Demi Moore isn’t alone, most women have had a devastating career ‘popcorn’ moment

This week the Hollywood actor confessed to never feeling good enough because of a cruel remark said to her just as she was starting out. It’s a familiar experience, says Stacey Duguid, who shared her own self-confidence shattering moment and was bowled over by the response

The shock of Demi Moore winning a Golden Globe is still sinking in. Not because, at 62 years old, she’s at an age when most women struggle to even get roles in Hollywood (even when they are as honey-limbed and sleek-haired as Moore). The irony of her winning for a film, The Substance – a dark satire on the ageism of the film industry – was lost on no one. No, the real shock came during her acceptance speech, where she described a scenario I had presumed only happened to mere mortals with pudgy upper arms.

“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me I was a ‘popcorn’ actress,” said Moore, referring to someone who is possibly now deceased or, if still alive, likely unemployable. “That I could do movies that were successful and made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged. And I bought into it. I believed it. That corroded me over time to the point where I thought, a few years ago, that maybe this was it…”

Reading between the lines, the producer’s “popcorn actress” comment led Moore to believe she wasn’t good enough for the award-worthy “big gun” roles – just the frivolous, daft ones reserved for women deemed hotties.

Excuse me? Decades of imposter syndrome for my Demi!? The fierce fashion icon who has always been such an inspiration to me, especially when I worked on fashion magazines? And then I remembered my own popcorn moment.

Between 2004 and 2013, I held the rather lofty title of executive fashion editor at ELLE magazine. One morning, eyeing me from her office as I rolled in wearing yesterday’s everything, the then-editor-in-chief said, “Give that woman a column.”

She didn’t quite say it like that, but according to her, being funny and outrageous meant I was just what ELLE needed. Being given a regular column would have been a big deal for anyone, but for me – someone who had messed up art school and hadn’t gone to a “posh” school, let alone university – this was it. Yet despite my back-page musings being hugely popular and running for over six years, it would still be years before I dared call myself a “writer”. There’s a good reason for that.

Tasked with editing my column, Mademoiselle: Confessions of an ELLE Girl, a self-appointed “important” writer on the magazine sauntered over to my desk brandishing a ubiquitous red pen. Leaning over, she whispered, “I’d forgotten you’re not a trained writer. Nor are you a trained journalist. In fact, you’ve never written before…” (Cue red pen marks all over the page and, quite possibly, my face.) From the moment I heard the words “not a trained journalist”, every time I filed my copy, my heart skipped a beat, and my stomach lurched. I was convinced it would be my last. I never thought I was good enough.

When I described my popcorn moment this week, it struck a chord. Shared, saved, and viewed thousands of times by my social media followers, the comments revealed a story of generations of women being put down, ridiculed, and publicly humiliated at work – not just by male bosses, but by female bosses too.

One follower described working at a high-flying banking firm where, during a promotion discussion, a male hiring manager quipped that one of the senior women was against taking her on because “she thinks you get by on a smile and a swish of a ponytail”. He then told her, “Don’t make me eat egg on this” when he gave her the “good” news that he’d taken a punt on her.

Another follower shared how, at just 24 years old, she was told on her first day in a new job that she was “no spring chicken”. One woman recalled being told by a male boss, twice her age, that she “wasn’t born to lead” but would “do fine accepting she was good at playing second fiddle”.

An actor recounted coming back to work after maternity leave only to be told by a casting director that roles were “thin on the ground” because he “could only see her as a mother now”.

I lost count of the women who said they’d been told they were hired purely for their looks, including one who, early in her now highly successful career, was asked by a boss if she was happy she wasn’t “an air hostess”.

Moore in ‘The Substance’ (Mubi)

Another lawyer recalled being told by a senior partner that if any judge was going to be swayed by “a pretty woman in a short skirt,” it would be him –entirely dismissing her brilliant closing argument. One woman, who had set up her own training company, heard a well-known broadcaster tell her cameraman that she was “just an office girl pretending to be the boss”.

These moments didn’t stop these women from achieving great things, but they left scars – whispers of doubt that dented their confidence and were never quite shaken off.

Does this happen to men? Do men crumble when someone in power takes a shot at them? Perhaps, especially if they don’t come from a background that doles out self-confidence in spades.

Reflecting on my own experience, I can only hope I’ve never inadvertently done the same to anyone else. If I have, I’m sorry. Of course, at the time, it would never have been meant as a popcorn put-down but as sound career advice from the heart. Swishes off.

Do you have a “popcorn” career moment? Let us know