A MERE FIFTEEN minutes after posting a photograph of herself on Instagram, Anna Faris deleted it.
Its erasure just so happened to coincide with an onslaught of messages from members of the public, pronouncing Anna to be too thin.
Anna Faris is thin; she’s also 5’4″, with a small frame and pixie-like features.
And ever since we first met her in her role as Cindy Campbell in the Wayans Brothers’s Scary Movie 18 years ago, she has been thin, 5’4″ in height, with a small frame and pixie-like features.
Her weight doesn’t seem to have fluctuated to any great extent over the course of the last two decades – and certainly not enough to attract any substantial media scrutiny – and yet she has not escaped body-shaming on a public platform.
This week, Anna posted the following photograph of herself, and wrote:
Having pre-show jitters — so glad Michael Sherman captured it — also I eventually decided to put on pants.
And then came the body-shaming.
Anna’s appearance was dubbed ‘alarming’, ‘unhealthy’ and ‘a cry for help’, with many followers encouraging the mother-of-one ‘to eat’.
As we all know, the advent of social media bridged a gap between the public and the world of celebrity.
Since the launch of Twitter in 2006 and the establishment of Instagram in 2010, it’s never been so easy for someone to engage with a celebrity and, should they wish, criticise that celebrity.
‘Celebrities Read Mean Tweets’ is a hugely popular segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live while a variation of the word ‘troll’ was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2014; both of which illustrate the regularity with which social media is used to deride people.
And when it comes to celebrity; it’s seemingly fair game.
It can be argued that these people have willingly placed themselves in the public eye and should be acutely aware that criticism does, and always will, go with the territory. And yes, of course they should. To assume anything else would be naive, but where should the line be drawn?
The birth of social media has led many to believe that immunity has been granted when it comes to comments they wouldn’t consider making to a peer’s face, not lest to that of a high-profile individual whose account they cared enough to follow.
There are very few among us who can claim we’ve never criticised a celebrity or sent screenshots of their latest upload to a friend with a scornful assessment in tow, but what causes an individual to take that extra step and openly deride their appearance on a public platform in the hopes they’ll see it?
For many, social media has become a shield from which to hide behind; a vehicle for negativity, a means with which to condemn, and everyone else is just collateral damage.
Anna is, first and foremost, a 41-year-old woman; likely with her own insecurities, hang-ups and perceived flaws.
She posted a fairly candid – as celebrity uploads go – photograph of herself alongside a caption which implied she was feeling less than confident, and still the criticism flooded in.
Yes; much of it was under the guise of concern, but there are few who could miss the critical undertones this supposed concern floated upon.
Interestingly, those who give themselves permission to criticise celebrities online, but wouldn’t dare do it to a standard member of the public are missing a vital point.
For every derogatory remark or scathing assessment of a celebrity’s body they choose to put their name to, they’re contributing to a culture of body-shaming which has, and continues to, affect the public in myriad ways.
