Why Do We Feel Bad About Our Chins?
The tyranny of the high angle selfie.
My 11-year-old and I are working our way through New Girl right now. Yes, the Zooey Deschanel sitcom, which ran from 2011 to 2018 and quite frankly, feels way more dated than that now. Did we ever truly love bangs that much?? (Yes, we did, and I had them.)1
Like most out-of-date sitcoms, New Girl is also rampant with fatphobia. Schmidt is a former fat kid and they frequently put Max Greenfield in a fat suit for flashbacks. Almost every actress on the show is Hollywood Thin (with the exception of Merritt Wever’s brief but excellent arc as Schmidt’s ex-girlfriend). And in season five, professional hot person Megan Fox joins the cast as Reagan, a new love interest for Nick. Last night, as we were watching, my kid asked, “Why is her neck so… like that?”
This isn’t an essay about Megan Fox, who is both a funny actress and someone who is pretty open about the extensive plastic surgeries and other beauty work she engages in, as well as her struggles with body dysmorphia. But I’m starting with Megan’s neck because what my kid was actually noticing was what wasn’t there: Fat. Megan’s neck has absolutely no folds or rolls. It would be virtually impossible for her to hold her head in any position that would create a double chin. The upshot is a neck with a larynx so visible that tabloids often speculate that she has an Adam’s Apple (cue the transphobia!).
We’re not going to dissect her body any further except to say: The fact that someone can adhere to as many beauty standards as Megan Fox does, and still get shit about this part of her body shows that we are really not okay when it comes to necks and chins.
And I bet an awful lot of us would take Megan’s too thin neck over a fat one any day of the week. Because we are really, really not okay with fat necks and chins. And because of that, I’ve been taking photos like this for years:
