like they are 30 - because mostly they haven't. They look like attractive women who are older. Some do transition into more character roles particularly if they've put on weight.

I think there are significantly more roles now for older women, and often more interesting ones than younger women get.

This is AG in 2020, so not when she was a teen or adolescent, not all that long ago and she looks significantly different.

I do think a lot of celebrities have ED