Jennifer Lawrence Calls for Industry to Embrace a ‘New Normal-Body Type’

“I think we’ve gotten so used to underweight that when you are a normal weight it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, she’s curvy.’ Which is crazy,” says the actress

Jennifer Lawrence Talks Body Image
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Jennifer Lawrence wants the industry to create a “new normal-body type” because of the flawed perspectives on body image and what should be considered “normal.”

“I would like us to make a new normal-body type,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “Everybody says, ‘We love that there is somebody with a normal body!’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t feel like I have a normal body.’ I do Pilates every day. I eat, but I work out a lot more than a normal person.”

She added, “I think we’ve gotten so used to underweight that when you are a normal weight it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, she’s curvy.’ Which is crazy. The bare minimum, just for me, would be to up the ante. At least so I don’t feel like the fattest one.”

In the interview, the actress also addressed her controversial open letter she wrote for Lena Dunham‘s Lenny newsletter, in which she wrote about the pay gap for women in the industry.

“I had no idea it was going to blow up like that,” she said. “And I obviously only absorbed the negative. I didn’t pay any attention to the positive feedback. My parents get really upset. They do not like me speaking out about anything political because it’s hard to see your kid take criticism. But, really, people who criticized it are people who think women should not be paid the same as men. So I don’t really care what those people think.”

In the essay titled “Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars?,” “The Hunger Games” actress said that she wasn’t angry at men in the industry when she learned she had been paid less than her male “American Hustle” co-stars — a startling fact revealed by emails leaked in the Sony hack. Lawrence said she was disappointed at herself for not fighting for more money.

In the Harper’s Bazaar interview, Lawrence also elaborated on feminism, arguing, “I don’t know why that word is so scary to people; it shouldn’t be, because it just means equality. If we are moving forward in a society, you are feeling stronger as a woman, and you want to be taken more seriously. You don’t have to take away the wonderful traits that come with being a woman: We are sensitive. We are pleasers. We’re empathetic. All those things that can keep you from asking for what you want or making mistakes.”

Read the entire interview here.

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