Danielle Brooks is promoting the third seasion of Orange is the New Black. I’m looking forward to the show’s return and will try not to binge it too hard. (CB tried to make me watch it faster last time!) Brooks plays the tragic yet triumphant Taystee to a tee. There are so many classically trained actresses on the show, and Brooks is one of them (she graduated from Julliard). She’s 25 years old and broke onto the acting scene a few years ago with OITNB. With the spotlight came a return of her childhood body-image anxieties.
Danielle wrote a heartfelt essay for Glamour on size acceptance, both in Hollywood and in the “real world.” I left out a few paragraphs for brevity’s sake, but you can read the whole piece here. Some excerpts:
Being a teenager can be one of the hardest phases of a person’s life. For me, I struggled every day tricking myself into appearing confident. After reading over old journal entries, I realized some days were less successful than others. I came across one that took me aback. In this entry, I had written about how insecure I was about my weight. I wasn’t able to wear the flared jeans and cute tops the other girls wore–they didn’t come in my size. On top of that, I was dark-skinned and had natural hair. By the standard definition of beauty I had absorbed from the world around me, I had three strikes against me: I was too dark, too curly, and too fat.
Because of this insecurity, I was desperately unhappy. I was even having suicidal thoughts. But you wouldn’t have known it. The world saw a young teenage girl who was happy in her skin, laughed a lot, and didn’t care what anyone thought about her. The truth of the matter was I wasn’t happy in my skin; I laughed to hide my pain, and cared deeply what my peers thought of my appearance–to the point that I even was having suicidal thoughts. But you wouldn’t have known it.
I didn’t always feel so self-conscious. As a young girl, I was always a healthy kid but never a skinny kid. I didn’t know that there was anything “wrong” with my body until I was in middle school and a woman from church felt the spirit move her to tell me. As I walked home from Bible study one Wednesday night, she stopped me and exclaimed, “Danielle you’ve got stretch marks on your arms!” and proceeded to take her pointer finger and identify the four or five tiny lines that were starting to form. She continued, “You’re too young to be getting stretch marks,” though she was covered in them herself. And that’s when the cycle of judging myself began.
From that moment on, it was a long road to learning to love myself again. I dreamed of being an actor, but when I looked for reflections of myself on the screen, I found few … Ironically, achieving a measure of success in this field that gave me confidence threatened to shake the very foundation of that hard-earned self-worth. Being in the public eye magnifies my “imperfection” to an insane degree. Attending the Golden Globes for the first time, I was aware that the majority of the other actresses in the audience didn’t look like me. But you see, the average woman is a size 12 to 14. Those actresses don’t look like most women. I’m not saying those actresses should gain 30 pounds, but I am posing the question, that if art is supposed to reflect life then why don’t the red carpets and magazines reflect reality?
[From Glamour]
Danielle goes on to stress that she’s “no longer operating out of a place of fear.” She refuses to hide her body on the red carpet and will show off her arms (and sometimes her midriff) as “a reminder to myself and the world that I know I’m beautiful.” Damn straight, Danielle is gorgeous! Her sense of style is blossoming too. Her SAGs dress was one of my favorites of the evening. And yes, Danielle is correct that Hollywood should take more care to reflect reality in a lot of ways (including body types).
Photos courtesy of WENN
The “red carpet” isn’t any bit a reality, and the best thing about Twitter is that celebs now know what fans really think.
I don’t know when it started but the obsession with skinny is not just in Hollywood. I know of people who have humiliated their partners because of their weight. Although Hollywood has been making a slow effort, the core of the problem is still not resolved. Let’s hope one day things change for good.
