Jamie Lee Curtis hates Hollywood’s “conspiracy” against women

In the new issue of AARP The Magazine, Jamie Lee Curtis, 51, discusses the tremendous pressure on older actresses to get plastic surgery, and she plans to quit acting rather than going under the knife. Curtis says:

Everybody is saying that to get jobs you have to dye your hair and get injectables. It’s a conspiracy, a complete catastrophe, a surgical industrial complex. Somehow we are being fed this belief that to continue on we have to do this. Yet people are being disfigured. It’s shocking what people are doing to their faces… There are people who, when you see them on the screen, there’s an audible gasp of, ‘Oh my God. They look terrible.’ Or they’ve done something to themselves and now look like freaks.

Curtis adds that while a few natural-looking women like Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver are still winning good roles, she can name “30 other actresses” in their age group who can’t find work. As for Curtis, she refuses to submit to the “surgical industrial complex” and says, “I’m getting my ass out of this business in a few years because genetically it’s not going to work for me.” Article by Jezebel * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hell. Yeah. She’s so right – it is absolutely insane that people are being pressured to alter themselves, when so often these “improvements” lead to either further problems or something that looks much worse than the original. She’s going to do what I wish more people would do – rather than change herself to get work, just leave the industry. She’ll be able to do many other things, or retire if she wishes. But she’ll do it on her terms. Thank god someone still has a brain (I do, by the way, LOVE Meryl Streep).

I’m not sure if any of you have heard or remember this, but Jamie Lee Curtis has always taken a strong stand against Hollywood and these destructive messages. Several years ago, she posed in her underwear for More Magazine. She was in her bedroom, with no lighting, no stylists, no clever camera angling and no airbrushing.

Along with the article was also an image of herself dolled up, where she revealed to the magazine that it took 13 people and 3 hours to make her look like that.

The article, published in 2002, created a lot of buzz. Because even though it was three decades into the women’s movement, it was still radical for a woman to accept her body as it is. And Jamie was a 43 year old mom to two children.

Susan Crandall, editor-in-chief of More magazine (targeted to women in their 40s and 50s) said, “We knew the article was important, but we didn’t know how huge it would be. Even a 23-year-old assistant at the ‘Today’ show, after we were on last week, said that the article made her feel so much better about her body.”

‘Today’ interviewer Campbell Brown seemed aghast at Curtis’ boldness, and asked Jamie Lee Curtis if she was scared to pose for the photo in an interview.

“What I’m scared of is that that’s what women have become accustomed to needing to feel good about themselves,” Curtis replied. “And show business and media and magazines don’t help by promoting these images of women that are completely airbrushed, that are completely altered, to then give you, the unsuspecting buyer, this fake sense of that’s what people are supposed to look like.” The idea for the photo came from Jamie’s fifth children’s book, “I’m Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem.” “I felt that if I’m going to try to promote something where I’m trying to explain self-esteem to children, I needed to live it,” she said on the “Today” show. “And for me to live it means I need to be the person I look at every morning when I wake up and stand in the mirror, you know, kind of as God intended me to look.” I love Jamie Lee Curtis for doing this and speaking out! I know that one photo and a few words won’t change the world, but maybe it’ll change a few listening minds. We’ve been trying so hard to get the world to accept us for who we are, we never figured out how to accept ourselves. I’ve been thinking for some time of having a gallery for all of us – our bodies, our thoughts, our smiles. All the things that we feel and think about ourselves. I think it could be sort of a self-reflection/embrace yourself online forum. What do you guys think of that?

About The Author

Patricia Colli, Editor of Beutiful Magazine, is a human rights activist, equality advocate, and promoter of health, acceptance and wellbeing. Having experienced disordered eating, unhealthy exercise patterns and poor body image, she is especially passionate about shedding light on eating disorders and the power of body acceptance.