Way back when, before three doctors created the AspireAssist Aspiration Therapy System that literally sucks the fat out of your belly and before cosmetic surgery became so common it’s advertised in grocery stores, a black woman’s crowning glory was her curves. When Pam Grier’s burnt orange jumpsuit cascaded down her brown body, revealing large unaltered breasts, a slim waist and curvy hips as she seductively undressed in “Coffy,” men rejoiced and reacted with awe. But it seems that now, the reaction to a linear silhouette elicits that same response.
There are limited black roles on the big screen and even less on television. Kerry Washington, Meagan Good and Jennifer Hudson are the select few who have broken through to the mainstream with leading roles in major TV productions, but at what price? Skin, flab, fat? More importantly, when accepting any role one must remember the inheritance of the other, more profound role…role model. It is apart of being famous, so when these ladies drop tens or hundreds of pounds to perhaps be more socially accepted, what message does it send to little black girls?
I never realized how skinny Kerry Washington was until I watched her almost sex scene in “A Thousand Words,” which needs only two syllables to explain how awful it was. After I made it past that concrete pout, Washington’s body stood out to me for two reasons. The leather lingerie equipped with tassels, a utensil for spanking and moon boots barely fit her physique and the meat that once hugged her bones in such films as “Save The Last Dance” or “I Think I Love My Wife,” was gone. With the second season of “Scandal” locking in millions of viewers by the episode and “Django Unchained“ leading every headline on the Internet, it appears that Kerry is ever-shrinking and fitting more and more into a White Hollywood body prototype.
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Jennifer Hudson was once a voluptuous girl. Even though “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell harshly critiqued her fashion sense every other week, which I though was also jabs at her weight, I know millions of females her size who had a specific reverence for her because she represented something other than the “ideal” Hollywood figure. She was what they’d call “a real woman.” And that isn’t to say that Kerry or Zoe Saldana and the rest of the svelte celebs aren’t real women, but we have plenty of reference points for average and not many for the “realistic.” We don’t blame J Hud for shaping up. We commend her on her weight loss because only those in her position know how much dedication it takes to shed pounds, but for the girls who are still in that influential age, jogging an extra lap in Junior High School gym class or picking meat off their hamburger buns so they can enjoy a lettuce diet at lunch like Beyonce, know that it’s alright to be the size they are?
