This here.
It’s just weight. Just 40 pounds of fat now gone from my body, but wow, it’s pretty much all I get asked about. In the last year, I got to star in a movie, wrote and directed my next one, and adopted a three year old from American Foster Care. But guess what I’m asked...how did I lose the weight?
I am embarrassed to be in the position of answering questions about my body again. On the publicity tour of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ I was asked over and over again, if, as the writer, I felt it was a fair depiction of real life to have someone of my er, below average looks, hook up with hottie John Corbett.
I'm going to sound like your average feminist when I rail about the misogyny of our culture, how women--even talented, well-educated women--are judged first by their looks and only afterwards by their abilities. I've known smart women with Ivy League educations who were concerned they wouldn't get a job because they were overweight. I've seen women cut their beautiful hair so they will look "serious" to employers. And I've heard mothers lie about having husbands and children so that employers would not penalize them for having other obligations in life.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying men don't face some of these same problems. Men cut their hair, shave their beards and cover their tattoos when they apply for "real" jobs. But are male writers told to change their leads because "men don't go to movies"?
A studio executive recently asked me to change a male lead in a script to female because “women don’t go to movies.” He went on to explain some studios were no longer making female-lead movies because women don’t go to them.
I guess my friends and I--we meet up every month for a girls' night out just to see a movie--don't count in the world of that studio executive.
When women allow others to define them--through constraints on weight, age, education, even entertainment--they reinforce the negative stereotypes our daughters will have to fight, too.
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