Anna Nicole Memorial... Marshmallows?

Here are two rather bizarre tributes to Anna Nicole Smith: Michael Levitt's Rest in Peeps (Anna Nicole has been sculpted out of marshmallow peeps and is featured on the cover of Peeple) and this sad sparkling clown painting by Rene Garcia, Jr. I don't know which one is more unsettling, so I'll let you decide.

Thanks to Kaylin for the links!

Oh, Lettucecup

Rachel "Lettucecup" Zoe, celebrity stylist to the stars, has long been linked to various blind items and gossip tidbits like this one on Nicole Ritchie's MySpace a while back. (What 35 year old raisin face whispers her order of 3 peices of asparagus for dinner at Chateau everynight, and hides her deathly disorder by pointing the finger at me, and used her last paycheck I wrote her to pay for a publisist instead of a nutritionist?)

Zoe has also famously been accused of pushing diet pills on her clients. Stars who've signed on with Zoe and gotten dangerously thin include not only Ritchie but also Mischa Barton, Lindsay Lohan, and Kiera Knightley. Circumstantial evidence! My favorite kinds!

Rachel Zoe did an interview with the New York Times denying the diet pill allegations:

"Sounding by turns wounded and willful, she added: 'I’ve never touched a drug in my life. Until recently, I didn’t even know what crystal meth was. And I haven’t known the name of a diet drug since Dexatrim in the ’80s. The only person I’ve told to lose weight is my mom.'"

It's amazing that she hangs out with Lindsay Lohan and doesn't know what crystal meth is. I mean come on, how disingenuous can you be? In other words: I don't buy it. Also, she's kind of a bitch to her mom, isn't she?

F-Word You, Good Housekeeping

While skimming the archives of my newest blog find, the F-Word, I ran across this entry, discussing the newest issue of Good Housekeeping with Kate Winslet on the cover.

The cover quotes Winslet saying "I don't worry about weight anymore." Of course I applaud that statement, but it indicates that the focus of the article is--as usual--on Kate Winslet's weight. I mean my god, she is thin. She is gorgeous. She is perfect. She is fine. And yet her weight is constantly being harped on; it's exhausting. And the F-Word pointed out the other irony, so typical of women's magazines:

"[W]hile Winslet offers a ray of sanity in this thin-idolized culture that should be lauded, the magazine’s sing-it-sister copy is hopelessly rendered moot by the larger, overshadowing print above: 'The No-Hunger Diet: Stop starving, start losing.'"

Sigh.

Stand By Your Woman

Recently, an obese woman who didn't realize she was pregnant gave birth to a son. This article discusses the hateful comments that have been directed at this woman on a newspaper website due to her size, as well as comments made by the woman (April Branum) and her fiance(Walter Edwards II) in her defense.

"'I just glanced at the comments, and I was, like, "whatever,"' Branum, 39, said in a recent interview. 'Being big all your life, you expect it. I'm sure there are more people who think it but just don't say it.'

Walter Edwards II – her fiancé and the baby's father – reacted less nonchalantly, calling The Orange County Register to complain about the hateful, uncensored comments being posted about Branum, whose obesity likely prevented her from being aware of the pregnancy. "If I could reach through my computer and strangle them, I would," Edwards said.

With Branum's story, readers commented on her sexual relations with her fiancé, her eating and exercise habits, and her abilities as a mother. Some comments were removed by staff because of a policy prohibiting vulgarity and personal attacks."

Some people have cancelled their subscriptions due to these comments, but April Branum herself seems too busy with her newborn to be bothered too much. There are pictures accompanying the article. And really, no matter what you think of the parents, that is one cute baby.

Dear Nigel Lythgoe: I am fat and I have sex and get naked. A lot. Thank you.

I'm a little late to the party with this, but I've been really bothered by the fact that Frenchie Davis was unceremoniously kicked off the second season of American Idol for topless photos on the internet, while X-rated photos of Antonella Barba emerged that show her topless while actually engaged in the act of sex (Granted, not according to the Clintonian definition, but we'll go with the definition of the current White House administration, shall we?) and yet we were still subjected to weeks of her tone deaf warbling until America collectively spat her out.

One argument is that Davis was paid for modeling while Barba is just a cheap date. But what is also interesting is that Davis claims that she disclosed the existence of the photos to AI producers from the start, while I somehow doubt that Barba disclosed her night of too many Flirtinis with her date and his camera phone.

Davis is black, plus-sized, and immensely talented. Barba is white, looks like a Bratz doll, and has marginal vocal ability. While there have been black idols and overweight idols that have gone quite far, do the producers prefer their Idols lumped into one of two categories: either you're a sex symbol or you are nontraditionally attractive yet powerfully talented. And while it is possible to be sexy and talented (see Clarkson, Kelly), please don't remind the nation that fat people have sex.

Is it justified that Frenchie got shown the door while Antonella continued to perform each week? Am I just being over-sensitive to fatism and continuing to show my bias toward plus-sized Idol contestants? Would Mandisa have been kicked out if candid photos had surfaced of her giving her man some oral pleasure?

Cognitive Dissonance is a Good Word For It

"Dissonance" therapy addresses, amongst other things, the media's thin-biased bullshit. This, in turn, helps to alleviate the symptoms of eating disorders. A crazy coincidence? Somehow, I don't think so.

Wanna Be On Top

Tonight! The premiere of season 8 of American's Next Top Model, the show that has nothing at all to do with the real modeling industry in any way whatsoever.

I am excited for this season, because there is not one, but two plus size models joining the hopefuls, and maybe somehow, being together and having each other to eat ham with will stop the usual plus-sized model's fate on this show, wherein she goes from being praised for her spirit and beauty to being told she has lost her "spark," after spending weeks living with 11 skinny girls and not fitting into designers' clothes and being hated by photographers.

Maybe this time, the plus size girls will stage a coup. Viva las booties! Should be a pip.

What do you think? Will they make it past the early weeks?

Thou shalt have no fat idols before me

As anyone who reads Weetapidol could already tell you, I have an automatic fat bias toward talented plus size girls. So when I automatically fell in love with Jordin Sparks, I thought maybe it was because she was not the standard product of the Hollywood machine. And then I even wondered if she was plus sized at all, because maybe she was just a size 8 standing next to a bunch of size 0s, like Allison's model during the recycling challenge on last season's Project Runway. However, then I learned that Jordin's a Torrid Model Search winner, so she is wearing their clothes, which start at size 12. And then I worried that it was my fat bias making me think she was more talented than she is, since I am completely and utterly in love with Lakisha too.

But then I remembered that the only way to get onto the stage next to Ryan Seacrest is if you have enough real talent to overcompensate for a Rubenesque figure (ha! Oh! I am funny). Instead of worrying that I am undeservedly cheering for fat girls, I should probably be irritated that talentless goat singers like Antonella "Adult Content" Barba are being taken seriously just because they look like Bratz dolls.

It probably makes me shallow, but now that I've sorted that out, I'm really more interested in finding out where Lakisha and Jordin are getting their outfits for the show. SO CUTE!