When People Magazine’s annual issue dedicated to the “100 Most Beautiful People” hits stands in May, you can expect at least one of the year’s Oscar contenders for Best Actress to make an appearance: Gabourey Sidibe.
The special issue, which charted a list of 50 up until 2006, is dedicated to spotlighting the most beautiful individuals in the world, and truly, the magazine’s editors couldn’t have made a better choice for inclusion than the infectious, bubbly and delightful Sidibe, Oscar-nominated, of course, for her work in “Precious.” This is a perspective that began way back in October when she made that first vibrant appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
Congrats to her.
Comments
38 responses to “People’s “most beautiful” list to feature Gabourey Sidibe”
I am SO EXCITED for Jeff Wells to lose his fucking mind.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sandra, Carey and Meryl on there too. They’ve all had huge years.
Gabourey is such a worthy, refreshing choice! And, she really is beautiful.
Thank you so much for posting that. What a wonderful young lady!
but is she beautiful enough for People magazine to have her on the cover solo?
this particular issue is pure PR bs.
Robert to Brian: His prose is clear and clean for the most part. He knows what he’s doing. Eat my ass.
What is beautiful about morbid obesity?
Why post this Kris? Seems like entrapment. By singling out Sidibe in the headline aren’t you implying that she’s the odd one out from the get go?
She seems to have a lovely spirit, but this is no difference then People Magazine putting an anorexic, high fashion model in their list. It’s just promoting an extremely unhealthy eating habit–but our society is so caught up on anorexia as the SOLE eating disorder, that everyone completely ignores the fact that obesity is just as dire and serious a disease.
Hell, even her co-star Mo’Nique has acknowledged she had gotten too big and admitted to losing weight so she could live a healthier and more fruitful life.
Sorry, but this is just insulting. Gabby is an incredibly talented, funny, and intelligent young woman. She has a pretty face. Not spectacular, but pretty. She would be well advised to lose some weight. Why’d they have to go all PC and call her one of the most beautiful people, and put her in a magazine between what will likely be a whole bunch of skinny girls? She doesn’t have to shrink to Carey Mulligan size or anything, but perhaps take more of an example from Queen Latifah, who lost weight, is still not Hollywood-actress-skinny but also not health-risk overweight, and looks great.
I mean, we can all SEE her figure, you know?! It’s like the emperor’s new clothes, where everyone just goes along with it cuz nobody wants to say it out loud.
Seriously, making a point of being the person to say she’s beautiful is all about making yourself look good: Hey look at me! I can see her true beauty! Even though she’s obese!
Who makes this list anyway? And did they base Jack Black’s character from Shallow Hal on him?
Fucking great. I can barely believe this is happening. Hells yes.
I liked her until I found out she was 26 years old and not 17 or something. Act like an adult.
Some people are pretty cranky tonight, jeez.
I’m getting the feeling there’s an awful lot of feeders reading InContention these days.
It’s a good thing a number of you have the benefit of web anonymity, because you’ve embarrassed yourselves tonight. I’m embarrassed for you.
she may be a talented actress, and she may have an interesting personality, but to include her in a beautiful people list would require us to either redefine the word beautiful or make the word beautiful not refer to someone’s appearance
Clearly for some people, beauty is only skin deep.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder – how could anyone object to her inclusion?
I hadn’t seen that Ellen clip. I love that girl. I wish she were in line to win.
And yes, she is beautiful.
to all of you saying she is beautiful, would u date her? so please keep the faux outrage over people’s eye brow raising to a minimum.
Idiot. Truly, what dumb fucking logic. I have no words…
If I was straight, I would date her. She’s nice, young, funny, honest, and beautiful, YES, beautiful.
Kris,
I notice you ignore Chad’s post and skip straight to calling everyone else embarrassing. Chad brings up a great point – what’s your response?
And I echo the post that wonders what’s beautiful about morbid obesity. If they included a 4 stone 25 year old anorexic there would be utter outrage. Why is this acceptable?
@John T: Chad does have a point. I absolutely understand that Kris wanted to celebrate the choice, but in a perfect world, this would be non-news, and the fact that we make it news does single her out in some way. Whether it’s for better or for worse is yet to be determined.
Damn, and I thought my inside joke would cause all the faux outrage here…
But seriously, the whole “Most Beautiful People” list usually isn’t about physical or conventional attractiveness so much as the magazine recognizing distinguished people in the public consciousness and drawing interpretations of how they are “beautiful.” In the end, it didn’t matter whether Gabourey Sidibe looked like Greta Garbo or Joseph Merrick, her endearing personality and performance in Precious guaranteed her a place on this list.
And I agree with Chad that singling Sidibe out already makes implicit statements about her being on the list, intentional or no. This is similar to the condescending things you were (without meaning to, I’m sure) implying about Quinton Aaron by gushing about how surprised you were by his humility and charm.
