When it comes to celebrities, the paparazzi are properly equipped behind every unflattering outfit angled for optimal fat exposure to snap away a celebrity’s fame to shame. Gossip columnists and their readers are then traumatized, as if the official album of pop culture has been vandalized with love-handles, booties that move, and breasts that can actually feed children. To hear some people tell it, a skinny celebrity gone fat, sporting a clearly deviant look and lifestyle, is a slap in the face to the normative beauty-scape and the industries perpetuating it.
The infamous ‘fat’ picture of Jessica Simpson
Reality television shows frame weight-loss transformations with the underlying assumption that health is the driving factor for change, while the accompanying ‘new look’ is a marginal benefit. However when celebrities — who are already subjected to hanger-frame-based body standards — gain weight to find a healthier lifestyle and begin to look more like us, we are overwhelmed by the aesthetic effects rather than the possible improvement of their health.
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Some enter stardom as ‘curvy’ (Hollywood-Fat) as an alternative to ‘skinny’ but there is little standing room between the two. Being ‘curvy’ is also more acceptable for women of color, and they too are more accepting of their fullness and body image. What does this mean for white women? They always seem to be taken on the express train from ‘skinny’ to ‘fat-ville’, what happened to the ‘curvy’?
America Ferrera from ‘Ugly Betty’
If America Ferrera is ‘ugly’ and Jessica Simpson is ‘fat’ then most of us reading are plumpa-lumpas with bread-backs, muffin-tops, and cankles. And of course, any guy that likes us would be a chubby chaser or a truffle hunter. Ritual name calling that we’re all guilty of, only distracts us from the fact that there is a media generated class of ‘fugly’ blinding us from beauty in all shapes and sizes.
To prove our point, we rounded up a list of celebrities who are looking confident and comfortable in their new skin. Tell us what you think of their transformations!
-EvelynKim | follow me @evelynjkim
NEXT PAGE: HILARY DUFF
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Hilary Duff
Comfortable:
Skinny:
NEXT PAGE: JESSICA SIMPSON
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Jessica Simpson
Comfortable:
Skinny:
NEXT PAGE: TYRA BANKS
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Tyra Banks
Comfortable:
Skinny:
NEXT PAGE: BEYONCE </p
