Dear Christina Hendricks,
It may be too late for a Valentine’s Day letter, but it’s never too late to tip your hat off to an exceptional woman in the industry. From your small screen appearance in Firefly as Saffron, to your current role as the feisty Joan Holloway in Mad Men, I can finally look at an actress in complete awe.
Having grown up looking like a hot mess (big forehead, small eyes, boobs larger than life and hips that don’t lie), it was hard to relate to anyone in the media. They were all prim, proper, skinny, sometimes plastic, and able to fit in a Diane von Furstenberg sample size. No one looked like me! Except for Velma from Scooby Doo but does a cartoon character even count? When you’re a couch potato going through puberty and you discover that everyone on television doesn’t look anything like you, you begin to build repulsion for your own alien appearance.
Then came you: fiery red hair, ample bosom, a grand derriere and even a cute "butt chin" to boot! All the attributes I’ve been taught by society to hate. It's rather refreshing to see such a divine resemblance on the television screen because it gave me hope that finally, perhaps Hollywood fell off the “Size Zero is the Hero” bandwagon.
But then came what none of us fans expected: heavy backlash. All last year and even this year the media has been criticising your size and shape. One writer for the New York Times looked at photos of your appearance at this year’s Golden Globes and said “you don’t put a big girl in a big dress”. The writer even dared to Photoshop a photo of you looking bigger. Throughout the country, women everywhere gasped in horror, dropping their tubs of Ben&Jerry ice creams. The unconstructive criticism on your body is an insult to all of us women who are trying to make best of what we were born with. It’s appalling that who I consider to be the epitome of the perfect woman is more known for her body than her acting chops.
I commend you for having the guts to speak out about the negative hysteria geared towards your natural figure. In the February 22nd issue of New York Magazine you expressed “It kind of hurt my feelings at first. Anytime someone talks about your figure constantly, you get nervous, you get really self-conscious.” You just said what millions of women around the world wish to say to their fellow bullies. Some of us haven't had to courage or the confidence to show that beauty doesn't come in one package. In a society that claims models Gemma Ward and Coco Rocha too fat to model, it’s hard for us normal girls to feel empowered and beautiful with our own bodies. I understand there are women who are born naturally waif thin, and no one has an issue with that. But for those women born naturally fuller, apparently that's a problem.
Kudos to you, though, for speaking up and getting people to finally back off and focus more on your talent. Hopefully this continues when other female artists grab the spotlight. We need more people like you, Christina. We need more women to fight against society’s standards of beauty. Beauty comes in all sizes and I thank you for being the one to bring curves back.
Love, Natalia.
