Back in the twentieth century, there was a trend for beautiful female film stars to compare themselves to comical or unattractive animals. Michelle Pfeiffer insisted that she looked like a duck; Uma Thurman claimed to resemble a hammer-head shark. Not just actresses; there was a song by Pink, in which the then 23-year-old, size-ten blonde babe with the snub nose and big eyes beat herself up for not being conventionally pretty like Britney Spears.
Most excruciating of all was Nigella Lawson’s reference to her – look away now – ‘sticky-out tummy’. It’s hard to imagine a more condescending attempt by a sexy woman to cuddle up to the fatso-demographic, for fear that being viewed as a straightforward sex symbol sucking up to the fellas by licking one’s fingertips frequently might rob her of half her potential market.
Beautiful people are born with a great advantage; even tiny babies prefer photographs of them
It’s not so popular now: stars caught on how patronising it made them look.
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