The Skinny on Skinny Girls in TV

So, my last blog was about 90210. The show is slowly dying off my dvr list. The revelation that Dylan is Kelly's baby's daddy has sent me over the edge. Even my precious Brenda can't save it for me, and when she goes so will I.

But back to the topic at hand, skinny girls on TV. Watching 90210, I was shocked at how tiny these girls looked. Jessica Stroup, who plays Silver, was in last year's Prom Night, looking a lot more healthy and still pretty tiny. What happened to this chick in the course of a year that made her look like she was malnourished.

These girls are the leads on a show about teenagers, where the target audience is teenagers. Obviously we aren't sending a good message, when their weights will never be adressed. If the actresses are ever asked, of course no one is going to give the response of "Well, I wanted more acting roles so I started to starve myself or become a cokehead." Of course, I'm jumping to conclusions, but my disillusion with young Hollywood has grown over the years after countless examples who followed the above behavior.

When did this trend for the super skinny start in TV?

The original 90210 had Shannen Doherty looking a little bigger in the first season, but she was 19 at the time, and she thinned out in later seasons but never to a waif. I remember watching the show, and Tori Spelling was the super skinny one, and rewatching old episodes, she looks positively average and toned compared to all these near anorexics. Kelly Taylor, the supposed beauty at West Beverly, had a skinny figure, but her thighs and legs would probably be considered fat from the media by todays standards.

I remember early seasons of Buffy, it was actually believable that she could kick butt, and as every season progressed, Sarah Michelle Gellar lost more and more weight, I'm assuming succumbing to Hollywood's pressure on weight.

What happened in the late 90's that kicked this trend off? Was it Kate Moss and the heroin chic phase? Ally McBeal? Even now that anorexia and bulimia are widely discussed and not taboo issues, it still seems okay for Hollywood to project 90 lb girls as the ideal to show us in television and film.

Society reinforcing this beauty ideal, and girls striving to look like that only perpetuates this idea, making it seem like a cycle bound to stay in the industry.

I promise, next blog, I won't mention 90210, and I will try not to mention the awesomeness that is Brenda Walsh, for atleast awhile.