Rebecca Adlington’s Nose Gives The Mail, Sun And Daily Mirror Abuse Amnesia On Fat And Ugly Wayne Rooney
EVERYONE and their dog has been sticking up for Rebecca Adlington. Apparently, she may or may not have had a nose job. It’s her business, her money and she can do as she pleases.
However, that’s not everything cleared up.
You see, everyone now has to fret and fuss, wondering if this is all the result of years of cruel jibes she’s received on Twitter and from comedians like Frankie Boyle.
Of course, the issue of women being pressured to fit a certain look, or be expected to be good looking if they’re going to be successful is a dreadful narrative that has cropped after, at long last, women started to call bullshit on the practice. It’d be wonderful if we lived in a world where we were celebrated for what we could do, rather than how we look.
Adlington broke down during her appearance on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!, talking about her issues with her looks, feelings of inadequacy, saying: “Every day I look in the mirror and go, ‘God, I’m not pretty. I’ve got a very big nose’.”
It’s heartbreaking stuff.
“That’s what most of the negative comments on Twitter are about – my nose. People say ‘Oh God you look like a dolphin’, or ‘I didn’t realise they let whales into the Olympics, but at least you should be able to swim faster. I’d have it straightened. But I couldn’t float the idea of having a nose job before, because with swimming you only get two weeks off a year.”
“Would I have it done now? I’d probably have it straightened. But it’s really got to suit your face.”
“It was the hardest thing to get used to, I thought: ‘ Why do people judge me for the way I look?’ It’s not as if I was trying to be a model. I always had a bit of an insecurity about the way I looked growing up. I knew that I wasn’t the most attractive girl at school. Even when I’d been on a night out, no boys would want to talk to me. So those comments hurt.”
Nobody needs that do they? It’s an awful business. She continued… and this is where she isn’t wholly correct: “It’s hard for a woman. A woman has to deal with it – and that’s never easy. A guy doesn’t get comments on his weight or his looks.”
Adlington clearly hasn’t been witness to a group of men singing “who ate all the pies – you fat bastard” to a man, famous or not, who is a little on the rotund side.
Adlington clearly doesn’t recall the collective jeering at Wayne Rooney for looking like Shrek, or indeed, the continual hoots of derision that he was struggling with male pattern baldness.
Only last November, the Mirror ran a piece which chronicled the fattest footballers in history. There’s even a website dedicated to ugly footballers.
Naturally, because men who play football get stick for their looks or weight, it doesn’t mean that it is fine to sling mud at other athletes (whatever their field or gender), but it is a common misnomer that male celebrities are exempt from attacks on their appearance. What’s the first thing you think of when someone mentions Barry Manilow? Val Kilmer is widely derided for not being as svelt as he once was. Remember the uproar when Robbie Williams was referred to as “the fat dancer from Take That”?
It goes without saying that women have more pressure poured onto them for their appearance, but to suggest that men don’t is naive at best, ignorant at worst.
Finally, get a load of the Daily Mail’s plain pun:
Nice.
Posted: 25th, February 2014 | In: Reviews, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