“I don’t know when it started but the obsession with skinny is not just in Hollywood”
Its not an obsession with skinny imo, its an obsession with female body. I’m well within my recommended weight range and I dont get shamed for being too fat or too thin. I get shamed for my body type. See, I have committed that unforgiveable offence of being a black girl without curves. I’ve had a guy lecture me on waist-hip ratio (and up until that day I, like Danielle, had no clue that my body was “wrong”). My ex would make snide remarks, including giving me a detailed and “innocent” account of a giant assed girl he saw this one time. Theres nothing I can do about how my fat distributes, if I eat too much my fat will sit in my belly. My options are, be shaped like an apple or be shaped like a rectangular plank of wood. I will never look like a damn coke bottle. I was fine with that until I became aware of the general consensus. Try living in a country where your body type is not only in the minority, its also “undesirable”. Sigh!
Sorry, I lost my point there. I’m just trying to say that to think of this as a skinny/fat, curvy/straight issue is to miss the forest for the trees. The real problem here is that 1) people think there can only be one form of beauty 2) that all women must aspire to it and 3) women must be told when they are failing to hit the standard.
What a bunch of a-holes! It seems like people aren’t happy until they make women feel like crap about themselves, regardless of what shape, size or colour they are.
It’s ludicrous that the Kardashians are celebrated for their ‘curves’ if it simply means that women are people are buying glue-on asses or injecting their lips full of putty.
And if it’s not a boyfriend, it will be older women, teachers or even your own mother feeling the need to point out your ‘shortcomings’. Ugh.
You said it best. Women’s bodies will be shamed and objectified regardless of what they look like. As a skinny Black woman I am not here for any of that. Conversations with people trying to make me feel insecure about my body do not end well for them.
The body shape shaming is ridiculous, since it is something you can’t change no matter how much or little you weigh. As a white pear shaped gal, I get tired of the media putting out this unnatural and unattainable idea that women have to have huge t*ts and a huge butt but still maintain a size 0. The only way most women could do that is through plastic surgery and dieting to oblivion. It would be really nice to see all body shapes and sizes given positive representation.
Wow… what a d*** I hope he’s gone for your sake. Actual shape is individual and he was SO ignorant not to understand that.
As for thin as an obsession – it’s really about whatever reflects affluence or the abundant resource to attain the unattainable. When we were a starving society, curvy was in and products abounded that promised to put on the pounds. Cultures where thin is easier to have due to malnutrition, fat is always the more appealing and desirable.
Today, we are living in a caloric flood. To be thin is to be wealthy – to have a chef who prepares fresh, organic real foods that are nutritious instead of just filler. To be thin is to be able to afford active hobbies any time the urge strikes, like hopping on the jet and popping over to Switzerland for skiing in the alps or surfing in the Bahamas. Today, thin reflects affluence. Tomorrow, if thin were easier to be or a byproduct of poverty, then fat would be what society would put on the pedestal again.
That’s a good point. When did this happen? When I was in second grade a girl told me I was the biggest girl in our grade. I remember my dad joking that I needed to get out of the car before we crossed a country bridge because we would be over the weight limit. That stuff sticks with you. I’m afraid I will always be the fat kid inside, no matter what I look like on the outside.
Yep. My mother let my brother put a lock on the cupboard so I couldn’t sneak food. I did lose the weight, thanks to a 15 year ED. I am 50 and my parents tell me I am too skinny. It makes me crazy.
Ugh. Yeah. Growing up, my dad made a ton of mean-spirited comments about my weight including “thunder thighs” etc. To this day, my mother and father both claim to not remember any of the incessant taunting. As with Jen, I ended up with an ED.
Sorry everyone here has had to deal with such cruelty.
She is so pretty and I love Taystee, great actress.
Church ladies are scary and mean. Apparently their take away from all that churching is to be scary and mean. And they have no qualms about it.
I wish there was a way that teens could be taught that their rite of passage is going to make them very insecure for any number of reasons, but it shall pass and they will become confident adults secure in themselves no matter their teen insecurity.
She’s beautiful. And she is right about how we need to be so careful about what we say to young girls. I was very thin in high school, but my boyfriend told me that the new style of high-waisted jeans made my bottom look big. That started me down a road of body insecurity that lasted … Is it even over now? Sometimes. I was 112 pounds, and I thought I was fat. Such a waste of time and energy.
