John Cena made a surprise appearance to present Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things with the Academy Award for Best Costume Design but, in doing so, proved what we’ve been saying about Hollywood all along.
Before we get into this, I need to make one thing perfectly clear; John Cena looked fantastic during his robeless appearance at the 96th Academy Awards tonight. Presenting the award for Best Costume Design to the crew of Poor Things, he stood wearing nothing but Birkenstocks, hiding (very little) behind a tactfully placed placard.
Cena, who has himself made successful forays into Hollywood in recent years, transitioning out of the WWE whirlwind better than anyone else other than the inimitable Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — and, some might argue, the hulking Dave Batista — began his appearance as nothing more than a head peering out from behind the stage dressings before stepping out reveal his full form.
For decades, the obsession for many at these award-season events has been the fashion that stars wear as they stroll down the red carpet — the suits, the watches, the jewellery, the shoes, you name it — the garments that star layer on top of their bodies, often backed by enviable sponsorship deals, have been the main aesthetic fixation of the industry’s biggest event.
Cena’s appearance proves beyond all doubt — you could say, with a naked shamelessness — that Hollywood’s obsession is no longer with how good its stars look in their clothes but rather how good they look out of them. While we’ve always championed good health and fitness here at DMARGE, sharing the gospel in terms of good nutrition, weight loss, and muscle building strategies, we think the hype may have finally gone too far…
Here’s how John Cena went from fully naked (!!!) to partially clothed while costume design nominees reel played. Jimmy Kimmel really did help. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/dZPA7qmbgf
— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) March 11, 2024
Unrealistic Expectations
Why? For two reasons. First, those in Hollywood get a lot of help chiselling out their physiques and, while we can’t deny we envy them that from time to time, the danger is that it sets unrealistic expectations for us mere mortals to live up to.
Joel Kinnaman recently hopped on the brilliant Rich Roll Podcast to talk about upcoming projects, his journey from wayward youth to the world of acting and — most interestingly for us – the little-known secrets of how Hollywood hunks get so ridiculously jacked for their roles. As many of us suspected, there’s more to these bodies than meets the eye…
“What’s the reality of Hollywood trainer culture?”, asks Rich. Saying straight away that “in reality, nobody could look like that from just training in your garage”, Kinnaman undermines much of what we think we know about gym culture — that training hard, hitting the right workouts, and lifting heavy weights is the key to building muscle — in the following, brutally true sentence:
“It’s mostly diet and ‘Vitamin T’”
Joel Kinnaman
What exactly is the fabled ‘Vitamin T’? Well, anyone who follows fitness culture even remotely closely will probably guess correctly that Kinnaman is talking about testosterone.
Not only does this rampant testosterone use yet impossibly high standards for men — of which Austin Butler actually fell foul in his recent turn for Masters of The Air — but packing on the muscular pounds in the way that Cena, Hemsworth, and most recently Zac Efron have all done is actually pretty dangerous.
Hidden Dangers Of Extreme Muscle Gain
Put simply, experts believe that if you want to hit the gym, better yourself, and gain a few pounds, you should absolutely go for it. However, “unless you’re an actor or a professional bodybuilder, there is no practical reason to put your body under that much pressure and stress, as it can lead to catastrophic results that cannot always be easily reversed.”
What exactly are these results? Well, they’re even worse than this writer had imagined…
“Some of the significant side effects of bulking done wrong are unwanted fat gain, high cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, and even cancer.”
Set For Set
Terrifying as those risks undeniably are, there’s a mental health aspect to all of this too which shouldn’t be overlooked. Pointing out that Efron himself has in the past commented on how bulking while preparing for a role can be taunting — revealing that while training for his character in Baywatch, his mental health was adversely affected — they explain:
“Pushing both your body and mind to the extreme to achieve unattainable results can be damaging in the long run, and to “become bigger” can become an unhealthy obsession.”
Set For Set
Last but certainly not least, the experts also highlight the fact that maintaining this kind of body can actually be a lot more gruelling than achieving it in the first place: “Bulking is just the first of three stages of bodybuilding, the second one is cutting, meaning to decrease the body’s fat levels, while the last one is maintenance, to retain your muscle growth and provide adequate time for your body to adapt to your muscle growth and physical transformation.”
“While in this case the transformation was done for one single movie and it can be slowly and efficiently reversed, if your goal is to preserve this lifestyle, individuals might find it challenging to sustain the required level of calorie intake, leading to a yo-yo effect where they cycle between extreme bulking and cutting phases.”
Set For Set
Final Thoughts
While there’s no denying Cena looks good — shockingly good — without his kit on, we do have to question whether Hollywood’s new obsession with the body (and, specifically, the muscle-clad, testosterone-pumped body), is something we should be putting on a pedestal or an issue that needs to be approached with healthy scepticism…