I hope Cameron didn’t make the list.
Relax people! Kris is not making implications about Sidibe. It’s more of a criticism against society’s conventional, limiting ideas of beauty, and that it’s a worthy challenge to the status quo, because she is beautiful.
Jim, that’s offensive! Lesbians can be beautiful too!
:)
(omgj/k)
I think the main reason for bringing Sidibe’s inclusion up is as a reaction from the EW cover (was it EW?) of “young Hollywood” that was all skinny white girls (which did include Carey Mulligan if I’m remember correctly).
Everyone knows this list is just a “who had ANY sort of success and that we’d like to mingle with at a party” and not some “list of people i wanna screw”.
@JohnT: i don’t hear any outrage to the anorexic and or bulimic actresses they include on their list EVERY year.
keep the faux concern to yourself.
she is actually a beautiful girl, so I have no problem with her in the list, but I agree who said that she acts like a teenager.
She is almost in her 30’s so going insane for Justin Timberlake and acting like a silly school girl makes her look stupid.
I always thought Gaby was pretty; if anything, I envy her beautiful skin.
I actually think singling her out on this is worth noting. In Hollywood, things like this are salient issues.
Makes me miss the Dove campaign from a few years ago that featured commercials with “real” women.
snowballa,
Great point. Except it isn’t. I said 4 stone anorexic 25 year old. Show me the last severely anorexic (4 stone for example) actress they put on that list.
Carey Mulligan f*cking ROOOCKS!!!!!!
Sorry, i don’t know what to say about this, but Carey is so beautiful, talented…oh gosh! i love her!!
My girlfriend is not going to like this ¬¬
It’s irresponsible to include her on this list, in my opinion, because obesity (and overweightness) in general is a huge problem in America right now, and putting Sidibe on a list of beautiful people is going to make those people think it’s okay. It’s not okay. Overweight can be beautiful, but Sidibe is not overweight. She is mordibly obese in a massively unhealthy way.
I agree with Kris that she has an “infectious, bubbly, and delightful” personality and I’m sure that’s a large portion of the reason why she was chosen, but the readership of People magazine is not clued into all of that. What they’re going to see is obesity = beautiful.
Want to recognize Sidibe for her dazzling personality and successful year? Go right ahead, I’m all for it. Put her on the cover, even. Just don’t call her weight anything but unhealthy.
It’s offensive that morbid obesity is celebrated in this way, in a country where 1 in 6 teenagers are obese.
USA has the highest number of obesity related deaths in the world.
300,000 adults dies every year due to morbid obesity.
MILLIONS of kids in the world cannot consume enough calories to fulfil their basic daily requirements – malnourishment is the leading cause of childhood death worldwide.
And people in the west (not just USA) are stuffing their faces every day.
I find it offensive.
Actually she might even be severely morbidly obese. I can see how she might be attractive to some but she is not my type. She was great in that movie but she will probably end up a one note.
No one has touched on the real reason she was chosen. People is a business, and this was a business decision.
Gabrielle is morbidly obese. They know that putting her on a list next to a bunch of skinny, plastic-surgery-marred white people will provoke a reaction. Gabrielle knows she’s being patronized but the studio wants her to pose for the photo because it will boost DVD sales. ‘People’ then leaks the news to the press, who offer them free advertising in their own publications in the same way you have here, because it will provoke a reaction. The morning talk show hosts jaw about it, hopefully Letterman makes a joke. The magazine sells, People raises the name recognition of their brand, Gabrielle stays in vogue and everybody gets rich.
If People really wanted to promote inner beauty they would include unknown heroes on the list too. Even if they wanted to keep it to celebs, do you mean to tell me that the only wonderful person in Hollywood just happens to be morbidly obese? They’re trotting her out there as a show pony and encouraging people to throw stones at her. There’s nothing deep about it.
Everyone who thinks I’m singling her out: Do you think I have the full list in front of me? The news was floated to me by a source and being Oscar-related, and being that I love Gabby’s personality, I posted it.
It’s sad so many people feel the need to dissect something so harmless.
Derek: Who called her weight anything at all? In fact — to be perfectly fucking honest — why is her weight even being discussed at all in this space? THAT is my point.
And to those thinking this is “celebrating” obesity. Oh…fuck it. I’m so disappointed this readership, which I frankly thought was above pettiness like this, is being this thick-headed. But you’ve all had your grandstanding say and I hope you’re proud.
If you want to talk about the craven nature of a corporate magazine seizing on an opportunity as one reader noted, I’m all for it. But those up in arms that this choice is in some way celebratory of an aspect of Sidibe that truly has no business being discussed in this space, I say it again: You’ve embarrassed yourselves. Take it to Hollywood Elsewhere. You’ll find a home there.
Henry: Her name is Gabourey, not Gabrielle.
Now…I’m done with this.