“Shocking!”
“Unrecognisable!” (The British papers).
When one of your favorite actors suddenly dominates your social media feed, it is easy to fear the worst.
No. Not John Goodman.
Goodman was definitely trending this weekend, but thankfully he is alive and well.
The newfound attention was prompted by a fan bumping into him at a L.A. grocery store and sharing a selfie with the actor. The Instagram post was filled with love for the comic icon, a regular guy eager to take a selfie with a fan.
But the internet seemed to see only one thing: Goodman’s weight loss.
Soon, the fun fan shot was replaced by one of those grim before-and-after shots: An obese Goodman in his 30s and the slimmer Goodman in his 70s. One comment that captured the mood: “The not-so-big-Lebowski.”
It was one of those memes that lasted a news cycle before the headlines faded.
But not with me.
I’ve closely followed Goodman’s career for reasons beyond his talent. As a morbidly obese young adult, I considered him one of my “big three,” along with John Candy and Chris Farley.
WK.0921.Candymovie.1 –– Steve Martin (middle) and the late John Candy (right) star in the 1987 movie “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”, directed by John Hughes.
(Paramount Pictures)
My size was the struggle of my life, and these three men were role models I had trouble finding in real life. Everyone loved them. People called them geniuses. They were strong confident guys who were too cool and funny to be derailed by a cruel comment or a size-related mishap. I saw all their movies. I tried to slip them into conversation, as if to remind whomever I was talking to perhaps I too could be beloved for my size. “Did you see SNL last night? Wasn’t Chris Farley great?” “John Goodman was the best part of ‘Barton Fink,’ right?”
Then my idols started dying.
Candy was found dead on the set of his movie “Wagons East” in 1994. The news hit me hard, both because I loved him and because I knew the people in my life would wonder whether I was headed for the same fate. His death, at age 43, brought cruel jokes about his size, and suddenly I did not want to talk about him. My great-aunt clipped me an outlandish (and it turns out inaccurate) National Enquirer story listing all the foods Candy allegedly ate in the days before his death.
Two years later, we lost Farley. I told my father how heartbroken I was and he agreed. But he quickly added: People your size can die before their time. Farley was just 33.
Comedian Chris Farley, new cast member of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” is shown on Sept. 18, 1990. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
(Richard Drew / Associated Press)
Goodman has talked for more than a decade about his efforts to change his lifestyle. He attributed his weight loss to eating less and taking better care of himself.
But what’s remarkable is how much more press he got about losing weight than being obese in the first place. I searched the newspaper archives and found very few stories that mentioned his size back when he was on the “Roseanne” TV series.
His weight loss, that’s another story. It seems like every new project, every red carpet premiere brings “shocking” stories of his “new look.” In a Vanity Fair profile a few years ago, the reporter notes disapprovingly when Goodman eats a corned-beef sandwich and cole slaw, asking “Aren’t we supposed to be on a diet?”
Being overweight can be difficult. But losing weight these days brings its own judgments.
Is she on Ozempic? Did he get the surgery? Did they lose the pounds the hard way or the easy way? Why can’t they just come clean with us? What are they trying to hide?
Goodman is good-natured about it when reporters ask him (and they often do!) about his journey and offered candor about his days topping out at 400 pounds.
“I think you’re trying to fill a hole that can’t be filled unless it’s filled with goodness, some kind of spirituality, not saying religion,” he explained to ABC News in 2013. “But just a belief in something higher than yourself, a purpose… You can’t fill it. And you go on and live with it.”
That is a lot more articulate than I could manage when people asked me about the pounds I lost after my own gastric sleeve surgery about a decade ago.
That surgery didn’t transform my life, but I am convinced it gave me extra years.
I never became “unrecognizable,” and I spent more time than I’d like to admit looking at myself in the mirror and comparing what I saw to photos of the younger, fatter version of myself.
Do I look better? Happier? Stronger?
I finally realized I am missing the real lesson of this before-and-after exercise.
I’m just older now.
And so is my favorite actor.
We’re both still here.
