Alicia Machado was the fourth woman from Venezuela to hold the title of Miss Universe. During her title reign, Alicia was almost replaced by runner-up Taryn Mansell of Aruba because it was said that Alicia had gained too much weight. She lost the weight and kept her title.
Since then she has gone on to become a successful actress and musician. Alicia has appeared in People Magazine Latino’s Mas Bellos 2012 (which is their equivalent of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful) and even appeared on the fold out cover. She is also donning a “fat-suit” and appearing in the play “My Friend the Fat woman”. The play is touring not only in Mexico but the United States as well with dates in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. She is even rumored to be in the running to play Jenny Rivera, the Mexican-American singer-songwriter, actress, who died in a plane crash near Iturbide, Nuevo León, Mexico, on December 9th, 2012. However, the issue of her weight has not escaped her.
Shamed by Donald Trump
The first incident of her weight being discussed in public was when the Miss Universe pageant sponsor Donald Trump referred to Machado as “an eating machine.” This sort of dialogue about a person’s habits, her body and her appearance fed into all of the negative stereotypes associated with beauty pageants, and while there was outrage over it there was not much done on the whole about the situation. Machado, for her part, lost the weight that had been the issue during the pageant, and won the crown. When she was asked what she was going to do now that she’d won her response, and not the first from a winner was, “eat, eat, eat.”
An Ongoing Struggle?
While she is a winner, Machado’s still struggles with her own eating habits and a desire to fit into a size and shape deemed acceptable by society at large for a former Miss Universe winner. Despite all of her accomplishments, her status as a mother, and her success as a Latin woman in the world of entertainment the media has remained focused on her waistline and on her personal dieting problems.
This continued focus and reporting on one woman’s struggle with food has shone a light on how society tends to focus on the wrong thing. It’s also drawn a lot of criticism from people, which isn’t like to stop anytime soon.
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