Of course, she's getting trashed on X. She's "trending." That's why I saw it. I don't really know her, but I see she's highly praised for her role in "Hacks," and also that she's the daughter of Laraine Newman.Hollywood actress Hannah Einbinder blames “fascism” for women wanting to be slim.
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) August 30, 2026
“As we see a rise in fascism, there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space.” pic.twitter.com/0VTlRFqe2e
Anyway, it's cheap and easy to go after an actress who expresses any opinion that seems to require intelligence and background knowledge. I would prefer to isolate what she said and explore the various issues there:
1. There's a broad, casual use of the word "fascism" that's like the way Seinfeld used "Nazi" in "The Soup Nazi." You can argue that the word should be used more precisely, but it doesn't mean the person who's using it broadly is a fool.
2. Correlation is not causation, and she only said "correlation." She intensified it with "direct" — "There is a direct correlation" — but Einbinder was clever enough to protect herself with the first-rate weasel word "correlation."
3. Did the actual historical fascists idealize female thinness? I don't think so. This Holocaust resources site discusses the 1937 Nazi newsreel "Healthy Woman - Healthy Nation," which began: "For women, the mothers of the future generations, the greatest asset is a healthy mind in a healthy body. Therefore a woman’s daily duties include the training of the body. Women’s sports must differ from men’s sports. Breaking records is a matter for men. Sports should give a woman more than just strength, joy, and gracefulness. The sports organization of the new Germany makes it possible for every woman to pursue the types of sports that are best and healthiest for her."
4. Einbinder's statement caused me to go looking for the great 1993 documentary "The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl." I found the entire 3-hour film on YouTube, but I'm cuing it up to begin with the discussion of her 1938 Nazi propaganda film "Olympia." You can get some insight into Nazi ideas about the physical beauty and fitness:
Posts
74 comments:
Fascism. Is there nothing it can't do?
At some point people will realize "Fascism" for these people is just short hand for people who oppose the feminization of society.
Elimination of shame for being fat is pure condensed feminism.
Sorry, Fattists, we Fascists need our lebensraum.
Things that are fascist:
Students in public schools being able to read.
Not being fat.
Having a job and being self sufficient.
Letting people to the right of Mao have opinions.
Not hating Jews and deporting Hamas supporters.
Borders.
Deporting criminals.
Jupiter said...
Sorry, Fattists, we Fascists need our lebensraum.
And our lederhosen.
People who use "fascism" broadly aren't always fools... but that's the way to bet.
Female actors are under enormous pressure to keep their weight as low as possible. The camera adds pounds, and weight in the wrong places can readily disqualify you for a role. So naturally the thing that you are borderline obsessed with is correlated with the vague political idea that in some cloudy blurry way is the sum of all evil.
Seems worth going over one more time. It was Mussolini, a red-diaper socialist, who invented Fascism, and it was a direct reference to a bundle of sticks called the fasces. From Wiki; "The fasces, as a bundle of rods with an axe, was a grouping of all the equipment needed to inflict corporal or capital punishment. In ancient Rome, the bundle was a material symbol of a Roman magistrate's full civil and military power, known as imperium. "
Mussolini intended this reference to make his movement attractive to Italians. I doubt that the NAZIs were equally impressed. Although they were also Zocialists.
Actually, come to think of it, "Democratic Socialists of Amerika" has a lot in common with "National Socialist German Workers' Party". Maybe we should call them the DEZIs.
the Interesting Thing Is: lefties have become SO STUPID, that they think words mean WHAT EVER they want.. Right IEE?
She seems a little..... chubby. Would it be insulting if I applied a nickname the way Trump does? Hannah Heiniebinder? Would that correlate to facism?
After, “As we see a rise in fascism”, nothing else matters. No analysis of her word choices makes her less of a Helen. “Correlation” vs. “causation”? Meh!
When you lack the ability to form a coherent argument, scream “fascism” or “racism”.
It is so tiresome.
"Correlation is not causation"
I really dislike this platitude. While technically correct, it's usually used to discount the correlation as being counterfactual. While technically correct, in fact correlation often reveals causation. It's why we do statistics.
"Cheap and easy" is a good phrase for her and her opinions.
With some exceptions, actors shouldn't try to write their own lines.
This falls under "Women hardest hit." Hardly a day goes by that the NYT doesn't have a piece that falls into this category.
let's put aside our sneers and ask some SERIOUS QUESTIONS:
IF we stipulate a "rise in fascism" at the current time..
AND we stipulate a "direct correlation" with "THINNESS"..
wouldn't THAT imply? that there is MORE "THINNESS" in the world, TODAY; than in, i don't know..
The 60's?
The 70's?
The 80's?
The 90's?
I'm ASSUMING that she's saying that people aren't as fat friendly NOW, as they were during the O'Bama admin..
