There is nothing “gentle” ...
... about telling someone that they need to lose weight. Put the goodie two shoes medical stuff aside for a minute, please, and hearing the words “slim down or ship out” has got to hurt. And that doesn’t matter who you are in life’s colourful tapestry. Nobody should confuse having thick ankles with being thick skinned. We appear to be living in a society where the worst five words in the world seem to be “S***, you’ve put on weight”, where everyone actually dreams of hearing “Wow…. What diet are YOU on“ or “You look so fabulous, you really MUST give me the name of your bariatric surgeon”. What you don’t expect is someone like Oprah Winfrey who, unlike Fern Briton, has showed the world every single one of her emotional and physical stretchmarks, to kowtow to those who think they know better. But that, apparently, is exactly what the queen of unconventional did when US Vogue editor Anna Wintour told the talk show host to drop 20 pounds to be on the cover of the fashion magazine back in 1998. The severly fringed and obviously viper tongued one revealed that is what she said during an unaired segment from her 60 Minutes interview recently shown in the States. "It was a very gentle suggestion," she said, laughing (the cheek!). "I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight." Oh, an IDEA. Right…. as if one on this every subject hadn’t popped into Oprah’s mind before! She added: "I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!" Oprah, 55, must have listened to the fashion legend, who deals with style and trades on women’s insecurities by offering up images of dreams we can’t even aspire to let alone achieve. Perfection costs, and you can’t pay for it in the currency of carbs sadly. Anyway, Oprah was featured on the cover from more than 10 years ago with the tagline: "Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover” in order to sell her film, Beloved. “She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet," Wintour said. "And it was one of our most successful covers ever." It’s amazing to me that Winfrey has pockets so deep could purchase Vogue if she wanted to, yet to get on the cover, she had to make a deal with the devil, even if she was wearing Prada and offering to dress you in designer gear from head to toe. I’m not sure what is more surprising here, Oprah losing the weight for Wintour or Wintour suggesting to someone of her stature that she didn’t quite measure up in the beauty stakes, which in effect precluded her from beatific greatness as defined by her. Note I didn’t say smart enough, famous enough, rich enough. She simply was too big. A decade on, and I’d like to think that Oprah has learned her lesson and wouldn’t slim for anyone, but herself. And she’d tell Wintour to rearrange the words “stick”, “skinny“ “Vogue”. “a***” and advise her to make sure she makes a meal out of the asterisks.
1 comment:
Before you lay into Wintour quite so fiercely, please ask yourself if you have preferences and dislikes when it comes to other people's appearances. Do you prefer dark, blond or red hair in a man? A high voice or a deep one? Short, medium or tall?
Anyone who has preferences must admit that they discriminate in favour of some elements of a person's physical make-up... and against other elements.
If one personally prefers "dark" over "blond", or vice versa, then one cannot really get on Wintour's back for her preference for "thin" over "fat". Anyone who has ever preferred X to Y on looks alone - and we've all done it - can't stand in judgement when others discriminate against *their* looks.
Furthermore, you can turn this scenario around and see it, not as Oprah selling her soul to the Devil, but as Wintour offering an incentive to Oprah to lose 20 pounds and look more "conventionally attractive" for the cover. If she offered the same deal to Susan Boyle on condition Boyle had those famous eyebrows of hers thinned, would we think that was OK? There is at least as strong a case for the argument "Better Boyle look her best for the cover" as there is for "Don't touch a solitary eyebrow hair, love, she has no right to make such demands of you!"
Is it just the idea that Oprah had to lose weight, which involves more pain and effort than twenty minutes with a tweezer? If so, would it make you feel better to know that Oprah lost the weight in a healthy manner (she was never going to make the SlimFast mistake again)? Or is it just the fact that someone made a diet the "deal-breaker"?
Because if it is the last, I'd say that's the trouble with much of the world - a diet DOES seem to be the "deal-breaker" for many people. What do you recommend as the solution to this problem?
It may interest you to know that I went to the Wise Woman about this, and she recommended I could either
i) kill Bob
ii) kill myself
iii) kill everybody in the whole world.
I've favouring Option iii), myself. Thoughts?
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