GNAT, where I’m from, that would have been a compliment!
I hope you have become secure and sure of your fabulousness and essential place in this world.
Aw, thank you. Most days I am, but I am still my own worst critic, and I get made at myself for it sometimes. I working on it!
I hear you. On my insecure days I curse the Universe for my lack of bubble butt. Cultural differences, I guess.
We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. I have a bubble butt but heaven forbid I gain 5-10 lbs and get thick-waisted. I have an endomorpth body type. Looks good thin, but hard to stay that way without constant working at it. Nobody tells me to; I do it to myself. I’m not comfortable unless I think I’m as perfect as possible. It’s exhausting. I can’t wait to get old and not care anymore – like Candace Bergman.
I love her GG look, and she is great on the show. I didn’t know she went to Juilliard, that’s quite an accomplishment.
And she’s right – we need more variety in the media and entertainment industry. Humanity is so wonderfully diverse, it would be nice to see that actually reflected back to us.
Girls of all sizes and shapes struggle with body insecurities. Instead of focusing on how we appear to the rest of the world, we need to focus on our health. Eating well, exercising and staying lean for HEALTH’S sake. Women’s cancer rates are soaring in large part due to the obesity epidemic. Fat is not inert, it elevates all sorts of hormones to which cancer cells are specifically sensitive, as well as increases exponentially your chances of developing diabetes and heart disease.
That is reality.
I was so obsessed with being “lean” as a teenager that I survived on 200-300 calories a day and walked 10-15km+ on top of that. If I succumbed and ate a piece of bread, or even a crust, I would cycle for hours to “make up” for it.
Guess what? I still wasn’t “lean”. My body went into starvation mode and I someone managed to retain my belly fat.
I’m getting sick of the concern-trolling of larger women to be a size 2 or risk imminent death. For some of us, it is simply unattainable.
I’m not saying that being massively obese is healthy, but Danielle Brooks is nowhere near that. So leaving a comment feigning concern for someone’s health (who is probably the size she is naturally, depending on her genetics etc.) irritates the hell out of me.
No wonder women have body image issues.
You were not obsessed with being lean, you were obsessed with being small. I have been there too. The focus needs to be on STRENGTH and PROPER nourishment (not acceptance of over-nourishment).
It’s about health, not looks.
OK, fair enough. But I wish we as a society hadn’t decided it was OK to comment or speculate about other people’s health.
It’s not speculation though, it’s the result knowledge brought about by the scientific studies on the risk factors for cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
And, btw, being too thin is even MORE unhealthy than being overweight. It’s all about proper nourishment and strength, and having a healthy amount of reserve so you can survive a major illness. Something that I doubt many models would be able to do.
At any rate, obesity is officially an epidemic, with fully 1/3 of adults being obese. I understand the push back against shame based on appearances, but there should be an emphasis placed on health. And ‘mean church lady’ was right, in a way. Stretch marks on a young girl’s arms are an alarming sign that something unhealthy is happening.
I’ve been on the end of both types of comments – anorexia and chubbiness. Both hurt my feelings. I’ve decided to hell with them and I eat my protein, fruits and veggies and nuts and lift weights. I am proud of my visible veins, muscles, and a stomach that looks like it grew a human. Also of my bubble butt. I will ride a damn bicycle if I feel like it. lol
Mean Church Lady didn’t approach Danielle out of concern and even if she were genuintely concerned, it wasn’t her place to address the issue. She maliciously shamed a young impressionable girl and she did it because she was disgusted with her and thought she had a right to voice her disgust. Danielle already knew she had stretch marks on her arm, so why do people feel the need to point such things out as if the Danielles of the world are unaware of their flaws?
I do take issue with people saying we’re fat shaming if we don’t accept bigger bodies as beautiful. I don’t think skinny california surfer girl is the only beautiful in the world, but I also don’t think obesity should be praised or encouraged. But I do not think we should be making people feel bad for any reason. It’s not our place. It isn’t effective, and we should all be worrying about ourselves and let others worry about themselves. There are several among my friends who need to lose weight to get healthy, but I wouldn’t dream of thinking they want my opinion on it or need tips or advice from me. They know they’re overweight and it’s their problem to address.