BUT
for a "direct correlation" to work.. wouldn't HAVE TO correlate?
across time and decades?
You people are (mostly) Old People.. With (still some) memory..
Was there less "THINNESS" back in the good old days?
I don't know Hannah Einbinder (and her sparse imdb page explains why), I know her mother, who I remember as being exceptionally thin.
"in fact correlation often reveals causation"
At least it often *implies* causation. But we still need to point the arrow in the correct direction, which seems to be a big ol' sticking point.
Original Mike said...
"..I know her mother, who I remember as being exceptionally thin.."
exactly! so apparently, the Carter era was THE HIGHT of fascism!
That Nazi propaganda newsreel suggests an answer to the problem of transgender women in sports. It says: "Breaking records is a matter for men. Sports should give a woman more than just strength, joy, and gracefulness."
How about a separate division of school sports — apart from the existing men's and women's divisions that channel competition and keep male and female separated — that eliminates the competitive spirit and is all about beauty, grace, and joy?
There would no longer be a problem of transgender women having a competitive advantage, because there would be no way to win, no idea of anyone being better than anyone else.
Everyone would aspire to joy and grace — traditional feminine values and perhaps what transgender women mean when they assert that they feel that inside they are a woman. Plenty of biological women would like this too, and this group could get along and would be specifically engaged in the activity of getting along — full of grace and joy.
Her observation about the "return" to thinness in female (and male ) celebrities and regular people has more to do with the availability of the weight loss drugs like Ozempic. The fat icons like Lizzo and Oprah have publicly delighted in showing off their new more slender appearance. It has nothing to do with the rise of what she considers fascism.
Once in a stall in a college bathroom, someone had put up an International Workers of the World "One Big Union" sticker. It was a drawing of a very muscular young man, naked from the waist up, holding a sledge hammer from a point of view looking up. The picture was pretty much centered on his groin. One perceptive student had crossed out "union" and written in "dick".
The cult of beautiful bodies isn't so much fascist or communist as gay.
https://archive.iww.org/graphics/agitators/classic/obu.gif
"As we see a rise in fascism, there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space."
Correlation requires two or more random variables. The “ As we see a rise in fascism”. Is an introductory adverbial clause, it adds context to the next statement. “there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space."
But there is only one variable there, thinness, so what is thinness correlated with? Very muddled. She was trying to sound smart but got it wrong.
"— that eliminates the competitive spirit and is all about beauty, grace, and joy?"
Basically, a set up like the Danish/Nordic Folk School
“Folk high schools in Europe are residential adult education institutions that prioritize personal development, democratic citizenship, and informal learning over academic degrees or formal examinations."
The student competes against their prior capability, instead of being driven by competing to prove others "the loser".
She's got a good point. Corpulent zaftig rubenesque women are impossible to ignore.
C'mon. This is some sort of satire, right? (Her mom was pretty good at it). Take up less space?
Maybe she just recently flew economy (as I did). This is an airline conspiracy. Which unfortunately doesn't seem to be having much success.
Also why is she wearing a graduation gown?
Only other women and gay male designers care how skinny you are.
“ Plenty of biological women would like this too, and this group could get along and would be specifically engaged in the activity of getting along — full of grace and joy.”
But this would not answer the main question of whether the girls would have to get naked in front of the trans boys.
Well, the direct correlation is with socialism. Fascism is nationality-based socialism. Marxism is class-based socialism. Nazism was race-based socialism. For those slow, the common element is "socialism".
Socialism "purposes to introduce new forces into society and industry; to put a stop to the idleness, the waste of resources, the misdirection of force, inseparable, in some large proportion of instances, from individual initiative; and to drive the whole mass forward in the direction determined by the intelligence of its better half."
----Walker, F.A., 'Socialism', Scribner's Magazine 1887
"How about a separate division of school sports — apart from the existing men's and women's divisions that channel competition and keep male and female separated — that eliminates the competitive spirit and is all about beauty, grace, and joy?"
That already exists. It's called "Dance" and very few people are interested.
No commenter has yet ragged on her for the uptalking so please let me be the first.
Women feeling pressured to be thin is a problem that has been with us for a very long time. I also associate this pressure as originating from the entertainment industry. I think that people first really noticed this problem when Karen Carpenter died of anorexia.
“ How about a separate division of school sports… that eliminates the competitive spirit and is all about beauty, grace, and joy?”
I think Dance would qualify for this, but even that can be done in a competitive setting.
A simpler explanation is that cameras are everywhere, and TV adds ten pounds.
As a man who finds boney-assed women utterly unappetizing, I can tell you the naturally plump female form is more greatly appreciated today than at any time in the previous sixty years.
I think “Einbinder” translates roughly as “Shrew.”
"People who use 'fascism' broadly aren't always fools."
Horses, not zebras.
Fascists would have despised paper-thin modern women. The mothers of the nation needed abundant breasts and wide hips for childbearing. Fascism (and its Stalinist brother) was a bit of two minds. Some women would be working in the fields. The wives of the leaders wouldn't.
Guess she wasn't old enough when heroin chic was around. Someone get that Grande skeleton a cheeseburger, stat.
The Nazi feminine ideal was kind of like the volleyball girl in the Mutt/Jeff couple of a few posts ago: broad shoulders, respectable but not gigantic breasts, wide hips, and a moderate amount of subcutaneous fat. Reflected the raw material of Germanic womanhood, filtered through the needs of the Fatherland: childbearing and moderately vigorous work. Here is an example:
https://www.alamy.com/a-bronze-statue-titled-jungfrau-virgin-by-fritz-von-graevenitz-circa-1945-this-statue-served-as-a-piece-of-nazi-propaganda-during-the-second-world-war-as-it-reflects-the-regimes-ideals-on-a-female-including-purity-beauty-youth-and-fertility-image602294037.html
So ironically, it was the natural, non-gym-addict form that Einbeinder probably wants to promote.
CC, JSM
Phat Phascist Pharm
Female thinness is the ideal of a society where birth control and homosexuality are rampant. Trad men dig curves. A thin woman is just another object by which men can masturbate themselves for their own pleasure. They're not partners for building a life and family together.
About ten years ago people stopped caring about being called racist, because the term stopped having any real meaning. We're at that point with the term "fascist" now. The Left should be careful what they wish for, because at some point people will stop caring whether they are actually racist or fascist.
Fascist or not this fall will turn on how hard democrats lean into collectivism and abandon individualism. Lorraine was herself pretty danged skinny back when the coke-no-food diet was all the rage.
Saying correlation is not causation is fine, but I always say, lack of correlation certainly proves lack of causation.
“but it doesn't mean the person who's using it broadly is a fool.”
Yes it does.
You’re looking at a very common Lefty trope and trying to pretend it makes sense (in some alternate dimension). Anything the writer does not like is labeled as fascist or sexist or racist and that is supposed to end the debate. More recently words implying irrational fear: homophobic, transphobic, and, lately, islamaphobic. It’s fair to point out that we of the Right* started this trope, labeling liberal causes of the 50s and 60s like the Civil Rights movement and welfare as communistic, but that by no means justifies its continuation.
_______________
* However back in the 60s I was a high school and college student (and an eventual draftee). I began to evolve after the classic 1965-era joke: “They told me that if I voted for Barry Goldwater in six months we’d be in a shooting war in Southeast Asia. Well I did anyway and sure enough we were.”
Sorry - I was a student and a liberal in the 1960s. I left my (then) political affiliation out of the footnote.
The left = the actual fascists.
We’re in the midst of an obesity and diabetes epidemic. Trips to the grocery story have become something of a nightmare vision. Fit and trim people have become rare. Asses the size of a couch are common. A high percentage of people are using the grocery cart as a walker because they can’t stand up. How in the hell, in the midst of this, do you write about “thinness” as a problem?
5. Hacks was an overrated show which ran out of steam after two seasons.
For me this is about bitching about bitching and moaning about something silly.
Of course it's unhealthy to be too thin. or too fat.
Nazi's dreamed of a perfect world - filled with perfect people. Who does that remind you of?
Hmmm, can't remember the last time I saw a Mutt and Jeff reference.
I hope someone sees fit to mention Alphonse and Gaston soon.
"There's a broad, casual use of the word "fascism" that's like the way Seinfeld used "Nazi" in "The Soup Nazi." You can argue that the word should be used more precisely, but it doesn't mean the person who's using it broadly is a fool."
What it almost always means is that the person who is using it is replacing anything resembling an actual argument with pure defamation, and is nearly as certainly a fool in the bargain.
See also: racist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe.
When I was moving our house items last November I found my high school yearbook from my senior year from 1983-1984 school year. Out of 132 students in my graduating class, there was exactly one fat girl- just one- and none of the boys were fat by even the most loose definitions of obese.
Correlation is not causation, and she only said "correlation." She intensified it with "direct" — "There is a direct correlation" — but Einbinder was clever enough to protect herself with the first-rate weasel word "correlation."
But “to make women take up less space is a cause or purpose.
Correlations don’t have goals.
Fascism seems to have developed as a term in order for socialists and communists to label other socialists and communists as enemies.
The delusional, psychotic nature of this post is bewildering. A couple of years ago, I became so fed up with always being in the company of fatsos that I took dance lessons and started going to dance just to be around people who are fit, mobile and active. (It works, too. You don’t see asses as big a sofa on a dance floor.)
St- right? So much obesity.
The left want to re-define everything and destroy language.
