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Jennifer Lawrence has consistently pushed back against the pressures of Hollywood and diet culture, yet it hasn’t been enough to stop the speculation and comments surrounding her body. Why are women put into different categories based solely on what they eat?
Jennifer Lawrence first starred in the Hunger Games film franchise back in 2012, playing the role of Katniss Everdeen, a poor, starving teenager living in a dystopian society.
Last week, she confirmed that she’d be reprising her character in the next instalment, Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, set to release in November 2026.
Lawrence’s acting chops made her an excellent candidate for the part.
However, as many ‘critics’ pointed out, certain realities of her celebrity status still seeped into the role. Lawrence refused to change her body through dieting in order to appear more – or physically ‘less’ – like the character Suzanne Collins describes in the books.
For some, this meant she was too ‘big’ to play Katniss.
Lawrence’s refusal to adhere to industry pressure made her relatable. She was seen as not only denouncing the oppressive beauty standards of Hollywood stardom, but even, if you can believe it, promoting carbs past 4pm and having a glass of wine with dinner.
This relatively relaxed approach to health encouraged certain corners of the media to label Lawrence an ‘average’ female celebrity.
She was stunning – but not expensively or unattainably so. Able bodied and physically fit, but not in a way that would invoke an eating disorder or a body complex in others. She’s got a sense of humour, a brain in her head, and she does good, honest work to make a living – right?
A subversive public image
In 2014, once her ‘relatability’ as a slightly kooky celebrity was established, Lawrence took the opportunity to bite back at diets promoted by the likes of Intravenous Drip (IV) advocate Gwenyth Paltrow.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, for example, the Hunger Games star described going gluten-free as ‘the new cool eating disorder,’ and publicly called out the hypocrisy of the movie industry. The pressure to be thin, skinny, or unnaturally small was and continues to be a huge issue for actresses across the Hollywood spectrum.
Meanwhile, actors like Lily Collins and Shailene Woodley joined a long list of women undergoing drastic diets in order play a role.
Collins lost weight with the aid of a nutritionist in order to portray a young woman struggling with an eating disorder in To the Bone, despite her own previous, similar struggles. Woodly was also consuming only 350 calories a day in order to play a character forced to survive on minimal food in Adrift.
Contrary to restrictive commitments like these, Lawrence became a much-loved icon; not because of the effort she was willing to exert to change her appearance for a role, but due to her public endorsement of a lack thereof. Her focus was instead directed toward ‘protecting’ women from harmful and hegemonic ideas of what it means to be beautiful.
Yet, despite her best efforts to push back against unrealistic beauty standards and comments about her body over the years, Lawrence still isn’t permanently shielded from media scrutiny.
After becoming a mother, she was flooded with comments and opinions on her post-partum weight loss, with articles detailing her ‘workouts’ and ‘long-term results’ from exercise, as well as rumours and speculation regarding plastic surgery.
It’s not enough to actively call out the pressures of being in the public eye – and women will continue to be bombarded with unsolicited opinions no matter what side of the fence they fall.
