Women > Inspiration & Love
Dear EliSabeth Moss, An Open Letter
Hulu is currently holding a contest for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale to win a full handmaid costume from the show. (I’ve entered…you shouldn’t, though, so I can better my chances of winning, lol. J/k, kinda.)
On the promo webpage, there’s a video of Ms. Moss introducing the contest. At first I was so happy to see her not as June, but as a person. But by the end of the video, I wanted to jump in the frame with her and give her a friendly, supportive hug.
In the video, Ms. Moss is dressed in layers of black, standing on a black background. Her hands are clasped tightly, her arms stiff. She looks uncomfortable, and that makes me sad.
See, Ms. Moss had a baby and gained weight. Who cares. Her weight gain has nothing to do with her personality or nature, or how amazing she is as an actress and businesswoman. But I feel her insecurity, her humanness.
May I call you Elisabeth? I wish we could be friends. We’re around the same age — we’re both 1982 babies, xennials. Do you drink tea? We could just hang out and read our books and eat scones. There’s probably loads more for us to chat about, and we can add weight gain in our 40s to that list of topics. We could invite Melissa McCarthy to tea, too. (Or ya’ll could invite me, since you two already seem to be buds.)
By the way, isn’t that red dress just awesome? It’s from Self-Portrait, a ready-to-wear store for the wealthy (dresses cost $500 on average). The link for this dress on discount is broken, but it looks like maybe you can get it for $260. It’s totally my style (too), but I don’t have a waist at the moment, so it wouldn’t look great on me…
This post is probably now getting a little creepy.
Since it’s highly unlikely that our paths will cross in real life (I mean, I was in the East Village the same time you were at Sty Town, apparently, and we didn’t run into each other at the Key Foods or in the late night at Mumbles), I sent your talent agency an email. Maybe my message gets to you. If not, here’s what I wrote.
SUBJECT: Pls tell Elizabeth Moss she looks fantastic and shouldn't hide behind a black jacket. :)
TO: ---@independenttalent.com
I just saw the promo Ms. Moss did for a contest on Hulu, and she's on a black background wearing all black, including a black jacket. She is gorgeous no matter anything, and her fans love her unconditionally. Please pass along to her manager and stylist to put her in color and let her shine.
(Hope this wasn't weird. I just thought maybe she could use some kind words!)
Jenny
Yeah, I really hope this email and post don’t come off as creepy. I mean, I’m writing this all sincerely, like a kind aunt who only happens to be a few months older.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. A lot of women my age look at Elisabeth as a peer — she’s been with us most of the journey.
We went through kinda-sorta similar young adult challenges alongside her in The West Wing, though her dad (President Bartlet) was worried about her being being tied to a chair in a cargo shack somewhere in Uganda while our fathers worried about us being roofied in a bar, but you get the picture.
Then we saw her as Polly the “Torch” who was stuck in the psych ward with schizophrenia in Girl, Interrupted. (It’s streaming for free on Tubi!) Sweet and fun…damaged but still normalish. Totally relatable.
As we struggled to climb the corporate ladder, so did she, in Mad Men. (Not yet streaming free; currently on AMC+.) Peggy Olsen fought the tyranny of men and used courage, strength, and the mighty pen to reach success. If Peggy could move up from the secretarial pool to be Copy Chief, so could we.
When we were done playing by society’s rules and had left the corporate BS, we saw her in Shirley, playing writer Shirley Jackson. (Streaming on Tubi, for free, too.) Moss portrays Jackson after the success of her novella The Lottery, as she grapples with mental health issues (just the usual: anxiety, agoraphobia, and depression).
Maybe it’s just me, but Elisabeth has been there through these adulting years. I just hate to see you/her trying to hide in the shadows. Forty is the new, um, forty. We don’t have to blend in with the carpeting and drapes.
On that note, next week I start a crazy water fast that will last until I fit into my sparkly dress. It has to fit by Scarlet Night in August. 🙂
Overall…
I have that same jacket (well, the stylish Walmart version) in khaki. One of the last times I wore it was in Zurich, where a drunk stranger on the train called me a potato. His words weren’t nice, and his remark stung. I think about it every time I wear the jacket, which isn’t very often these days. But that’s because I’m in Florida and it’s hot right now.
Google says you live in Los Angeles, where it’s also hot. You don’ need a jacket, because of the weather and because you don’t need to be concerned about how you look.
Elisabeth, from one forty-something to another, you look great.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to check out my latest video on YouTube!
Jenny Claire is an award-winning educational materials writer, travel journalist, and food critic, formerly based in New York City and Taiwan. She calls a cute cabin in the woods of rural North Central Florida home, but lately she’s been spending most of her time cruising and traveling. She also was a secret travel critic and writer — but her lips are sealed on those details!
Living the Sunshine Life