Beanie Feldstein, star of the critically acclaimed movie Lady Bird and Broadway revival Funny Girl, is getting candid about body image and her weight loss. Daughter to a fashion stylist mom and a dad who managed a tour account for Gun’s and Roses, Beanie Feldstein, who also happens to be the younger sibling of Jonah Hill, has made a name for herself in the Hollywood industry through her powerful performances and a body-positive attitude.
Sharing her experiences about body image, the star shares how compliments about her weight loss made her write an article where she asked people to “stop complimenting on my body.” During her ten-month run on the Broadway show “Hello Dolly,” she lost weight due to the physically demanding routine; she received “compliments” on her weight loss, which felt unsolicited and negative.
Her article resonated with many people who shared how they received compliments on weight loss that occurred due to illnesses. In an interview, she says
“Our society has conflated thinness with goodness. ‘Thin equals good, fat equals bad.’ And I think it’s so damaging. It’s frightening, honestly.”
In an interview with Vogue, she shared how she struggled with the conventional beauty standards:
“It was clear to me that I was chubby and that I was bigger, and for a long time because I was a kid, I would do what the adults were telling me to do, which is to try to not be that way,”
She recalls how she was on Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig in her early teens.
“I think I felt a lot of pressure from society, from my family, from my community.”
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This thought process and pressure changed into self-acceptance during her late teens. She reflects:
“Around 16 or 17, I just thought, ‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me.’
Beanie is not happy with Hollywood’s interpretation of body image and feels it is cruel. In her interview with Vogue she has some choice words for Hollywood beauty standards:
I realized, ‘I’m not the problem. This standard is the problem. Those standards are punishing in Hollywood; I have friends who used to have to ‘weigh in’ for their musical-theatre programs. That should be illegal.”
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The star, in an interview, reflects how as she has gotten older, her perception and stance about her body have changed into an unapologetic one. This has made her selective in her choice of work as she vets the acting roles based on how they discuss bodies. She shares:
“Unfortunately, my whole life, even as a little girl, my weight was something that I had to include in my narrative of myself, and as I got older, I just refused to accept it. And so, I want to be a part of art that refuses to accept it as well. I’m very specific about parts I take in terms of how they discuss bodies.”
As a person who chose to defy Hollywood beauty standards and choose to make her acting about her talent rather than her weight, she annunciates her views on the subject and says:
“Women specifically, but also men and non-binary people, are shamed, watched and monitored. “Our society is so deeply obsessed with tracking and monitoring people’s bodies, and it’s so ridiculous to me. Our bodies are these beautiful things, and they can be strong or sexy or cozy. They’re our vehicle to get through the world. My biggest hope for society is just to accept people where they are in that given moment and to not really give a damn.”
