On Tuesday, Jennifer Aniston published an essay in The Huffington Post that finally addressed the endless array of pregnancy rumors about her on the Internet.
Aniston wrote that she’s “fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body-shaming that occurs daily,” noting how harshly tabloids treat females in particular.
No, the actress emphasized, she is not pregnant and she has never been pregnant.
But speculation over the state of her womb was just the symptom of a larger problem, she wrote.
“The objectification and scrutiny we put women through is absurd and disturbing,” said Aniston, adding:
“The message that girls are not pretty unless they’re incredibly thin, that they’re not worthy of our attention unless they look like a supermodel or an actress on the cover of a magazine is something we’re all willingly buying into.”
Praise for the column has been nearly universal, with husband Justin Theroux making it clear that THIS is why Aniston is his crush.
Elsewhere, Melissa McCarthy told Entertainment Tonight that she agrees “one hundred thousand billion percent” with Anisto, while Sophia Bush said the following:
YES to this #WCW to #JenniferAniston, & her frank, smart, vulnerable article on body shaming for HuffPo…
Judging another person’s body, assuming you are allowed to weigh in on their worth, their ‘beauty,’ or that you deserve to determine a lack of their beauty IS harmful. Not just to me, to all of us.
So there you have it.
All hail Jennifer Aniston, right?
Not quite.
In his own essay published by The Daily Mail, Piers Morgan acknowledged a few of Aniston’s points, but also somehow turned the tables and blamed the actress for having her body judged.
“My dear Jennifer, if you’re so fed up with having your body judged, stop trying to make it look so Photoshop-perfect on magazine covers,” Morgan wrote.
He continued:
“There’s another reason why the media objectify and scrutinize famous women, and why little girls get confused about beauty and body image. It’s this:
“Female stars like Jennifer Aniston deliberately perpetuate the myth of ‘perfection’ by posing for endless magazine covers which have been airbrushed so much that in some cases the celebrity is virtually unrecognizable…
“If she really wants to make a difference to this ugly process, she can start by getting a tiny bit uglier herself and letting us see what she REALLY looks like on a magazine cover.
“Then the little girls she’s so worried about can know exactly what they are aspiring to be.”
Wow. Well… okay then.
Morgan has a decent point somewhere in here.
Young women are absolutely influenced by magazine covers and the less celebrities are Photoshopped, the more people can see how everyone has imperfections, the better. For sure.
But Morgan’s point can exist alongside all of Aniston’s points. Her words don’t ring any less true just because of this Photoshop counter.
Moreover, telling a woman that she is to blame for having her body judged because she ought to make herself “uglier” is just… very, very, very uncool.
We’ll let Chrissy Teigen take it from here:
