Food, Celebrity Portraits, and Food Culture

Ever since I began following Japanese entertainment, I noticed that many people (actors, actresses, musicians, and idols) appeared in magazines featuring food. Sometimes it’d be a regular snapshot of them holding a snack, but sometimes they would do a full-on feature on food. I never thought much of it, until I began gathering photos for this YAMYUM Food Blogathon post contribution.

As a Latin American-Asian, I love my food. I enjoy it when others enjoy it and I wish I could enjoy it like they are, so it’s always been a bother when  movies and series have food scenes where actors barely pick at their food. Think about it, most of the time it’s rare to see someone on screen that actually enjoys their food. It’s as if people on screen never eat (or take dumps, though that’s changed in some movies). Sure food is seldom part of the plot, but when food is required in a scene with people talking, it’s people picking at their food, never eating it.

Sometimes, people may chew on their food, but they never swallow — and that sounds completely wrong. Anyway, it’s something that bothers me as much as crying with snot running down your nose. It almost never happens!

This whole search for celebrity portraits started with this photo of Jesse Eisenberg by Martin Schoeller for last year’s GQ. I thought to myself, “Hmm… what other portraits of entertainers featured food?

In my search of a variety of celebrity portraits — smartly Googled with the terms “name of celebrity food” LOL — I ended up finding some Tumblr diamonds. Tumblr always has diamonds. The first one, a very good source for this post was Fame & Food, and the other one was RDJ Eating Things (which is, in itself, gold AND diamonds).

amy

YAM Magazine editor, photographer, blogger, translator and part-time web designer. Film junkie, music junkie… and lately series (a.k.a. TV) junkie.

3 Responses

  1. mirella says:

    Gooddammit, another reason to love RDJesus: he loves to eat~

  2. ghost says:

    The most interesting thing to see is how different the Bon Appetit cover looks to any other cover. Gwyneth has FRECKLES??? When did she ever have freckles?

    Can Bjork’s Swan dress count as food? Do people eat swan? Maybe someone should get a goose dress next.

    About Classic Hollywood, I think… Marylin did like eating, so there’s a big chance she’s eating that burger. Then again, the Hollywood machine could have fabricated that idea as well. We… may… never actually know.

    • amy says:

      @ghost, That’s why I don’t usually go for fashion shoots. American Vogue, Bazaar, etc. They all apply a HEAVY layer to erase imperfection that… it makes them all look flat and plastic. I mean, a little photoshop it’s okay, I don’t mind a little bit of clean up, but things have gotten so out of hand.

      About Marilyn… PR machine? xD I think it’s hard to tarnish the PR of a star that has already gone. PR is an interesting thing to study, but a precious thing to just stay away from. xD

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