Taystee girl!!! My fave.
Depressing that someone so ridiculously lovely and gorgeous should be made to feel like crap.
And I don’t mean that in a ‘lovely on the inside’ or ‘she’s got a nice face’ way . She is objectively really good-looking!
People are nuts.
Her way of wording it — “felt the spirit move her to tell me” — is so damn shady and angry, I love it. Because the spirit, I guess in this case the Holy Spirit, shouldn’t move you to criticize someone’s body, especially not that of a child.
I would’ve said “I felt the spirit move me to kick you in the shins”.
Yeah, cuz God has no bigger problems than someones dress size!
She’s got great style. She’s not sample size but it’s nice to see that she has found great-fitting, stylish and flattering clothes.
She is so pretty! wow. Great that she’s learning to feel good about herself. Wishing her all the best.
Ok the essay was sad. The woman from church would have been ripped a new one by me if I was her mother. Danielle is also beautiful, I mean stunningly gorgeous.
now on to the red carpet yeah the weight thing sorry don’t care. I don’t think these actresses need to starve themselves but this we need more average looking sized women I don’t think that is the biggest issue that needs to be tackled. Healthy yes. Not sick of course. But they don’t need to be a size 12.
What needs to be focused on is opportunity for talented women over the age of 20 to get roles of sunstance, for minority women (or men) to get parts, for women to be the leads and driving force of a movie. For two women to be in the same movie and speak and it not be characterictures.
I mean look at lupita this is a woman with a perfect figure the most stunning face and more talent then most of Hollywood and after her Oscar win how many articles were there about what would they do with her? Could she be a romantic lead? THAT IS THE PROBLEM! Not that there aren’t a lot of size 12 on the carpet.
All that being said I do think it would be benficial for jr high kids to take a class it photo shop because if they all saw what Gisele or anyone looked like before the touch ups they’d feel better. It’s not real.
You’re missing the point. There is no “perfect body”, and the idea that one exists is exactly what perpetuates body hate on many levels including both size and race.
BTW, the average size for women in the US is between 14 and 16. Size 12 is not some crazy number. Its also not a defining characteristic.
I’m not missing the point at all. There are bigger issues then body size when oitnb is over what roles are out there for women of color? That should be the focus, not that the red carpet has only skinny girls but that there is literally no opportunities for women in her chosen industry.
And really we need to get over the perceived slights on body image. No one should bash or hold it against someone for not being skinny but Hollywood males don’t represent the average either so let’s be real.
I would much rather know that the industry is worried about roles for this talented woman then what her size is. Sorry but if you want to reduce her to her waist line go for it but frankly I think she is to talented for it to be the discussion.
…..” if art is supposed to reflect life then why don’t the red carpets and magazines reflect reality”
She has a point and that’s one reason I like UKs TV series and films so much. People look REAL. That doesn’t mean the majority is overweight though. I think I’ve posted my opinion on the matter more that enough. Realness is not only being fat it’s also age, wrinkles, saggy skin all over ets…
I get her insecurities and think that she still has them-where is her natural curly hair? (thinking of Serena Williams’ cover)
I also think that as long there are celebrities like Beyonce and Mimi, who insist on total Image control the magazines are going to surf this wave and keep on presenting “the perfect body”, “revenge body”, “how to get in shape in a month after having a baby” and we are STILL going to buy them.
She is beautiful. That is all.
Ditto!
I mean I see her point, but her question is easily answered: because red carpets and magazines aren’t reality.
I really admire her figure though! I’m really petite and I wish I was curvier like that.
