Thursday, August 16

Department of
"okay, I'm a feminist after all"

Because this totally pisses me off.



Amy Winehouse is apparently some celebrity singer or sumpin'. Whatever. And it's not like I read the Daily Mail online on a regular basis. But I'm bopping around Google and I see this "is fame making this young woman go off the deep end?" story about how addicted to exercise Amy Winehouse is:

The source said: "She has experimented with new piercings, hairstyles and even make-up but the single biggest thing that makes Amy feel better about herself is going to the gym.

"For the past 18 months she has been going to her local women's-only gym, for a two hour session, every single day. She is neurotic about it, completely obsessed.

"Amy will do a full cardio, fat-burning workout followed by lots of repetitions, on a relatively light load, on the weights machines. As her body has become transformed, the more weight she's lost, and the more obsessed she has become."

Miss Winehouse's new size 6 physique - down from a well-proportioned 14 - is largely the result of a daily exercise programme carried out at the Fitness First women's only gym in north London's Chalk Farm.

After an initial free consultation with a personal trainer, the singer - whose debut album, Frank, sold over 250,000 copies and won the 2004 Mercury Prize - has amazed staff with her dedication.


So I looked at the pictures above which YES, ACCOMPANIED THIS STORY and thought, "Oh geez, if I just worked out enough I could look like a total heroin addict."

Whoops. Didn't take much more googling to find this:

Last week, Amy was hospitalised after going on a 3 day bender that included heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine [horse tranquilizer] and [Jack Daniels]...

Only 2 days after her collapse though, Amy was caught smoking heroin with a friend. ...Amy and her husband Blake Civil-Fielder agreed to get help for their heroin and cocaine addictions. The hard-partying couple flew to the US for intensive detox and counseling treatment. The couple are sharing a room, and have agreed to have their mobile phones confiscated so that they can concentrate on conquering their addictions.


Okay, I'm stating the obvious problem in the media when WOMEN and yes it's usually WOMEN celebrities are obviously destroying themselves with drugs and alcohol and the media pats them on the back for "working out" and "getting slender." Sends a horrible message to young women and, well, you get it.

And don't get me started on how giving up their cell phones means they're serious about rehab.

26 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:35 PM

    That "after photo" at the top is "Size 6" my ass. Size 6 would be hanging off that body.

    And obsessive exercise alone would not give you that body either, because she'd be showing more muscle tone. It would have to be accompanied by a severe starvation routine, or as perhaps in this case, drugs.

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  2. It's pretty easy to understand how one could mix up "dedication to the gym" with "smack addiction". Completely understandable.

    Its all so awful, Rome before the fall I say, Rome before the fall.

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  3. Anonymous3:26 PM

    Her personal trainer should be arrested for abuse. No one looking like that at my gym would be allowed in the door without written orders from a medical doctor. Seriously, "smack" problem or not, the only publicity for Fitness First gym in London should be the bad publicity of the authorities investigating the qualifications of their staff.

    -TW

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  4. Seriously, TW. Aren't they called "health" clubs? I doubt she showed up most days, but the manufactured quotes were thought good for business. Who knows, maybe she scored her horse tranquilizer there.

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  5. Anonymous3:52 PM

    Once someone hops on the little Brown Pony they rarely come down.

    How do you expect famous people to act though? They're treated like objects so it's not surprising they eventually believe it themselves.

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  6. I've never heard this lady's music, but all the hip liberals I know say she's wonderful. Then I read about the exhaustion thing, though I didn't bother to read on about the DRUGS--so I'm glad you added that nice little twist of ironic reality. As hard as we all work for feminist causes, from the largest NARAL things to just educating male friends, I have come the realization that this whole objectification-of-women thing will never end, if only in part because women themselves buy into it! It's stupid and pathetic. Kinda like this junkie singer.

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  7. That "after photo" at the top is "Size 6" my ass. Size 6 would be hanging off that body.

    UK sizing is different, so that might actually be true -- UK6 can be anywhere from a 0 to a 4 here. (And likewise, when she was a UK 14, that wouldn't even have been a double-digit American size.)

    That doesn't make it any less horrifying. Just a point of clarification.

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  8. As a mom of daughters, I find images and stories like this frightening and disgusting. Blue Gal is right; the woman is starving/medicating herself to death and she gets kudos in the media for losing weight.

    But … um, er … I'm going to bring up something kind of uncomfortable here. Yesterday, with the revelation that Dennis Hastert wouldn't be running again, there were lot of comments in progressive Blogland pertaining to his girth. And I have this to say: if we don't want women and girls to be driven to eating disorders, if we want to end the objectification of our daughters (and sons) it is really important to be aware of the remaining big prejudice, which is against fat people and the perception of fatness vs. thinness. I truly believe these are two sides of the same coin.

