Jennifer Garner: on losing baby weight (yawn)

You would think that considering Jen Garner's daughter Violet is not 22 months old, journalists would be sick of asking her questions about how she lost her baby weight. But low and behold, in the Herald Sun Sunday magazine, Garner says she didn't feel the need to lose her baby weight quickly (which contradicts various other reports around the time that she was actually losing the weight). She says:

'I went back to work on Alias very soon after giving birth, but I didn't lose the weight quickly. I can see why women look at Hollywood and wonder how they do it, because I couldn't until I finished on Alias. I was a working mum- of course I didn't have time'.

She also says that since becoming a mother, her days of waking up at 3:30 to work out are long gone.

'I barely recognise that woman. These days, pilates makes me happy and I do five or six workouts a week. I love a basic workout and do it in the mornings to get it over with, but I'll gladly cancel if Viole has been up in the night. I try to be kind to myself when it comes to eating and staying in shape'.

Pilates. BAH! Seriously, pilates is such a cop out. She has a trainer. Like every other actress in Hollywood. Get over yourself. She gets paid to look amazing. I'm really over the 'I'm just a normal woman' routine. Why is she 'super woman' just because she has the luxury of hanging out with her baby all day? Most women would kill for that if they didn't have to have a full-time job with being a mother that cannot afford a nanny!

As if to prove the point, she goes on to say:

'I do eat chocolate. I keep really good chocolate in the house and take bites of it several times a day. Although, it times of crisis, there's nothing wrong with plain old M & Ms'.

Now, if this was Britney Spears, she would be accused of being a bad mother for eating chocolate, for being 'fat' and for not working out enough. Interesting how some celebrities are praised for being 'normal' and seemingly undisciplined whereas others like Spears are criticised for not being disciplined enough.

Source: Sunday magazine, 30 September, pp. 16-18.

Ask the stylist (for the most impractical maternity fashion advice you've ever heard)

Leave it to the 'stylist' who likens contemporary maternity fashion to 'nauseating visions of Laura Ashley-inspired floral prints' to give advice to a pregnant reader in need of some brand new duds. Yesterday in M magazine, the supplement to the Sunday Age, stylist Sophie Hexter attempted to sort out the style woes of this woman of 24 weeks:

Q: Good news, I'm pregnant. Bad news, nothing fits any more. What can I wear to work that won't make me look like a whale? I've got three months to go and don't want to fork out on designer maternity gear I will never wear again.

And Hexter's answer...

Amongst her suggestions, 'buying clothes in bigger sizes'...for anyone that has ever been pregnant, you know that at a certain stage, 'buying a bigger size' results in an item of clothing that only fits around the bump and is too loose everywhere else. This is why good maternity fashion is exactly that..fashionable...and also accommodates a changing shape. It drives me insane that whenever pregnancy fashion comes up in magazines or newspapers, journalists or stylists hesitate to highlight some of the amazing local maternity fashion happening here in Melbourne and which are now international brands. It is so ridiculous to keep referring back to floral print pinafores and big Peter Pan collars. Maternity wear has changed just as much as experiences of pregnancy and you don't need to buy expensive maternity wear to find good pieces that can go the distance in the pregnancy and after. Most of the maternity designers I have spoken to have a fashion background and have worked in mainstream fashion for many years before making the switch to maternity. These are women that know style.

Hexter only highlights mainstream fashion for the reason that it can be worn after pregnancy. But seriosuly, buying clothing a few sizes too big isn't going to fit after baby is born even if you are carrying a bit of extra weight. Today, most maternity designers produce clothing that can be worn post-baby (hello, Lycra!) and in fact, most women are wearing maternity clothing for up to a year post-birth. What annoys me the most are the outfit options she suggests (shown in image):

Willow dress: $994

Guiseppe Zanotti flats: $995

Feathers jacket: $389

Feathers dress: $199

Sambag boots: $450

Stella McCartney cuff: $450

TOTAL: $3,477

Are you kidding me? The average woman can barely afford to pay for prenatal care, let alone spend nearly $3,500 on two outfits. What a ridiculous waste of an article and an opportunity to give women practical advice on looking fabulous during pregnancy! Give me a bloody break...Take a hint from the designing women at Soon, Ripe and Egg and you will see that pregnancy does not have to be 9 months of fashion hell (most of these are available in the US as well).

