Rachel McAdams has re-ignited a conversation around women's bodies and unrealistic beauty standards with her latest editorial photoshoot.
The star – who stars as a free-spirited, no-bra-wearing mother in the big screen adaptation of Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Judy Blume's highly acclaimed coming-of-age novel – spoke to Bustle about her role.
For Bustle's photo shoot, April cover star #RachelMcAdams requested the images be edited as *minimally* as possible.
— Bustle (@bustle) April 18, 2023
"I love that juxtaposition of beauty, glam, fantasy, and then truth."https://t.co/cyBc43l3kW pic.twitter.com/Nqao17Sima
In the accompanying photos, McAdams was captured wearing luxury clothes, styled to perfection and with her armpit hair visible – something that McAdams requested be left in the "minimally" edited photos.
Speaking about the shoot in the article, she said: "With this shoot, I'm wearing latex underwear. But I've had two children. This is my body, and I think that's so important to reflect back out to the world."
"I love that juxtaposition of beauty, glam, fantasy, and then truth," she added.
It reasserted the reality that women do not always need or want to shave their body hair, a conversation that has circulated for decades but is only recently part of the expectations we hold for women when it comes to their appearance.
While the shoot drew negative comments criticising McAdams for her choice, with some men and women going as far to express disgust at the "nasty" or "gross" photos, many celebrated the realistic take on an editorial cover shoot.
men in the comments saying "i'll pass" as if rachel mcadams would ever even look ur way lmaooo body hair is hot! hot girls have armpit hair x https://t.co/UstKbAxZ97
— meghan rose (@meggilleece) April 19, 2023
As one Twitter user noted, the practice of shaving body hair has been in fashion for only a short amount of time, but still carries with it an expectation that women in particular must be groomed at all times.
people have been shaving their body hair for less than 100 years and allegedly heterosexual men are so attached to the practice that they're calling one of the hottest women in the world nasty for having armpit hair lmao https://t.co/xXhMFQgwQ5
— mike (@olivesagan) April 19, 2023
This isn't the first time the actress has pushed boundaries when it comes to editorial photoshoots, having been snapped using a breast pump in a previous shoot. In a photoshoot for Girls. Girls. Girls. magazine, the mum-of-two posed in Versace clothes and Bulgari diamonds, as well as a breast pump, shortly after giving birth to her first child.
At the time, Girls. Girls. Girls. editor-in-chief Claire Rothstein posed the image on Instagram, noting how McAdams – only 6 months postpartum – was pumping and breastfeeding in between shots.
That – admittedly highly stylised and glamorous – shoot opened a conversation around breastfeeding, and particularly the stigma some women still face when it comes to breastfeeding in public.
