In a tragedy of poor itinerary planning, I spent most of last night’s Oscars on a plane, which meant I had to catch up on the ceremony online once we landed. And if Twitter, Facebook, and Google are to be believed, a major takeaway from last night’s festivities is that Angelina Jolie is “too skinny” and needs to “eat a cheeseburger.”



#BodyPolicing

Look, I get that Angelina Jolie is thin, and that she also burns the brightest of all of our Bright Hollywood Stars and is therefore subject to more scrutiny than your average woman. However, body snarking of the “eat a sammich, skinny” variety is hardly different from body snarking of the “stop eating sammiches, fatty” variety that we (hopefully) know better than to post in our Facebook feeds. Yet I’ve seen lots of people across the World Wide Web today—including people I know to be smart, savvy feminists—crack wise about Jolie’s arms, legs, and weight as if, because she’s beautiful and thin, policing and commenting on her body is more than acceptable.

According to the not-all-that-credible-except-for-maybe-Oscars-news outlet US magazine, “Jolie’s bony body ignited 3,399 tweets per minute.” Clearly a lot of folks are “concerned” with Jolie (an adult woman) and her lack of cheeseburgers, but they shouldn’t be.



Don’t like cheeseburgers? Have a cookie then—you have to EAT!

In this image-obsessed culture, we have to fight against some pretty unrealistic and prevalent beauty standards, and the fat acceptance movement is helping us get there by reminding us that you can be healthy at every size. While pushing back against these norms, though, we have to remember that every size means every size, and it’s no cooler to tell an adult woman (or anyone) what to eat or how we think her body should look than it is to tell an adult woman she’s too fat. So stop telling Angelina Jolie to eat a cheeseburger! For all we know, she ate three of them on the way to the ceremony. Or maybe she hates cheeseburgers. Or maybe it’s not our problem and we shouldn’t worry about it. (It’s not our problem and we shouldn’t worry about it.)

Making a fake Twitter account and pretending to be Angelina Jolie’s right leg, though? Hilarious.