Thank You for Letting Me Be Pretty One More Time

Carrie Fisher is one of the most kind and generous people I've had the pleasure of meeting. I met her in a Beverly Hills restaurant I used to work in, and she was as lovely as a person can be to me.

However, I am so frustrated by the latest Jenny Craig commercial. Carrie is the latest spokesperson for the company, and she is delighting in her recent weight loss in the commercial. Fine, fine. But she ends the commercial stating, "Thank you for letting me be pretty one more time."

First of all, what? Second of all, what the heck? Third of all, WTF?

Ugh. A horrible, horrible false message that only helps to destroy and destruct the wellbeing of young and old women all over the world. One cannot be pretty without being thin? The "one last time" implies that she is getting older and running out of chances to be pretty? Huh?

I've been on the Jenny Craig program. (Then again, I defy you to find me a program I wasn't on in the past before I realized how wrong they all were.) I've found the company to be not for me, to say the least. Once they get you in the program, your status is (or was when I was a member) stated as "captured." It prints that way on the receipt, too. That should say something about what you are to them. Or to any weight loss program.

They are selling self-esteem via confirming to society's standard of thin as beauty, and they are out to promote that thin is the only solution. And they get celebrities to sell this. At one point, I really liked Jenny Craig, I admit, and it did work for me for a brief period of time, but that does not, by any stretch of the imagination, make it okay to say these horrible things.

Another gem from the commercial: Carrie states that she can finally wear colors, that she doesn't have to wear black. I don't wear black most of the time, and I am not thin. Shocker!

Let me just go stomp my feet through the floor. Or. Let's find a way to counter such ugly, lying messages with ones of truth and  beauty.

Women of all ages and all sizes are gorgeous. You can be pretty one more time every minute for the rest of your life, no matter what numbers are on the scale or tape measure or calendar or birth certificate. Acceptance is beautifying; spreading such a cruel message throughout the world robs one of beauty. I want to bring everyone up as well as myself, and the only way to do that is to stand up to these horrors in whatever ways we can.