What would it make you feel like, if you were a young woman and you knew that your boyfriend, or the boys in school with you, admired this type of super-skinny body above all else? Is it possible it might drive you to extreme dieting? Just a thought. I can't think of any comparable actresses -- in popularity, starring roles or income -- who are medium sized or even slightly heavy. (Please don't mention America Ferrarra, who plays a character blatantly called UGLY Betty.) The beauty standard for years has been a woman who is extremely thin, far thinner than most women can reasonably weigh, and in that competition, Keira Knightley is the clear standard bearer (having inherited the crown from Gwyneth Paltrow, who blew it by aging past 30 and having a few babies).

And I suppose that it is easy for the average man to meet the standards of Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Tom Brady, Will Smith, Matt Damon, George Cloney, and the rest of the huge name stars. They along with the female stars are stars because they are for the most part in the top one tenth of one percent of the majorities image of beauty. It has always been this way and will probably always be this way until you become the Handicapper General. There are an (granted more often on the mens side) the average and even "ugly" person that will become a megastar but they almost universally have a strong personality or some other amazing talent such as rock star or are the biggest name in physics since Newton. Most people do not inspire to be average in their day dreams and that is what movies, television, music and the rest of the arts are selling.

Also to let you know, it is not men that are pushing the super skinny look as a ideal form of beauty either. If you want a basic look on who white men think are hot look at the maxim hot 100 list, where you will not see Keira Knightly on the list at all (and known of the names I recognize are rail thin either). What you will see for the most part is a list of women with full Bs and Cs, tone bodies especially legs and stomachs and nice hips. If you want to know what black men like watch BETs rap city and look at the women in the video who for the most part have great hips and full Bs and Cs and not too many are rail thin. Mexican men pretty much the same. In other words for most straight men the ideal women looks like Selma Hayek in Desperado. The key word being ideal as in she is in the top 10 hottest women alive group and men know they will never expect to see a woman that beautiful in real life nor are we dispointed by all the beautiful women that are 5 feet tall and 100 pounds nor 6 feet tall and 180 pounds and sizes in between. What most guys don't like are women that appear to have let themselves go and don't care about their bodies just like most women don't fall over backwards to date fat guys (unless they are wealthy and/or successful) But, hell there are even some guys that like heavy chicks.

That was a great response and great points made.