A friend of mine swears he once heard two people in a Hollywood talent agency agree that Jennifer Aniston, the attractive and phenomenally talented actress and comedienne, was “starting to look a little plump”.
For the record, this is categorical nonsense. Jennifer Aniston – a person who, in the interests of full disclosure I must say I have met only once, in passing – is the very picture of slender and physical health. She looks, simply put, terrific.
But there are large communities in Hollywood – agents, managers, casting directors, producers, those sorts of folks – who maintain a vigilant eye on every prominent actress, always ready to sound the She’s Getting Fat alarm. Again – for the record – Jennifer Aniston looks fit and fantastic, but she’s also one of the most photographed women in the world, and as everyone knows, if you take enough pictures of someone at some point one of those pictures is going to make that person look a little bit chunky. Maybe it’s the angle of the chin, maybe it’s the lighting, maybe it’s the too-sharp focus – whatever the precise reason, there’s a Law of Fat Face Averages when it comes to pictures: no matter how good-looking you are, eventually you’re going to look fat.
The reason we all know this, of course, is because with the explosion of smart phones and selfies and Instagram, all of us are photographed much more frequently than we used to be.
A casual click through your Facebook account will reveal lots of posed “spontaneous” candids and scrolls of incredibly uncasual casual snapshots, and despite our best efforts – chin up, eyes wide, teeth apart – we don’t always look our best.
But it’s still remarkably unfair the way Hollywood monitors every prominent female performer for signs of flab while at the same time turning a near-blind eye to their male counterparts.
Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, recently photographed lounging in the sun at the Cannes Film Festival, looks a little like someone who needs to lay off the carbohydrates for a while. The paparazzi caught DiCaprio on various shirtless occasions, each time capturing the sagging roundness of his distended belly – too many times for it to be a mistake, or a one-off trick of the light. Leonardo DiCaprio, it must be admitted, is on his way to being a middle-aged fat man. The sleek young boy of Titanic is gone, and has been replaced by a flabby and bloated man.
Leonardo DiCaprio has what is now called a “dad bod” – that is, the body of a middle-aged dad who hasn’t been to the gym in several years.
“Dad bod”, for those of you keeping track, isn’t meant as an insult. It’s actually a compliment. But it’s useful to note that while men who have “dad bods” are thought attractive and desirable, there is as yet no such thing as a “mum bod”. If and when there is, you can be certain it won’t be a compliment.
DiCaprio is a famous binge gainer. He’ll bulk up during his time off and then slim down for his movie roles, but as those of us who are no longer in their 30s will tell you, that trick gets harder to pull off with every passing year.
Eventually the binge gainers end up like the great actor and director Orson Welles – also considered a handsome leading man in his youth – who gained and lost and gained again so much weight during his career that he eventually just surrendered to the dessert plate, and tried to cover up his enlarging body with a never-ending series of large cloaks, black wraps, big hats and loops of vintage Victorian scarves.
But no one looks fatter than a fat man trying not to look fat.
What’s remarkable, though, is that despite Orson Welles’ increased size – and this is the case with DiCaprio as well – he had no trouble surrounding himself with attractive Hollywood starlets.
Last week, as DiCaprio lumbered and (no doubt) snacked his way along the French Riviera, he was accompanied by a bevy of glamorous women, none of whom, I’m certain, gave DiCaprio a disapproving glance as he reached for another slice of pizza or extolled the virtues of salad in a loud voice designed to be overheard. Different standards prevail.
What DiCaprio eats – which is everything, it seems – or doesn’t eat – which is nothing, it seems – during his off-times is his business. None of us – especially me, who hasn’t removed his shirt in public during this century – has any right to criticise him for his obvious love of the good life.
But it is worth noting that DiCaprio is given wide latitude to look any way he wants when he’s not working, whereas a female star in Hollywood is not. Female stars are expected to stay in picture-ready trim at all times, and those that don’t run the very real risk of not getting cast in the next big movie. Female stars like Jennifer Aniston, who has barely a gram of fat on her entire body, can be called “fat” without irony.
All of which makes me glad that I’m just a writer. If you think “dad bod” has gone too far, just wait until you see “writer bod”. There’s a reason they keep us on the other side of the camera lens.
Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood
On Twitter: @rcbl
