The first time I saw a full shot of Patricia Arquette on "Medium" I gasped aloud. For here before me was palpable evidence of that which I knew to be true: Women of average size do not appear in television shows.
Yet here was Patricia, looking beautiful, looking like a hard-working mom, looking like your average, ordinary, everyday goddess. As the star on a network television show, in primetime, she radiated from the screen, and I Absolutely Couldn't Believe It.
I knew the network thought that noone was going to watch the show. They'd planned to roll it out quickly, play the episodes they'd paid for and let it go.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the vault. America tuned in en mass and fell in love. NBC ran an encore of the first episode and celebrated their new hit show.
And I thought to myself, they thought we wouldn't want to watch her. They thought a show with a woman of average weight couldn't possibly work. Because stars are thin. Stars are really, really, really thin.
Sometimes, they're overweight, too.
Think about it. Larger women ARE represented on television. And athletic woman. Small women. Tall women. We've got racial diversity and age diversity. But we are missing an apparently elusive and beautiful species. We're missing the A.O.O.S.'s.
Actresses Of Ordinary Size.
Something wonderful happened to me as I started to watch "Medium" regularly. My eyes, blinded by life in La La Land, readjusted to normal. ONE woman. ONE show. And suddenly, a lot of women started to look really, really, really thin. Too thin. And the woman in the mirror, who I was always pretty happy with, suddenly looked even sexier.
I'm not saying that actresses shouldn't be beautiful. That we shouldn't suspend a little everyday reality when we cast our stars. I enjoy a beautiful cast as much as the next person when it's called for. I haven't stopped thinking Julia Roberts is beautiful, or Lauren Graham, or Paris Hilton.
But what I'm saying is, beautiful women of average size ARE beautiful. I want to watch them on my television. I want America to watch them on television. Because when America sees them, suddenly the women in our mirrors will be a little more beautiful. And the woman a man comes home to, or sits across a table from, or meets at a party, or walks by on the street will be more beautiful.
She was always beautiful. Some of us have just forgotten what beauty can look like.
Southbound on Highland, driving into Hollywood, Dove has hung gigantic billboards as part of their "Real Beauty" campaign. Images of women of all different sizes selling beauty products in their underwear. Make no mistake, it's a marketing campaign. And it's a smart one.
And I know in my heart that there are people in this town who don't want to see that. They think it's unattractive, and that's their prerogative. And I guess they can cast whoever they want.
But I hope, and I dream, that the success of "Medium" and the sight of Dove's billboards, opens their minds a little to what many of us want to see. Opens their minds to the diversity of beauty, and to women who still may be more beautiful than us, but who have bodies like ours.
The Truth is, concepts of beauty change over time, and they're different around the world. Thin isn't anymore the truth about beauty than curves are or height is or a hair style is or a skin color is.
Someday, I will walk down a red carpet, and with any luck, cameras will be on me, and people with microphones will ask me questions. I don't know what our concepts of beauty will be on that day. And I don't pretend to be as beautiful as the women who work in front of the cameras. But my hope is, if the current preference for uberthin actresses still prevails, that I will look beautiful enough, curvy enough and happy enough to make some of those women walking with me wish they'd gone ahead and ordered the lasagna.