For real maternity fashion ideas, check out:

www.soonmelbourne.com

www.ripe.com.au

www.egg.co.nz

www.queenbee.com.au

Pregnant pictures

I just came across the work of a Chicago photographer who is documenting pregnancy with more than just images. Claude-Aline Nazaire, founder of Essential Blueprints, photographs women over their entire pregnancy in order to capture the shape of motherhood. According to a recent article about the company in the Chicago Sun-Times:

"A photo journal from her company, Essential Blueprints, costs $1,500 to $3,000, but mothers-to-be get the full treatment from Nazaire. She sets up photo sessions, both at her sun-filled studio in the Fine Arts Building and at clients’ homes, to trace the woman’s changing body; she conducts interviews for a DVD; she requests periodic journal entries; she photographs the family once the baby is born, and she incorporates it all — even ultrasounds — into a scrapbook, bound in Italy".

Nazaire started the company as a result of the death of her sister's 2 week old daughter realising that her sister was without very many memories of the baby's short life.

Nazaire thinks it’s important that women slow down to be “present” in pregnancy. “You’re transforming from a woman to a mother,” she says. “This is your time.”

I'm extremely interested in this business because it so closely models what I do in my work; asking women to reflect on their changing bodies at a time when most women do not have the opportunity to really speak candidly about being pregnant. As opposed to just having a few images to document maternity, this is an opportunity for women to create a sort of 'living' journal...

Sources: www.essentialblueprints.com
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/579234,cst-ftr-lifephotog28.article#

Nicole Ritchie's bump show

Us magazine has a created a slideshow documenting the 'evolution' of Nicole Ritchie's baby bump. Considering how thin she was, Ritchie's bodily transformation is pretty unbelievable.

Have a look: http://www.usmagazine.com/nicole_richie_baby_on_board_092807

Birth: censored

I found this ad for a Sony Handycam in the Herald Sun Sunday magazine and I've been meaning to analyse it here because of the way it blatantly sanitises birth, presenting an experience of birth that is so stereotypical and traditional, it hurts my eyes to look at it.

I apologise if the image is difficult to see but in sum, Sony's selling point for this new video camera is that 'it captures everything'. At the bottom of the ad, it says:

'...you'll never miss any of life's precious moments'

and of course birth is supposed to be one of those moments. Anyway, this is what bothers me about this ad. The birthing woman is obviously Anglo and blonde, a stock-standard image of a 'normal' middle-class woman who is giving birth in a hospital. Her ostensibly male partner is filming the birth with his trusty Sony handycam. She is on her back in a hospital bed which is so far removed from a typical contemporary birthing experience. I don't know what you think, but most women I know and that I have interviewed definitely did not give birth lying on their back in a hospital gown covered with a sheet to hide her body.

Straight away, the ad conveys a message that birth is something that should be hidden and women's reproductive bodies are chaotic and in need of medical management. You might think I'm being pedantic but what really annoys me is the middle frame which says 'CENSORED": the frame which is supposed to show the birth of this women's child. The frame before the black one shows her 'pushing' and the one after is a blood-free perfect baby. Yet, the moment the baby emerges from her body is CENSORED because birth is clearly too offensive for the innocent eyes of the consumer. The baby is perfectly clean, there is no umbilical cord and no placenta. Everything particularly 'grotesque' about birth is sanitised for popular visual consumption.

This ad reminds me of those ridiculous tampon and pad advertisements which demonstrate the absorbency of a particular product with some bizarre blue liquid. GOD FORBID advertisers use a red liquid because menstrual blood is..well..red. I find it really offensive that women's reproductive bodies are used in both of these cases to sell products but made 'clean' by advertising in order to be sellable. Women's bodies are commodified for the gain of a huge corporation.

Nicole v. Britney: baring their lady lumps

Due to popular demand (okay, 1 reader), I am going to talk about Nicole Ritchie and her bump. I've been avoiding it for a very long time now (as you might have noticed) but I thought this would be a good opportunity to say a few things about baby bumps and bikinis. Up until recently, being pregnant and wearing a bikini was simply not on. Sure, you're probably thinking...ever since Demi Moore pregnancy is sexy! Women can be out and proud with their bumps...

In reality, however, the exposure of the bump is still a bit taboo outside of Hollywood even though maternity fashion is tighter, a bit more low-rise and definitely low-cut. Wearing a bikini during pregnancy especially challenges conventional boundaries between the feminine body and the external world where the male gaze dictates the norms for feminine beauty, body shape and comportment. This is what led me to my thought about Nicole Ritchie. I am really surprised not to find crazy rants about how 'obscene' it is that a pregnant woman is wearing a string bikini when only a few years ago people went nuts over pictures of Britney Spears sporting the same duds (or lack thereof...) in the picture above in 2005 and again in 2006. Her body was described as grotesque: words such as 'fat' and 'gross' were used with reckless abandon along with suggestions that at almost 9 months pregnant no one wanted to see Britney's big 'fat' stomach.

Fast forward to Nicole Ritchie and her beach attire this week. According to all the newspaper articles from the past few days, Ritchie looks 'amazing', 'sexy' and everyone seems to be pleased that she is happily 'flaunting' her baby belly. There has been no mention of 'fat' or 'gross'.

So how can we explain these seemingly contradictory positions regarding the exposure of the bump?

One one hand, I'd like to think that the world is getting a little less conservative when it comes to the representation of pregnancy. However, I think that is giving a bit too much credit to progressive thinking. My feeling is that the way that these bikini-clad pregnant bodies are depicted in the media all comes down to celebrity status. As everyone knows, Britney Spears is public enemy #1 when it comes to motherhood. No matter what she does, Britney will eternally be known as the world's worst mother in the media. Nicole Ritchie, on the other hand, has garnered an inordinate amount of sympathy because of her 1) alleged eating disorder 2) her run-in with the law 3) her jail time.

Ritchie's pregnancy has completely changed her celebrity status. Since falling pregnant she has vowed that her life has totally changed; she wants to be a good mother, she is planning to get married and she has changed all of her previously 'bad' lifestyle habits to protect her baby. Therefore, her position as a 'good' mother in pregnancy is reflected in the comments about her body. Pregnancy is seemingly more beautiful and glorious and celebrated when the pregnant woman is seen to be a 'good' mother. Britney's body, on the other hand, is represented as 'unfit' and 'fat' because she is a 'bad' mother. Moreover, Spears’ image as a ‘sexy mother’ (unlike Nicole) suggests the ‘anti-mother’, in her physical subversion of cultural mores that make women sexless ‘good mothers’ who are completely focused on the well-being of the fetus. Britney is never depicted as actually caring about her children: she is irresponsible when she is pregnant and when she is not pregnant. Nicole's body can be 'sexy' because her behaviour marks her as a 'good' mother and this is tied to her willingness to set aside her desire to be thin and instead she has embraced a maternal, more feminine body.

More Milla: peanut butter and bagels

Milla J is still doing press for the latest installment of Resident Evil. She talks to the Chicago Sun-Times about her pregnancy:

On exercise:
Honey, my bones seem soft now and my feet are killing me. All the physical training I've had to be a model and to do action films like 'Resident Evil' really helps. So I strongly encourage women who are even thinking about getting pregnant to really hit the gym before trying to conceive. It will still hurt to walk. No one tells you that part! But I can tell you that prior to conceiving get in your optimum shape. You will be glad.

On eating:
Hide the peanut butter! "I'm happy to tell all the pregnant ladies out there that I've gone from 130 pounds to 193 pounds. It's a lot of weight to put on quickly and I only have myself to blame," says Jovovich. "I could eat peanut butter sandwiches and bagels all day. I see no problem with it," she laughs. "Of course my doctor does see a problem with it. So I've gone cold turkey on the bread. I"m doing chicken and veggies and trying to be the healthiest mother.
"But if I could continue with the peanut butter, I'd be the happiest mom in the world!"

On weight gain:
I don't mind, but my mom keeps bragging, 'I didn't gain this much weight with YOU! I was skin and bones and just had a little bump.' Yeah, thanks Mom! How helpful! I'm trying to deal with that and how gorgeous she was and how -- get this -- she even wore heels when she was pregnant with me. Now, my feet have grown three sizes. They don't tell you that part, either. I can barely wear flip-flops. And now I have a whole new appreciation for my old body. Right now I can't get out of my stretch empire T-shirt dresses.

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/pearlman/569866,SHO-Sunday-5qs23.article