    Don't get me wrong: Dennis Hastert is a bastard and I'm glad to see him go. But talk about why he's a bastard, not about his weight.

    Our media focuses obsessively on Oprah's and Kristy Alley's weight gains and losses, for example. It's no wonder that a rising star gets pressured to lose weight, however she can.

    Am I making any sense?

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  9. I don't have much else to add other than I'm hoping the media gets tired of this whole beanpole thin kick and decides that women at a healthy weight is trendy.

    Sadly, it will take something like that happening to make young women and all women in general not develop these hideous complexes regarding body size.

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  10. Well they tried to make her go to rehab.... she say no no no.... hey, she ain't got the time, an if her daddy think she's fine....

    She is too skinny though....

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  11. Anonymous9:21 PM

    Such a shame. She went from healthy, to being ill, due to drug abuse, or weight loss obsession, or both. There's an anorexic woman who does a lot of cardio work outs at the fitness centre I go to. A fitness trainer told me that this woman will never get back the muscle mass that she has lost. Such a shame, to try and lose healthy body fat and muscle, when so many people in the world are half-starved, and look like the second picture of this singer, through no fault, nor choice, of their own.

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  12. I love Amy Winehouse's music. I really do. She's an awesome talent. But I've seen it a zillion times before. Exercise, my big fat patootie. That's drugs, baby. I'm sure she does have an exercise obsession, and a lot of other obsessions as well. She's mentally ill. And not well enough to withstand the sudden pressure of überfame.

    And this horrid societal emphasis on thinness that makes little girls like my 8-year-old daughter say, "Mama, am I fat?" (she's not, BTW - she has her daddy's beanpole genes) just makes me sick and sad and furious all at once.

    And - ditto to always interested. Good point and very true.

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  13. I've never heard of her before, but damn, does she look horrible in that second picture.

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  14. Anonymous10:38 PM

    Maybe she can order take-out with Lindsay Lohan?

    Regards,

    Tengrain

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  15. I had a post about her two months ago, comparing her to R. Crumb's Devil Girl.

    Now she looks like a Bataan Death March victim.

    http://lotsasplainin.blogspot.com/2007/06/separated-at-birth-vol-2.html

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  16. That sucks. I was just starting to like her, too.

    *hmph*

    It's no wonder I just had to sit through teacher-training on how to recognize symptoms of eating disorders, and how students can vomit unnoticed. Seriously. No wonder these girls think they have to look like that.

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  17. I have to question the writer's use of the word "physique." That isn't a physique. That's a sickly morass of cells. Or, in more polite newspaper terms, stick figure. I mean, her legs look two-dimensional. That just ain't natural!

    Sadly, shit like this is why I just can't bring myself to lose weight. Some little doubt sits on my shoulder and says, "Really, aren't you just doing this to bow before a culture that worships thin so much it'll encourage the abuse of dangerous drugs in order for someone to achieve it?"

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  18. The thing is … why are we, as individuals and as a society, so obsessed with a person's body type? Our own, our children's, celebrities', people we've never even met? Why? It is a dangerous obsession. What if the child who asks, "Mama am I fat?" hasn't inherited their daddy's beanpole genes, but instead has Grandma Shirley's big bones? Collectively, we are repulsed by someone who is obese or someone who is skeleton-thin. What about our repulsion towards those in the middle … or ourselves? The love handles, the middle-aged spread, the hips that allowed us to birth babies. What if the focus was simply on being healthy, and it didn't matter how people looked or dressed? THAT would be revolutionary!

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  19. Suzy has it nailed.

    This poor young woman looks like death only slightly warmed-over. She has a big talent, much moreso than some of the other drugged-up divas we've had forced upon us lately. Here's hoping she gets herself well, in every way.

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  20. "Some little doubt sits on my shoulder and says, 'Really, aren't you just doing this to bow before a culture that worships thin so much it'll encourage the abuse of dangerous drugs in order for someone to achieve it?'"

    More than worshiping thin, we are SO disgusted by fat. We vilify it. We mock it. We assume the worst about people who are considered fat. And the more we do that, the higher the bar is raised for what is acceptably thin. It seems like a fear response. We're so afraid of fat, that bordering on skeletal looks normal to many of us, because at least it's not fat.

    This intense focus on fat has been going on for some time. Has it helped our country become healthier? No. We're in the midst of what the media calls an epidemic of obesity. Something is very, very wrong.

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  21. Anonymous8:38 PM

    That girl went straight from "Naughty Hottie" to "Skanky Hanky."

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