History Main / HollywoodThin

[[folder:Film]]
* Exaggerated in ''TheMachinist''. ChristianBale's character Trevor Reznik is described as "if [he] were any thinner [he] wouldn't exist," and it's true—Bale lost an incredible amount of weight to play the role, eating very little.
[[/folder]]

* Nicely subverted in ''{{Ringer}}'', as former prostitute and drug addict Bridget attempts to assume her healthier twin sister's identity, and everyone comments on how much thinner she is, which they largely don't see as a good thing. Of course it is still {{Sarah Michelle Gellar}} that they're talking about.

* ''[[AmericasNextTopModel America's Next Top Model]]''. ''All'' of them. Even the contestants portrayed as [[HollywoodPudgy "big" or "full figured"]] are [[strike:underweight]] [[CurvesInAllTheRightPlaces fantastically curvy]] but nowhere near fat.

* During his "[[LeanAndMean Thin White Duke]]" period in the mid-1970s (i.e. ''Station to Station''), DavidBowie dropped in weight to 94 pounds as a result of his diet of "red peppers, milk, and cocaine." Let us repeat: ''94'' pounds. Not 194. Not 94 kilograms. 94 ''pounds''. And no, Bowie is ''not'' short: he's 5'10", which is slightly taller than the average British man of his generation.

* One episode of Raw had Randy Orton return from injury and Vince [=McMahon=] came out and said his clothes looked like they were hanging off him and his neck looked like a stack of quarters (implying he'd lost weight because he hadn't been able to train due to his injury). Except Randy looked exactly the same as he normally does.
* The Smackdown writers deserve to be slapped for having Michelle [=McCool=] call Maria Kanellis "underfed" when A) Maria has said she was told by management [[HollywoodPudgy that she was too fat]] and B) Michelle has a thinner body size and has struggled with anorexia in the past.
** The LayCool characters are probably a subtle TakeThat to this trope as one promo had Natalya insult them by saying their IQ was lower than their combined (non-existent) waist size and of course you have the heels in the situation as two fashion-crazy {{Valley Girl}}s obsessed with their weight thinking that was a compliment.
* A lot of people tend to go on about how the WWE Divas are too skinny but it was quite a shock when Maria Menunous got in the ring and she looked like a skeleton next to Alicia Fox, Rosa Mendes, Gail Kim and Kelly Kelly. Though the difference is obviously down to the divas being actual athletes and having muscle on them even if it's not too visible.

* The male counterpart would be newer GIJoe figures. If blown up to full size, they would have roughly 25-inch biceps. For comparison, jacked-as-all-hell Mark [=McGwire=] had about 22 inches at his peak.

* Speaking of Sarah Michelle Gellar, one of her former ''{{Buffy}}'' stunt doubles talked about how hard the popularity of this was on female stunt doubles. The stunt double was previously a suit actor for the Pink Power Ranger and several of the monsters at different times, and, despite being the double for wispy gymnast Amy Jo Johnson and willowy dancer Catherine Sutherland, it gave her a little more room in terms of body shape (since the identity-obscuring costume and scenes shared with a team of muscular male stunt actors always made her look smaller by virtue of perspective.) However, she went to ''Buffy,'' and as the "Lollipop" look (as she called it) came in vogue in Hollywood, she said she had a hell of a time matching body-type with Gellar and still being healthy enough to do her job. She also said that ''Rangers'' switched over from an American to an Asian stunt team around the time she left for possibly the same reason (she mentioned the male actors they brought over from Japan and Korea were about the same size she was, right after she mentioned she was sweating herself down to nothing doing fight scenes in the California sun under several feet of foam rubber.)

* Speaking of Sarah Michelle Gellar, one of her former ''Buffy'' stunt doubles talked about how hard the popularity of this was on female stunt doubles. The stunt double was previously a suit actor for the Pink Power Ranger and several of the monsters at different times, and, despite being the double for wispy gymnast Amy Jo Johnson and willowy dancer Catherine Sutherland, it gave her a little more room in terms of body shape (since the identity-obscuring costume and scenes shared with a team of muscular male stunt actors always made her look smaller by virtue of perspective.) However, she went to ''Buffy,'' and as the "Lollipop" look (as she called it) came in vogue in Hollywood, she said she had a hell of a time matching body-type with Gellar and still being healthy enough to do her job. She also said that ''Rangers'' switched over from an American to an Asian stunt team around the time she left for possibly the same reason (she mentioned the male actors they brought over from Japan and Korea were about the same size she was, right after she mentioned she was sweating herself down to nothing doing fight scenes in the California sun under several feet of foam rubber.)

