Last night on MadTV, the show started off with a spoof video of Hilary Duff's song "Beat of my Heart". They renamed the song, "For the Sake of my fame", and the lyrics were all about how the young starlets in Hollywood like Hilary, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan are starving themselves in order to stay famous. Here's some of the lyrics and the video from YouTube.com:
I weigh. I weigh.
I weigh every day.
I waste away
For the sake of my fame.
On one hand this video is pretty funny because it pokes fun at how absurd the obsession with weight is for these young famous girls, and on the other hand, when I got to thinking about this video's message, it made me feel really heartsick. I know it's just supposed to be light fare Saturday night TV, but something in the words of the spoof song touched me in sensitive spot. I was sad because the lyrics they chose, which were brilliant, spoke of the desperate measures young women will take in order to be famous or stay famous. Like it's not enough to be talented, smart, and beautiful. You have to be the skinniest to be the prettiest and most famous.
The line, "I waste away for the sake of my fame" is a very powerful statement. Is Hollywood and our society that demanding of beauty that women will literally waste away in order to remain an "It" girl. There is plenty of evidence that points to that belief, and that to me is incredibly heartbreaking. How do we change this?