Good Housekeeping has three covers out this month to celebrate diverse beauty standards and aging in Hollywood. The cover models are Rashida Jones, Tracee Ellis Ross and Connie Britton. You can see Tracee and Connie’s covers here. Each has the same soft pink background, giving off a vintage chic feel. I think they are lovely and I covet the dress Rashida is wearing (full length is shown below). Rashida, who is currently starring in her third season of the series Angie Tribeca, has spoken out about her views on Hollywood beauty standards before, sometimes a bit too callously. She also frequently cautions young women not to invest in their looks, especially if they are trying to conform to someone else’s standard. In this interview, Rashida has dialed back her critique considerably and discusses what lessons she took from her parents and upbringing instead.

On her ‘awkward’ adolescence: “Between 12 and 15, I was emotional, chubby and awkward. It was puberty and I was a work in progress. Thankfully I got to do that privately. It sucks now that kids have to decide how to represent themselves publicly at such a young age.”

On “Hollywood” beauty: “I don’t like the idea that there is so much pressure on women to look a certain way in Hollywood. There are times when I feel myself buckling under that pressure. Beauty is so emotional for me — I eat my feelings.”

On her mom’s beauty approach: “She has always been holistic about beauty — she puts on sunblock, drinks a ton of water, takes care of herself, meditates. I’m less strict, but I do meditate, eat well, work out. And I love being in nature with no mirrors — just trees and a good sweat.”

On big decisions: “My dad tells me to make decisions out of love and not fear. It’s okay to do something and not know that you’re going to nail it and execute it with full, perfect preparedness … I just pushed myself. I told myself that the only way that I could find out if I was a writer was to sit down and do it every day.”

On her activism: “It takes one person to say something, and at the time it’s uncomfortable. People don’t like to be challenged on the things that don’t apply to them. They need to be pushed. When the Civil Rights Movement was happening and they polled white people across the country, 90% of them said they didn’t think people should be marching. Progress is always this tiny, tiny minority feed — this tiny flame that needs a couple of bright people to keep it burning and carry it forward so other people feel comfortable using those words.”

[From Good Housekeeping]

I’m not trying to undermine what Rashida is saying but I would’ve killed for only three years of awkwardness during adolescence. However, I didn’t have to measure myself against the standards of Hollywood so it was probably much more intense for her. Rashida mentions her chubbiness/teenage appearance in almost every story linked in this post. I can’t figure out if she does that to say she is credentialed to speak about overcoming it or if she still wears a few shackles from it? I completely agree with her comment, “It sucks now that kids have to decide how to represent themselves publicly at such a young age.” Adolescence is all about finding out who you are and wearing many different skins before you find the one that fits. With social media, so many other people outside one’s friends’ group weigh in on which one they like best. This has to skew a person’s choice without it necessarily being the right one.

As for her activism quotes, I will never fault Rashida for not speaking out. She has an elevated platform because of her exposure and she uses it for various causes. She isn’t a cause-du-jour activist either, she quite consistent. When she said, “People don’t like to be challenged on the things that don’t apply to them.” it’s a very Good Housekeeping appropriate way of saying people don’t want their privilege jostled and she dead right. I have a friend educating me on my own white privilege. I’ve come to realize that I’ve had my head so far up my own you-know-what for so long, I completely missed how my complacency made me culpable for the state of things today.

Shoe-horning this in with a very thin thread of relevancy, but Rashida’s partner’s name on Angie Tribeca is Jay Giles. He was named after the J. Geils Band, whose founder, John Warren Geils, just passed away. It’s nice that he’s memorialized this way. I hope he knew it before he died.

Photo credit: Good Housekeeping and WENN Photos