[[folder:Toys]]
* {{Barbie}} is probably the most famous offender of this trope. Countless studies have been done trying to determine what she would look like if she were a real woman. They all say a wide variety of different things, but most come to a conclusion that can be summarized thus: "She would be extremely unhealthy, and her body type is ? virtually impossible for a real woman to attain." To be exact, they said that she would be unhealthily thin, six feet tall in her bare feet, have feet too small to walk with, and have a long, serpentine neck. [[http://dodsonandross.com/files/imagecache/blogpost/files/blog_images/_45541884_barbie_comparison466.jpg This]] is a good image showing just how ridiculous Barbie's proportions really are.
* The male counterpart would be newer GIJoe figures. If blown up to full size, they would have roughly 25-inch biceps. For comparison, jacked-as-all-hell Mark [=McGwire=] had about 22 inches at his peak.
* Bratz are this, creepily this.

* ''AllyMcBeal'' was this trope at its extreme. Portia [=DeRossi=] has recently come out about her anorexia issues stemming from the show. Callista Flockhart was no fatty either...
* ''{{Lost}}'', which does this for both men and women (with the exception of Hurley).

* Averted on ''MikeAndMolly.'' Molly's sister, who is portrayed as the hottie, looks to be about a size 12 (US).
* ''[[AmericasNextTopModel America's Next Top Model]]''. ''All'' of them. Even the contestants portrayed as [[HollywoodPudgy "big" or "full figured"]] are [[strike:underweight.]] [[CurvesInAllTheRightPlaces fantastically curvy]] but nowhere near fat.

[[folder:Film]]
* Exaggerated in ''TheMachinist''. ChristianBale's character Trevor Reznik is described as "if [he] were any thinner [he] wouldn't exist," and it's true—Bale lost an incredible amount of weight to play the role, eating very little.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* [[CiemWebcomicSeries Ciem]] is the closest to this that {{Machinomics}} are capable of committing. Almost every female character uses the same custom [[BarbieDollAnatomy "Barbie" mesh]] (Zenman's Curvy Default Replacement at Mod The Sims, with size B breasts.) Candi herself is extremely prone to narrowly avoiding being the poster girl for HollywoodThin, especially as a teen. Her sisters, however, are [[InformedFlaw implied]] to be slightly curvier with their clothes off; though there is little evidence in the written canon. Then again, since her sisters aren't superheroes, their being thinner [[ThisLoserIsYou is tolerated]], if not actually justified: not having Candi's job gives them an excuse to be laz[[strike: y]](-ier).

* Same goes for ''FairlyOddParents''. They are the TropeNamer for HartmanHips.

