Why I’m Breaking Up With The World’s Most Beautiful Woman: Gwyneth Paltrow Was My Thinspo

** TRIGGER WARNING **

Yesterday afternoon I was interviewed by a news reporter who is
interested in possibly reviewing my book, Mirror Mirror Off the Wall. I was nervous about the interview, partially
because being interviewed is always stressful, partially because it felt like a
“big deal” interview, and mostly because I was 10 minutes late. I hate being
late.






I think (hope!) I made up for my tardiness by being a
pleasant-enough person to speak with for an hour or so. I also think (hope!)
that the interview went well. Or, good enough, I should say. But a few
of the questions threw me for a loop. One, in particular, left me muttering
alternative answers to myself as I drove away.  




It wasn’t the question about my relationship with Sherry, my
mother-in-law (though I got a bit verschlempt when describing what it felt like
to worry that Sherry wouldn’t like me.) It also wasn’t the question that
started with, “So I found it interesting that you were so open about your sex
life in the book.” (I was!? Shit.) Nope, the question that left me almost
speechless was this one: “So you probably know that Gwyneth Paltrow was just
named the World’s Most Beautiful Woman by People Magazine. What do you think
about that?”






What did I think
about that?




The question was innocent enough, and certainly on topic,
considering the body-image theme of my book. But Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t just any
celebrity to me. She was my “thinspo” celebrity – my anorexic drug of choice – for
almost a decade. Hearing her name randomly pop up as the new “Worlds Most
Beautiful Woman!” felt like it might have felt if I’d been told that an epic-ex,
the he-who-shall-not-be-named kind of ex, was going to be the next Bachelor,
“didn’tcha know?”  It was a great
question, and I got through it with a generic “hate the beauty game, not the
players” kind of answer, but my head was spinning on the inside.




There are hundreds of female celebrities who are very thin
and stereotypically “beautiful,” but Gwynie was the one I became attached to,
almost 15 years ago. She was 25 and earning an Oscar; I was 15 and developing
an eating disorder. We were both pale-skinned natural blondes with thick straightish
hair. Sure, she had blue eyes and mine were brown, but I still imagined that
she was the gracefully thin girl living inside of my unruly and not-thin-enough
body, just waiting to come out.






A snapshot from my college "look book."
(Otherwise known as retro Pinterest.)

It wasn’t just her looks, but also her presence that so
captured me. I was frantic, anxious, and insecure; high-achieving, yes, but
never satisfied. I blurted out answers in class (very unladylike) and feared
that my appetite for food was insatiable and out-of-control. Gwyneth, in
contrast, seemed characterized by an aura of calm entitlement, i.e.,  the opposite of frantic insecurity. The pleasure
of being privileged in every possible way that a woman can be, and
feeling as though you deserve it.  This is
what I saw in Gwyneth Paltrow, and I wanted it for myself. (Never mind that by
most standards I am quite privileged, but I wanted her privileges too, those of great wealth, old-ish money, and extreme
slenderness – sans guilt.)






So I saw her every chance that I could. I tore out magazine
photographs of her and pasted them into my journals. I watched all of her
movies, starting with Se7en, The Pallbearer, and Emma. At first it could have
been any teenage girl’s celebrity worship, but when I started restricting food –
during the same year as Sliding Doors, Great Expectations, A Perfect Murder, and
Shakespeare in Love – my worship of Gwyneth’s graceful physical perfection
helped me get sicker, and helped me stay sick.






Well, I wouldn't be quite that harsh, but we kind of know you didn't mean this anyway, GP.

In 1999, when Gwyneth played Marge, the cultured and
unattainable fiancé character in The
Talented Mr. Ripley, I imagined an entirely different movie; one in which I
played a female version of Tom Ripley, managing to take over Marge’s privileged life. (Of course in
my movie I didn’t have to beat her to death with a boat oar to take her place; she just gracefully handed over her identity, saying that I
deserved it more than she did!) Funny, yes. But this fantasy was also a symptom
of darker times; I really wanted somebody else’s life. Gwyneth Paltrow’s
would have suited me just fine.






By the time The Royal Tenenbaums came out I was in therapy but
still struggling. I’d started to worry about my fascination with Gwyneth by
then. It had seemed so normal to want to be her, but suddenly I was getting
kidney stones and osteopenia, learning about feminism, and fighting to come to terms with the
fact that I was never ever (like, ever) going to look like GP.  So it was a godsend for her to finally play a
character who was weird, sexual, and somber, instead of pure and perfect. I had
renewed hope that I could take her with me into recovery.  So I had my hair cut into a Margot Tenenbaum
bob and kept going to therapy.




And then GP (in a fat suit) starred in Shallow
Hal, the movie that was supposed
to be about inner beauty, but instead had dozens of misogynistic fat jokes. The nice
women were all ugly and the mean women were all gorgeous. It ended with Jack
Black’s character heroically “accepting” the fact that the wonderful woman he’d
thought looked like Gwyneth Paltrow
was actually just a fat blonde chick who he was still in love with, but, like, bummer about the fat chick thing.




It pissed me off. A lot. So finally I gave up Gwynie. Cold turkey.




It was a clean break in the sense that I avoided seeing her,
but I never completely got over her, or what she meant to me. Gwyneth was the
“one who got away,” I couldn’t talk about because the loss was still painful.
But when she started talking about her extremely restrictive macrobiotic diet I
knew I’d made the right choice.




Since 2001, I’ve only seen three of Gwyneth Paltrow’s films:
Proof (which I loved, as I love most films that deal with mental illness), Iron
Man (which I didn’t realize she was in, but dealt with it with the bewilderment of running
into an ex at the grocery store), and Contagion (I loved the movie and felt
proud that I'd finally seen Gwyneth on film without having a strong emotional
reaction.)




The story should have ended there, but it didn’t. Gwyneth is
still all over the media, and has become quite the fashion maven with "Iconic Style." She’s become a fitness expert freak and a cookbook author. Oh, and she can sing! And
dance! She’s even a blogger. Bit-by-bit, this new (improved?!? MORE perfect?!) Gwynie slipped
back into my life.








It’s okay. I told
myself, I’m recovered now, and she’s just
so cool! It’s not thinspo anymore, just good old-fashioned inspo!




A year ago, on Day 314 of my no-mirrors project, I decided
to give myself Gwyneth Paltrow hair a few days before visiting family for the
holidays. It went disastrously. I guess GP doesn’t color her own hair from a $5
box of drugstore hair dye. (Shocking, I know.)




And a few weeks ago reality swooped in again, and I’m so, so
grateful.






$450,000!!!!!!

First I learned that she’d modeled several spring fashion “must
haves” on her website, and that the cost of purchasing all of them added up to
$450,000. This was not reality; it was comically absurd. Gwyneth had finally made a serious gaffe. That calm privilege was
certainly going strong, but I suddenly realized that I’d been worshiping
someone who is so privileged that she
was completely out of touch with reality. I guess I had been too.




Then she published her second cookbook, It’s All Good, and, let me tell you, it ain’t all good. It was like reading a manual for orthorexia: no
caffeine, alcohol, dairy, eggs, sugar, shellfish, deep-water fish, wheat, soy
or any processed foods. Now, I respect food allergies, intolerances, and
sensitivities; these are real things that cause a lot of discomfort, pain,
inconvenience, and ill health to those who can’t eat foods with common
ingredients. But this wasn’t touted as a cookbook for people who had to avoid these ingredients, but for
people who want to “LOOK GOOD and FEEL GREAT!” Note the order. There are more
pictures of Gwyneth in the book (usually eating, or contemplating eating), than images of food. As one author wrote: it
reads like “the manifesto of some sort of creepy healthy-girl sorority with
members who use beet juice rather than permanent marker to circle the ‘problem
areas’ on each other’s bodies.”



This creeped me out. I simply could not ignore a book like this. This was Shallow Hal but worse. So
Gwyneth had to go. Again. She was the the pair of skinny-jeans I hadn't been able to throw out, even though the mere thought of trying to fit into them made me feel bad about myself.




I literally penned a break-up letter in my journal. It was all like, “Dear
Gwyneth, It’s not you, it’s me. Well, actually, it’s me having a problem with
you.” There was profession of love lost, what she’d meant to me at
different times, and admitting that we never actually knew each other at all. It’s
funny how so many breakups end with these words. I apologized for objectifying
her for 15 years (because that’s what thinspo is, really), and accepted
responsibility for putting her on a pedestal she didn’t ask to be put on.
(Well, I’m not actually sure whether or not she likes being put on pedestals,
but you have to say some nice things in breakup letters. Karma and all that.).
Finally, I wished her health and happiness and said goodbye. "I'm sorry but just can't see you anymore."




So what do I really think of Gwyneth Paltrow being chosen as
“The World’s Most Beautiful Woman?” It makes weary. Mere days after I finally took
her off of my pedestal, she was hoisted onto another one, a bigger one. I admit
to being a little sick of GP right now, but I know that it’s the
pedestals, not the women on them, that are the problem.



But what do you think? 

Have any of you had to give up a thinspo celeb to be healthier and happier? 

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