15 pounds = reason #23058 to adore Christina Hendricks:

“I guess my mom raised me right. She was very celebratory of her body. I never heard her once say, ‘I feel fat.’ Back when I was modeling, the first time I went to Italy I was having cappuccinos every day, and I gained 15 pounds. And I felt gorgeous! I would take my clothes off in front of the mirror and be like, Oh, I look like a woman. And I felt beautiful, and I never tried to lose it, ‘cause I loved it.”

From the July/August issue of Health. Via TheFrisky/HuffPo.

Nikki Blonsky to IHeartDaily:

IHD: How have you stayed motivated to make it as an actress when Hollywood is full of size two stars?
NB: People have told me, “If you want to get a job you need to lose weight,” and I said, “Okay, really, then you’re not the person to be around me because I am who I am and I am this way for a reason.” If I wake up tomorrow morning and feel like losing five pounds, then maybe I will. If I don’t, I won’t. I just live life on my standards, on what I believe in… and I feel great about my body. I’m very secure in it. I have no problem doing anything, going to the beach, going to the pool. It’s my body, it’s mine.

IHD: Do you think Huge is going to inspire plus-size women to be confident in their skin?
NB: Absolutely, because my character, I know for sure does not conform to losing weight. She will not conform to trying to look pretty like all of the other girls. She is herself and that’s why I love her and that’s why I feel so blessed to be playing her.

Mad! Men! Barbies!

Collect all four! Totally buying a Joan (and then padding her dress).*

While we’re on the subject, what do we think of the new Code Monkey Barbie?

Either way, this is a really interesting and thorough take. (H/T Joy Engel.)

* Or, put another way by a later tipster: “You know how you like Joan Holloway because she’s not a Barbie doll? Oops!”

Nice eulogy here.

…Certainly she embodied, in her rather brief career, many fairly significant shifts in how women were viewed, on television and in the culture, something I can’t imagine any of us expected as we gazed through the dim choking haze of adolescence at that mane of golden hair and perfect smile and wondered why the gods were so arbitrary with their gifts.

If nothing else, Farrah Fawcett proved something that should make life a little easier for the rest of us: You don’t have to have a huge body of work to make a pretty big imprint. Though a great smile certainly helps.

An impressively dopey article on CNN.com alerts us to the news that Washington-based publisher Bluewater Productions has released a series of comic books featuring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

“We really want to show strong, independent, female role models in comics,” said Darren Davis, Bluewater’s president, who didn’t explain how Palin got on that ticket, either. The first two issues in “Female Force,” already out, feature Clinton and Palin. Up next: Caroline Kennedy — huh? – and Michelle Obama. (Well, we know she’s got guns.)

“Comic fans approve of the idea,” note the not-so-ace reporters. To wit: “‘I think it just says, like, that women are important,’ one comic book fan told CNN.'” (Quoth our tipster, “Who’s doing this sourcing, Judy Miller?”)

And: “Another [!] added, ‘It shows that comics aren’t just about guys in tights beating each other up — it’s about information, it’s about understanding people a little better.” (“It’s about information”? This is a job for…The Quote Puncher-Upper!)

Plus: “We’re in a very politically-minded time right now,” said Richard Laermer, CEO of a public relations firm and author of several books on banalities marketing.

We “fans” well know that comics are by no means only about “guys in tights beating each other up” in the first place. But, dopey piece notwithstanding, Female Force’s fare could totally be good, you know, if it’s good. But honestly, I’m already impressed enough with [most of] these women in real life.