Jason Momoa, movie star and many, many people’s ideal man, was recently photographed relaxing on vacation with his wife, the equally stunning Lisa Bonet. So naturally, strangers on the internet had some opinions about his appearance that they felt needed to be voiced.
It turns out, people expect actors to look exactly like they do on-screen even when they’re on a private holiday with their families, and several commenters felt the need to point out that Momoa didn’t have his famous muscles. We won’t get into the comments, which gleefully made fat-shaming jokes at Momoa’s expense and which some readers might find triggering, but one of the least offensive simply said: “Seems to me he doesn’t have the same buff bod he had in Aquaman.“
Well, duh. Doesn’t it stand to reason that somebody whose job at least partially consists of intensive training and dieting to play a superhero might actually enjoy taking some time off? Fans have since leapt to Momoa’s defence, making the incredibly valid point that even without his stacked Aquaman body, Momoa is still in much better shape than many of us.
Far from being isolated incidents, these jokes about Momoa’s so-called “dad bod” only highlight the fact that body-shaming is very much a problem among men as well as women, with public figures deemed “fair game” when it comes to criticisms of their appearance. Female celebrities have long felt the pressure to look a certain way at all times, in turn perpetuating unrealistic and often unattainable standards of beauty in mainstream culture. And as it has become increasingly the norm for blockbuster movies to feature swole male leads, those incredibly high expectations now apply to men too.
Actors might be praised for the impressive transformations they undergo to play the leading man, but what gets forgotten along the way is the time, effort, and resources that go into maintaining that superhero physique. And when shooting ends, so too does the exhausting training regime. Everybody deserves some downtime — even Aquaman.
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This article originally appeared on Men’s Health
