Oh, Zooey, the apple of my eye. She could get arrested for building a meth lab in the back of an ice cream truck and I’d be like “well, she probably had a good reason for doing it.” She can’t do a single thing wrong, but she is very, very capable of doing things right.
As you probably guessed by the picture of Zooey on the cover of a Glamour magazine, she did an interview for the publication, and she had some pretty nice things to say:
On being a whimsical feminist: “I’m just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a f-cking feminist and wear a f-cking Peter Pan collar. So f-cking what?”
On her self image: “It’s just about doing what you like so that when you look at yourself, you’re not disgusted. And I’m all about unintentional. I’m not a calculated person.”
On thin celebrities: “Actresses have definitely gotten thinner over the course of my lifetime. Women I admired growing up—Debra Winger, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep—were all beautiful and thin, but not too thin. There are a lot of actresses who are unhealthy-skinny—much, much too skinny. You can’t Pilates to that. I’m a very small person, and if I lost 15 pounds, I’d look like them; it’s scary. For young girls, what does that say? You need to look this way to be successful? That’s not true. You do not need to look or be anorexic to be successful in Hollywood. The range of what’s acceptable is larger than what people believe.”
But Zooey, I want to be a f-cking feminist and wear a f-cking Peter Pan collar, too! Peter Pan collars are the most adorable thing.
Oh, but she makes a really, really good point, doesn’t she? I hate the kind of thinking that dictates that feminists look and act a certain way, because that’s kind of detrimental to the whole movement, you know? Like, why are you trying to put limitations on your sisters, crazy feminists? A girl can raise a couple thousand dollars for a women’s shelter and drool over the square dancing petticoats in her local western wear store (that’s me, you guys!).
As for the other stuff, I really don’t know how much I believe the thing about how you really don’t have to be thin in Hollywood. Maybe she’s talking about girls with body types more like hers – naturally thin but certainly healthy looking – and not straight up fat girls. Because as it is now, I think there’s just a very small handful of fat working actresses in Hollywood, and they’re usually just in roles about their fatness, which isn’t very cool.
Regardless, I LOVE YOU ZOOEY.
I love that, and I completely subscribe to it. The way I carry myself and the way I decided to dress or put on make up doesn’t make any less of a feminist. Telling a woman how to behave or how to dress is deeply un-feminist. However, it is also true we need to be aware of the patriarchal dynamics that make us feel pressured to dress more feminine etc, and challenge them.
I love Zoey! I agree feminist should not have to look or act a certain way BUT as far as not having to be sexy and thin to be successful in Hollywood that is another story. Easy for her to say it is ok to be a size 8, with famous parents and a face like that!