So, what... are we all supposed to hate ourselves cause we don't have Halle's bod?

I'm like a broken record over here.

I don't have squat against Halle Berry.   She's cool and all.... BUT file this along with the Jennifer Garner stuff, (as in, I hate the way the media position stuff about some celebs...building up the hype, making us want to be like them etc...)

To wit:  from the April 2007 issue of In Style  (yes, yes, it's not April any more.  I know.  I just don't care)

"Halle Berry has a great laugh--it's full and rich and she gets her whole body into it.  It erupts as she's explaining why she still keeps a pair of Mickey Mouse blue jeans that she's had since she was 15. 'It's my annual test, I try them on once a year, and if I can still fit into them, then all is good in the world.'  (Big surprise--she can)"

OK.  First, let me address all the A-listers out there: When you are doing interviews with magazines, could you please spare us the comments that make it clear how little perspective you seem to have on the Real World.  Do you not realize the power your comments have?  That perhaps lots of people reading this OPENING of a COVER STORY are now going to feel compelled to try on clothes from decades ago to see if they, too, can fit into them--and hate themselves if they can't?  Oh, people have better things to do, you say?  You bet they do... but if you don't think that some insidious little voice doesn't go off in many women's heads that starts nagging them and haunting them if they can't fit into last SEASON'S clothes, let along something left over from high school... well, I'd say you're being unrealistic.

Second:  Journalists: PUH-LEAZE. Is that all you can come up with as a lead-in?  That she laughs, and of course it has to do with her body, cause see, she's just like the rest of us and worries about it too, but no wait she's actually better than the rest of us cause she has more discipline to not actually eat between the ages of 15 and 40 or at least she has the best trainers, nutritionists etc in the world.... SO she still fits into her jeans.

I get it.  It's In Style, not a political science journal.  But still.  Do better next time, please.

Comments

[Ashley]

I don't know how impressionable most of In Style's readers are, but I know I wouldn't be thinking that I had to go try on clothes I wore from years ago just to see if I could fit in them.

[Grace]

Not from reading In Style, but I do keep a pair of pants I fit into from a couple years ago when I was 17/18 (I'm 20) because they were my absolute favorite...and also I have deluded days where I hope to fit into them again but my hips suddenly exploded outward shortly after I turned 18, so there I know its hopeless. So I do think that's something girls do and think. And it's ridiculous to print that she still fits into her jeans, and yay good for her, but last time I knew, women's bodies change as they get older...for example, I thought I was done growing, and one day I'm the same weight but can't pull my jeans over my hips anymore.

All is good in the world...as long as you're still skinny...

[Ashley]

I guess I just don't see the big deal about her being proud to still be able to fit into her old clothes. I don't think she or anyone is meaning to insinuate that if you can't then you suck and should hate yourself.

[Audrey]

Not meaning to insinuate you should try to fit into old clothes?

Hmmmm.. then why include it? Why OPEN THE ARTICLE with it except to create that envy factor? Why praise it and make it out to be like it's a good thing?

I think it's not so much a direct correlation... but more subtle than that. And that it somehow just plants a seed in SOME, of course not all, women's minds.....

I think it's probably a more powerful suggestion than we realize. And that's the kind of stuff you end up hearing come out in conversations, when you're just sitting around with a group of friends, and someone says

'hey, there's a new Halle Berry movie coming out'

and someone else says

'I love her movies!'

and someone else says

' I heard she can still fit into her jeans from high school'

And then that little sentence from an In Style--which is "just a fashion" magazine--ends up doing it's "work' (meaning, to have the same effect) over and over again