Pamela Anderson without makeup and Demi Moore without flesh

Women's bodies are criticised however they look

I’ve been watching the red carpets this past week. Which is to say: I’ve been watching images of red carpets on Instagram. This used to be fun for me; as you may know I’m pretty interested in fashion, and I always loved looking at the outfits and doing my own personal internal best-and-worst-dressed lists.

But social media being what it is, there’s a different narrative emerging now, and it’s less about outfits and more about bodies.

Demi Moore is on a professional high right now off the back of her movie The Substance (which despite its theme of ageing which is really interesting to me, I have not seen because I can’t stand gory horror stuff. If anyone has, please report back). Earlier this week Moore appeared on the SAG Awards red carpet in a black strapless Botega Venetta leather gown. I mean, wow. But she looked, it must be said, extremely thin, as you can see here.

The reactions to her appearance contrasted. Fashion press raved: ‘Demi Moore embraces a playful edge’; ‘Demi Moore Turns Up the Heat in a Dramatic Drop-Waist Gown’; ‘Demi Moore Rocks Her Edgiest Red Carpet Look Yet’, etc.

And of course there’s the Daily Mail, which can always be relied upon for a take straight from 1985: ‘Demi Moore, 62, shows off lithe frame in skintight black dress’.

Social media had a bit of a different take. A random sampling of Instagram comments:

“Wait what? Is she on drugs or sick?”

“Demi is a goddess and she’s SKIN and BONES! What entity is letting these people believe they look healthy? She’s beautiful and she deserves better than this BS team she has”.

“This is beyond sad. WTF”

“It’s the Semaglutide [weight-loss drug]. Almost all of them are on it.”

It was a similar story for Ariana Grande and Brooke Shields, who also looked very, very thin.

My own reaction to this evolved a bit over time. Gut reaction - especially to Demi - was: Ooooh, she does not look well. Or good. Ariana - much the same; she looked unwell to me.

All of these women look fragile; frail; breakable. It’s a distraction - a sad one - from their amazing achievements. Moore won yet another Best Actress award that night; Grande’s film ‘Wicked’ is now the highest-grossing film based on a Broadway musical ever.

On reflection, I also realised there’s another dimension to this.

Women’s bodies are criticised no matter how they look. If these famous women had shown up in larger bodies than we’d seen them in before, do you think the commentary would have been any less critical?

Given what ordinary civilian women face, I can only imagine the pressure women in Hollywood are under to conform to strict body and beauty ideals. Add an extra layer if you’re older. I would not want that pressure for any money.

The UK writer Suzanne Moore wrote a piece critical of what she called the ‘lollipop’ bodies on the red carpet in the Telegraph. She concludes:

This pageant of shrunken women is not about weight loss but loss of another kind. The loss of individuality, the loss of the beauty of female flesh in its infinite variety. And it is about the loss of that which is most feared in our culture: female appetite. Suppress it at all costs, is the sad message these skeletal bodies are sending out, however you dress it up.

She may well be right. We internalise a shit ton of misogyny when it comes to body image and size. We are conditioned not to want to take up space.

There’s something else, though, and it’s really important.

We don’t know what is going on in the life of Demi Moore. We don’t know her mental state; her stress level; her health status. We don’t know how healthy she is, based on how she appears on the outside.

And that is true for every person. Our external appearance is not a signifier of how healthy (or not) we are. And size - whatever our size - is not a proxy for health. It’s worth repeating that as needed.

Also on the SAG red carpet was Pamela Anderson. She was - as she has been for a while - free of makeup. I thought she looked magnificent. Here are some words I never thought I would write: I feel inspired by Pamela Anderson. She is presenting herself just as she is, and no longer conforming to the rules about how she should look in order to please any of us. I am here for it.

It’s surprising how much this seems to have triggered people, though. And not just her male fans, either. Lots of women have weighed in with thoughts on how much better Pam would look with ‘just a little something’ on her face. The Daily Mail, again, came in with a tone-deaf headline: ‘Pamela Anderson, 57, shocks fans by looking exhausted at SAG Awards’.

No, dude: she is just wearing no makeup, and showing her perfectly normal, beautiful, 57-year-old face under the bright lights of a red carpet.

I loved Tova Leigh’s take on this on Instagram. Writing about the women who said Anderson looked ‘old’ or ‘washed out’, or who said ‘I would never allow myself to do that’, she acknowledged that lots of us feel like we can’t - or couldn’t - face the world bare-faced:

Because while, in theory, we all have the right to choose how we age, the truth is many women don’t actually feel free to make that choice. Society is cruel to women. It’s harsh on us in ways men will never fully understand. Men get to age, and no one blinks an eye. They’re called “silver foxes” while women are accused of “letting themselves go.” Older men are seen as sexy, while women are dismissed as irrelevant.

For generations, women have not been allowed to age. We’ve been expected to stay youthful forever, or disappear into the shadows where no one has to see us. But then there are women like Pamela Anderson (and others), who are giving themselves permission to not only age without apologising for it, but also - not to hide!

So, duly inspired, I gave myself permission to not wear makeup on Tuesday, as an experiment. Adorned with nothing but sunscreen and lip balm, I went about my business. I went out to run some errands and get a blood test. I interviewed an expert via Zoom for a story. And I went into RNZ for a regular appearance on The Panel. All makeup free.

And - surprise - nothing happened. The earth did not spin off its axis. No-one treated me differently from normal. It did not interfere with my work and no-one told me I looked tired. How about that.

I am not sure I’d brave a red carpet makeup-free… I don’t have any planned in the foreseeable future, luckily. So baby steps.

today’s makeup-free face

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