[[folder:Fashion]]
* Tabloids. Pick one up at random and you'll see a Shocking Exposé of some star's Embarrassing Body Flab or Cellulite, accompanied by ancient stock swimsuit pics. Anyone with ten pounds of extra fat or more is considered "struggling with weight problems."
** Tabloids are really inconsistent about it, too. The cover will show a Hollywood Thin girl with the appropriate headlines (Deathly skinny! Only 94 Pounds! Family is Scared for her Life!). However, open it up and five pages later it will talk about her looking "Fabulous in a [HARD TO PRONOUNCE DESIGNER] gown at a party last week."
** It's also not unusual to see a hand-wringing "How Thin is Too Thin" tabloid that contains pages of advertisements for questionable (and dangerous) diet pills that promise you'll lose twenty pounds in two weeks. In some cases, the woman (and it's usually a woman) in the "before" picture looked a little bit fleshy at the most and in the "after" shot, she looked Hollywood Thin.
** More insidiously, the "BABY BUMP??!??!!" articles/headlines often serve the same purpose, except that instead of directly shaming an actress for daring not to be HollywoodThin, they purport to be excited about her suspected baby. Even if the suspected "baby bump" is no more than a loose T-shirt or an actress daring not to have a perfectly flat washboard stomach.
* Fashion photography has reached the point, in its ever-stricter search for vanishing thinness, where the models are starting to look like death warmed over. So, [[http://jezebel.com/5543863/an-editors-mea-culpa-on-making-thin-models-look-bigger the visible ribs, the bags under the eyes, the other signs of starvation are photoshopped away]], though, of course, the model remains as twig-thin as she was at the start. Readers are led to assume that this kind of body shape can be attained without looking like a walking corpse, and the search for a model who [[http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/39/2010/05/ralph_lauren_ann_taylor_photoshop.jpg actually looks like Gumby]] goes onward.
* Worth noting is the controversy over 2011's London Fashion Week, which used models that were [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1359713/London-Fashion-Week-2011-Skeletal-models-super-sized-hypocrisy.html obviously very unhealthy]]. Say all you want about some people being naturally thin, but that sure as hell ain't natural!
* Closely related... shop mannequins generally have Barbie-like implausible figures, being tall and sylph like. To make the mannequins look even thinner, the stores will put them in the smallest possible size, then pull the excess fabric to the back and tie it there so that the mannequin's inhuman figure can be displayed in full.
* The aptly named model Twiggy is widely regarded as having first popularized the idea of thin women as sexy, moving away from the "curvy is sexy" image of the early 20th century.
** There were allegations that she was anorexic, despite the fact she was noted for being a BigEater. That doesn't rule out bulimia, though.
*** Contrary to popular belief, only a small fraction of bulimics are underweight; the majority are average or overweight. There is purge-type anorexia, however, which ''does'' present with excess weight loss. If she did have an eating disorder and was severely underweight, it would be classified as anorexia.
** It could have also been an endocrine disorder. If your metabolism is stuck in overdrive, you can easily burn 4,000 calories per day doing nothing.
** Twiggy, herself, observed in interviews at the time that "obviously" no other models would be so freakishly thin in the future.
* It has been repeatedly shown in studies that Hollywood Thin is the least healthy weight category of all (it is far less risky to be among the most morbid of morbidly obese). The lack of body weight causes undue stress on internal organs and means your body has no reserves to fight infection or repair from injury.
* Thankfully, this trope may be on its way to become [[DiscreditedTrope discredited]] as many Fashion industries impose a minimum weight limit. They're beginning to realize having models that fit their definition of beautiful isn't much good if they're too unhealthy to get on the catwalk.
* Apparently [[http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/21957036.jpg this]] is what constitutes as a skinny guy according to the caption.
[[/folder]]

* Tabloids. Just... tabloids. Pick one up at random and you'll see a Shocking Exposé of some star's Embarrassing Body Flab or Cellulite, accompanied by ancient stock swimsuit pics. Anyone with ten pounds of extra fat or more is considered "struggling with weight problems."

* Worth noting is the recent controversy over 2011's London Fashion Week, which used models that were [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1359713/London-Fashion-Week-2011-Skeletal-models-super-sized-hypocrisy.html obviously very unhealthy]]. Say all you want about some people being naturally thin, but that sure as hell ain't natural!

* ''Series/{{House}}''. Particularly Thirteen (HughLaurie is skinny--which given the fact he had been a rower at [[{{Oxbridge}} Cambridge]] makes sense--but any perception of sexiness arises out of his [[UnkemptBeauty scruffy beard]] and big BlueEyes).

* Any human or humanoid character (male or female) in any series by {{CLAMP}}. All are ''very'' tall (except for kids) and ''very'' thin. There's a reason why they're often called NoodlePeople.

* The girls in ''WinxClub''. Especially in their fairy forms. (Kinda justified for the main characters and their magical friends. With their magical insect wings, it doesn't seem so strange that they have an insect-like body structure. Not justified for the muggles, however.)
** Oddly enough, they look fairly sized, even if on the small side, as children.

** The LayCool characters are probably a subtle TakeThat to this trope as one promo had Natalya insult them by saying their IQ was lower than their combined (non-existent) waist size and of course you have the heels in the situation as two fashion-crazy [[ValleyGirl Valley Girls]] obsessed with their weight.

* It has been repeatedly shown in studies that Hollywood Thin is the least health weight category of all (it is far less risky to be among the most morbid of morbidly obese). The lack of body weight causes undue stress on internal organs and means your body has no reserves to fight infection or repair from injury.

