If you don’t know who Leslie Jones is by now, you should. Jones is not only a hilarious cast member on Saturday Night Live, but a talented actress as well. She is loud, proud and bold. She truly does not care what other people think, and she radiates confidence despite any haters that come her way. Here are several times she has stood up for body positivity and self-love.
The 2016 red carpet fiasco
Leslie Jones’ most successful film she’s been in is the all-female remake of Ghostbusters. Not only was there drama surrounding the casting of the film, there was also drama surrounding what she would wear to the premier. Apparently, Jones wasn’t able to find a dress designer that would make a dress for her. Many exclusive designers try to save customized dresses for “It girls” that wear a size zero.
Leslie Jones went viral after she tweeted, “It’s so funny how there are no designers wanting to help me with a premiere dress for movie. Hmmm that will change and I remember everything.” Christian Siriano, who you may remember as a past Project Runway winner, saw the tweet and reached out wanting to design a dress for her. When all was said and done, Leslie ended up looking killer on the red carpet.
Her social media platforms
Just one tweet by Leslie caused a demand for designers to start representing more body types. Jones’ social media presence and popularity caused her to start that change. It’s not just Leslie, though, but also her followers that supported her in masses. Not long after her viral tweet, she ended up getting harassed and cyberbullied. Instead of lashing back at the trolls, she decided to remain inactive on Twitter rather than delete her account.
She tweeted, “Can go through my feed yourself and see the bs. You won’t believe the evil,” as well as “Exposing I hope y’all go after them like they going after me.” She wanted people to see the harassment first-hand and expose the trolls. Sometimes, the best approach is to ignore the haters. But don’t worry, she was back online in no time and was very active tweeting during the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Her role on “Weekend Update”
One of my favorite moments of SNL is when Leslie Jones comes on as herself. She doesn’t need to play a character because she is already so full of life. A great body positive episode is when she comes on to talk about her summer beach body. When Weekend Update host Collin Jost comments that she is great, Jones responds with, “I believe the word your looking for is damn girl, you got them Michelle Obama arms.”
Through her response, she was able to both compliment and laugh at herself at the same time. Instead of being self-deprecating, she used body-positive humor. Jones even commented on the fact that many fans are inspired by her workouts to go to the gym themselves. However, Jones had a good point, saying “I just got one thing to say to all of y’all, I’m not doing it for y’all, I’m doing it for me.” She’s right again.
Jones teaches women it’s okay to laugh at ourselves, but not to the point where we put ourselves down just to make others laugh. We should always be lifting ourselves up and living our healthy lifestyles to benefit us, not anyone else.