Church ladies envy the beauty and youth they see in ANYONE (I know this from experience) because they cannot see their own. They are a hazard which I avoid every Sunday by skipping church and going to Yoga instead. 🙂
My friend had someone come up to him in a playground to tell him that his 3 year old daughter was too fat.(and she was not.) There are times I am lost for words at the absurdity of that individual….mean comments veiled as self-righteous concern for your heath is disingenuous.
I can so feel her on the sliling on the outside dying on the inside part.
I was fat from my early teens to my early 20s, and while I was never suicidal, I hated myself. I sude to run to my room because I was so uncomortable in public, I had the mirror in my room cover so that I didn’t have to look at myself, I stopped going out, I didn’t do many things I wanted to because I was so insecure. And people around me constantly ( and I mean a few times a day) telling me how fat I was and how I need to lose weight only made matters worse. I was Danielle’s size and pretty healthy, but people around me made me feel like I was a monster. I never told anyone, I was always pretending to be happy.
I’ve lost the weight last year and it was almost anticlimactic because the self esteem and body issues are still here. I can’t even have a proper relationship because my insecurities come in the way, I mean, I don’t like to be hugged let along something else. I hope thing’ll get better but sometimes I think I’m f****d for life.
And media lagerly shapes the way we view beauty. When I was growing up, women who looked like me were the funny sidekick, they never got the guy or the promotion – and it makes you feel that if you want any chance in life, you need to be skinny.
The thing is nothing and no one has ever said “this is the perfect body” it’s just something we’ve made up in our heads. I have a hard time pointing the finger at fashion, media or models because thats not really what’s being said. Of course the idea of media is to sell something and the fastest way to do this is by insinuating that we need this or that or that life would be perfect if we were a certain way. Its definitely something you buy into and I think everyone does to a certain degree but overall… is it really that serious? Does it really matter if everyone on the movie screen looks a certain way? I look at people who do ballet and think wow, they are doing something incredible and they look incredible… but I have no desire to do ballet. I look at men who play football and think the same thing… again, no desire to play football or look like a football player. I look at doctors doing surgery and think its incredible… no desire to become a surgeon. At some point you need to put down the hurt at not looking like someone, being like someone or doing things that others do and just be accountable for your own mental health. If you expect the world to change to suit your particular criteria as a human being then you’re never really ever going to be happy. The problem isn’t really outside of you as much as its within your own self. Please note Im not talking about skin colour and racism, etc… that stuff is always out of line.
I understand what you’re saying in terms of security comes from within so nobody should feel bad if they don’t look like a certain somebody. However, the problem is is that that line of thinking is mature and most youth haven’t developed it yet. Some people never do. There are emotionally strong people and emotionally weak people. The emotionally weak people look to others for affirmation and if they don’t get it, they become disillusioned with themselves. There is no answer. We can’t control how people think and we can’t control their inner strength. All we can do is support them and be compassionate.
STANDING O FOR DANIELLE AND ALL HER TAYSTEENESS!!
If the Church Lady was truly a Christian woman, she should not have said anything at all.
In the end, I think we should tell younger women, “high school comes and goes, learn to be happy and healthy in your own skin,” I know, easier said that done. And men tend to “like” women for their looks. But, if a person is with you and can’t stand how you look or has an “opinion” on how you look or how you are, dump them, cause a person should accept you for who you are, that’s it. You are not with someone to complete you but to complement you.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and wanting to look like a celebrity is just plain senseless. I mean, again, I read about the waist training thing and those pictures of how your internal organs get out of place are just awful to me, for what a waist?
She is such a talented actor (Taystee is a great character) and absolutely beautiful. And she has great fashion sense. I love her in both her white minidress and the blue SAG gown. She rocks!
The reality is that obesity IS a growing problem. I don’t like/appreciate that Hollywood actresses and fashion models have become thinner over the years because they don’t look good. A little fat on the face is more attractive. However, I don’t think the opposite end of the spectrum should be the norm either.
One thing that bothers me is when people say, “I’m not a size 0.” It’s as if one can only be
a size 10+ or a size 0. I think that statement says so much. How about a size 8 if you’re under 5’3″?