* Speaking of Sarah Michelle Gellar, one of her former ''Buffy'' stunt doubles talked about how hard the popularity of this was on female stunt doubles. The stunt double was previously a suit actor for the Pink Power Ranger, and, despite being the double for wispy gymnast Amy Jo Johnson and willowy dancer Catherine Sutherland, it gave her a little more room in terms of body shape (since the identity-obscuring costume and scenes shared with a team of muscular male stunt actors always made her look smaller by virtue of perspective.) However, she went to ''Buffy,'' and as the "Lollipop" look (as she called it) came in vogue in Hollywood, she said she had a hell of a time matching body-type with Gellar and still being healthy enough to do her job. She also said that ''Rangers'' switched over from an American to an Asian stunt team around the time she left for possibly the same reason.

* As noted on the Pudgy page, people can be shamed for being to skinny due to this trope, the people who encourage this trope, and the people who 'fight against' this trope.

* Tabloids are really inconsistent about it, too. The cover will show a Hollywood Thin girl with the appropriate headlines (Deathly skinny! Only 94 Pounds! Family is Scared for her Life!). However, open it up and five pages later it will talk about her looking "Fabulous in a [HARD TO PRONOUNCE DESIGNER] gown at a party last week."
* It's also not unusual to see a hand-wringing "How Thin is Too Thin" tabloid that contains pages of advertisements for questionable (and dangerous) diet pills that promise you'll lose twenty pounds in two weeks. In some cases, the woman (and it's usually a woman) in the "before" picture looked a little bit fleshy at the most and in the "after" shot, she looked Hollywood Thin.
* More insidiously, the "BABY BUMP??!??!!" articles/headlines often serve the same purpose, except that instead of directly shaming an actress for daring not to be HollywoodThin, they purport to be excited about her suspected baby. Even if the suspected "baby bump" is no more than a loose T-shirt or an actress daring not to have a perfectly flat washboard stomach.

* Closely related... shop mannequins generally have Barbie-like implausible figures, being tall and sylph like. This troper found himself in the position of trying to photoshop a human head on to an image of a mannequin and the result was well into the UncannyValley because the proportions are generally impossible to get quite right.
** To make the mannequins look even thinner, the stores will put them in the smallest possible size, then pull the excess fabric to the back and tie it there so that the mannequin's inhuman figure can be displayed in full.

* [[CiemWebcomicSeries Ciem]] is the closest to this that {{Machinomics}} are capable of committing. Almost every female character uses the same custom [[AnimeAnatomy "Barbie" mesh]] (Zenman's Curvy Default Replacement at Mod The Sims, with size B breasts.) Candi herself is extremely prone to narrowly avoiding being the poster girl for HollywoodThin, especially as a teen. Her sisters, however, are [[InformedFlaw implied]] to be slightly curvier with their clothes off; though there is little evidence in the written canon. Then again, since her sisters aren't superheroes, their being thinner [[ThisLoserIsYou is tolerated]], if not actually justified: not having Candi's job gives them an excuse to be laz[[strike: y]](-ier).

*** Contrary to popular belief, only a small fraction of bulimics are underweight; the majority are above or overweight. There is purge-type anorexia, however, which ''does'' present with excess weight loss. If she did have an eating disorder and was severely underweight, it would be classified as anorexia.

* The girls in ''WinxClub''. Especially in their fairy forms. (Kinda justified for the main characters and their magical friends. With their magical insect wings it doesn't seem so strange that they have a insect-like body structure. Not justified for the muggles, however.)

* ''{{House}}''. Particularly Thirteen (HughLaurie is skinny--which given the fact he had been a rower at [[{{Oxbridge}} Cambridge]] makes sense--but any perception of sexiness arises out of his [[UnkemptBeauty scruffy beard]] and big BlueEyes).

* Averted in ''TheMachinist'' - ChristianBale's character Trevor Reznic is described as "if [he] were any thinner [he] wouldn't exist", and it's true - Bale lost an incredible amount of weight to play the role, eating very little. Then he had to bulk up again for ''BatmanBegins,'' wherein he was around 220.

The opposite of HollywoodPudgy. Basically, the media's tendency to present women far skinnier than the average person as attractive, healthy and average/normal.

* The titular character of ''{{Nana}}''. She's so thin as to be one of the NoodlePeople; one has to wonder how she [[spoiler: got pregnant]] in the first place!