Seems fascist to me.
“"As we see a rise in fascism, there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space."
So said the actress Hannah Einbinder”
Lefties keep getting out of their way to make fascism sound good.
“Correlation is not causation, and she only said "correlation." She intensified it with "direct" — "There is a direct correlation" — but Einbinder was clever enough to protect herself with the first-rate weasel word "correlation."”
“Direct correlation” usually implies causation one way or the other. Maybe thin women cause fascism? Or something else causes both simultaneously? What would that be?
“"How about a separate division of school sports — apart from the existing men's and women's divisions that channel competition and keep male and female separated — that eliminates the competitive spirit and is all about beauty, grace, and joy?"
That already exists. It's called "Dance" and very few people are interested.”
Wut?! Has no one seen “Black Swan”?
going out of their way, not getting.
I used to be against fascism until I learned that under fascism there is pressure for women to be thin and "take up less space". Fat women are an eyesore.
In common parlance, I think Fascism, like the word bourgeois, has come to mean any kind of social construct that the speaker finds discomfiting.......I think the prompts for thinness comes not from politics or from social rules but rather from our own conscience. We all know when we have put on a few too many pounds and very few people go through an entire life without either dieting or getting fat. There's no way around it. We want to be thin and we want to eat all the good things that are all around us all the time everywhere we go and we all live within steps of the refrigerator where there are some tasty, relatively healthy foods that are ours to ingest if we so desire. It's pretty to think that our will power is stronger than our appetites, but we all know that's a crock........Still, I don't blame the fascists for this. I blame the capitalists. They're forever inventing new ways to make food taste better and at a cheaper price. I'm afraid if you want to be thin you need to live in a Socialist country live Cuba. They've really got that obesity problem licked.
The parallels between German Nazis and the modern neo-fascist left are striking.
Well...this is not her first foray into far-left idiocy. Notably for me, she's one of those coastal antisemitic Jews. Loves her cushy life. Hates that Israelis fight for their continued existence against those who would have her head-or worse- if given the chance. She is a walking caricature of today's regressive mindset.
The American left is clearly a lot more fascist than the right because they embrace violence and intimidation as their primary means of persuasion. In their minds, anyone who disagrees with them is evil and undeserving of rational engagement, and the way to gain power is simply to punish (physically, if necessary) those who stand in their way. It's the complete intolerance of competing philosophies and beliefs that best defines fascism, and this is sadly what the left has now become.
Lets look at the fascist left.
Democrat soviet media lies & misinformation and dem-soviet speech crimes are all leftwing fascism.
Folks, can you stop debating fascism?
The U.S. has a gross, deadly, ugly obesity problem. Thinness is close to non-existent, especially in women.
She's right. Fascism/Socialism does correlate with thinness for the vast majority of people living under that system. Another word for this kind of thinness is starvation.
Ann Althouse said...
How about a separate division of school sports — apart from the existing men's and women's divisions that channel competition and keep male and female separated — that eliminates the competitive spirit and is all about beauty, grace, and joy?
Ice skating.
Or rhythmic gymnastics
I'm curious why Ann thinks that MTF trannies would be content to engage in women's "sports" that don't involve competition. It certainly seems like the transwomen we've seen in swimming, track, volleyball, etc., are very much interested not only in competing, but in winning as well. It's clearly not just an aesthetic pursuit for them. Or is it your suggestion that regular XX women should abandon women's sports and instead choose non-competitive activities as a means of avoiding having to compete against XY "women"?
To quote Yogi Berra, “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
From GPT: “The latest CDC measurement is 171.8 pounds for the average American woman aged 20 or older, at an average height of 5 feet 3½ inches. That combination produces a BMI of roughly 30—right at the threshold of clinical obesity. The data come from August 2021–August 2023. CDC body-measurement data.”
Shouting Thomas said...
We’re in the midst of an obesity and diabetes epidemic. Trips to the grocery story have become something of a nightmare vision. Fit and trim people have become rare. Asses the size of a couch are common. A high percentage of people are using the grocery cart as a walker because they can’t stand up. How in the hell, in the midst of this, do you write about “thinness” as a problem?
I like to play a game with my daughters.
If you released a pack of hungry 3 legged wolves inside this Costco and all you had to do was run 6 miles an hour to escape how many people in here would make it out?
“The latest CDC measurement is 171.8 pounds for the average American woman aged 20 or older,"
Holy cow.
I really enjoy hacks, but her character is a bit of a fool. A woke millennial entitled narcissist. I’m not terribly surprised that the actress who plays her so well is also a bit of a fool. A woke millennial entitled narcissist. (And yes, somebody who thinks it’s ok to use fascism to describe anything she doesn’t like is a fool.)
It’s never a stone’s throw. Actors are pretty fucking far from reality.
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