In the movie The Black Dahlia (2006), based on her infamous murder, struggling actress Elizabeth Short (aka “The Black Dahlia,” played by Mia Kirshner) is shown auditioning for role after role.
Scarlett Johansson (who acted in the movie) said she has “a lot of friends who are very talented actors and musicians who struggle…
“Any time that you are involved in a field that’s revolving around vanity of some sort with a high rate of failure, it can breed a desperation in people that doesn’t always have a happy ending.
“I think that kind of ambition with no end can really make for a lot of nastiness… Especially being surrounded by a lot of artists who struggle and watching them struggle.. I feel very, very lucky.”
[From interview: Scarlett Johansson Talks About The Black Dahlia, By Rebecca Murray.]
The pressures for the skinny look
For many women on screen and on stage in film and music, not to mention modeling, the “nastiness” can include pressures to be stick-skinny.
Johansson – and many of us men who appreciate voluptuous feminine beauty like hers – thinks the really skinny look is “unsexy.”
Johansson says, “I try to stay fit and eat healthily, but I’m not anxious to starve myself and become unnaturally thin. I don’t find that look attractive on women and I don’t want to become part of that trend.
“It’s unhealthy and it puts too much pressure on women in general who are being fed this image of the ideal, which it is not.
“I think America has become obsessed with dieting… I also think that being ultra-thin is not sexy at all. Women shouldn’t be forced to conform to unrealistic and unhealthy body images that the media promote.
“I don’t need to be skinny to be sexy.” [From CelebSource.org]
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Speaking as an outsider – not a woman, and not a performer – one reason I am posting on this topic is that it seems to me there are many talented women in entertainment who get diverted from pursuing the development of their creative talents, and suffer erosion of their self esteem, because of those unhealthy body image demands.
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Here are a couple more comments on body image:
Cameron Diaz once said in Vogue magazine that she always wanted to “be a fleshy, voluptuous woman… the kind that bursts out of her clothing, displaying her wealth of femininity.”
Model Crystal Renn has commented in tv interviews she is much happier and saner now as a plus size model than when she was starving herself earlier in her career. She is reportedly 5’9, size 12, 38c-30-42 and works with fashion photographer Steven Meisel, and designers Jean-Paul Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana and others.
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I also appreciate that Scarlett Johansson has commented about her high sensitivity:
“I think I was born with a great awareness of my surroundings and an awareness of other people… Sometimes that awareness is good, and sometimes I wish I wasn’t so sensitive.”
Quoted in two posts:
Relationships can be challenging for highly sensitive people.
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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