Emma Thompson is absolutely right

What are we actually stupid

I have loved Emma Thompson since Love Actually. Especially because of that scene where she straightens the bed in the hope of regaining control over her emotions. I notice that I often smooth the bedspread myself in times of stress and worry. As if that would help.

Now Emma is everywhere again because of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, in which a sixty-year-old woman orders a gigolo to sniff around all the sexual pleasures she has missed out on for the past forty years.

Emma is giving interviews again, about everything, but especially about your body. ‘Our whole lives we are indoctrinated by images of abnormal bodies. The bodies you see in movies are almost all trained to the abnormal. Those actors have followed a diet for months and exercised for hours every day to achieve that. It’s not normal.’ And then we all want that. ‘We make that our life goal. The pursuit of an unattainable ideal.’ Emma found it perhaps the hardest thing she has ever done: standing naked in front of the mirror and just looking at yourself, without moving. Not sucking in your stomach, not turning to the side to get a better angle on your waist, no, just looking straight ahead. At yourself.

Emma concludes with a text that goes viral on TikTok and that my 13-year-old daughter shoved in my face.

‘Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your life’s purpose worrying about your body. This is your vessel, it’s your house, it’s where you live, there’s no point in judging it, absolutely no point, but it’s very hard to do.’

And so it is. Thank you, Emma. Amen, Emma.