Fat Actress

I first hit the stage at age 11.  Twenty years later, I'm still acting.  Anytime I see a stage, I have this internal need to be on it.  I'm one of those people who (I believe) was literally created to do what I do.  I don't think that's egotistical to say either.  It's in my blood.  I've fought hard in my adult life to be where I am today: performing, managing a theater, and providing entertainment year round.  But there was one point in my life when I almost quit it all.

After graduating college, I started auditioning for local theater.  It wasn't easy moving to a new city by myself.  Theater is a very small world and I was having a hard time being given a chance.  I did just enough to be one of those freak stories where I was seen on stage and the next day I had an agent.  This was the ultimate dream for a recent college grad.  But the rose colored glasses were shattered quickly.

It didn't take long for me to see the underside of the entertainment industry on a small scale.  Dallas is by NO means L.A., but it was enough for me.  When you are in your in your 20s in entertainment, you have to be beautiful and sexual.  If not, you won't get much.  That's the reality of it.  I found myself calling up my agent prior to a callback for a national host position, because I didn't believe in how it portrayed women.  They were bikini clad and taking body shots off of each other as they giggled.

With a small athletic hour glass figure, I was edited out of a test shoot for a possible national commercial because I was "fat."  There were other factors that quickly led me to the conclusion that film/commercial was not for me.

You may have recently heard Jennifer Lawrence reveal to Harper's Bazaar that she has been called fat. This was prior to her "Hunger Games" fame.  She's honest about how it hurt and still stings to this day. I have to admit, I have a big girl crush on J. Law.  One of the things that I, and most of her female fans, like about her is her irreverence for "the machine."  She's quirky and weird.  Definitely doesn't fit in.  And she's beautiful, fit, and FAR from fat.

(For more about her interview, click here: http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/jennifer-lawrence-being-called-fat-extreme-way-she-161505732.html)

Other actresses/entertainers have been called fat, such as Christina Aguilera, Christina Hendricks, Ashley Judd, and Lady Gaga just to name a few.  Remember Tyra Banks and her infamous bathing suit photo?  Kim Kardashian and Jessica Simpson were attacked for the weight they gained while pregnant.

There isn't a lot we can do to the stop the media machine.  For whatever reason, it is convinced that beautiful equals underweight.  Some days I consider that it might have been cowardly for me to quit film/commercial rather than fight.  I had an audition not too long ago (the first in YEARS in that medium), and all I could think about was how "fat" I was compared to the other women.  I've gained weight since my size four days, and I can't imagine myself ever being cast in a film or commercial now.

Since we can't stop the machine, we need to focus our thoughts against it.  It's easy to inhale what is on TV or the internet, but stop before you criticize next time.  What if you were in their position?  What if your weight defined you even more than it already does?  What if your job was determined by how much you weigh?  What if you lost your job because you gained 10lbs?

What do you think of the critiques of these entertainers?  Do they deserve that pressure as a sacrifice for the money and fame?