By Tim Cho
Student Life Editor

Jennifer Lawrence has been in the spotlight of popular culture for quite some time now, but she has been in action for much longer. Many view her as a beautiful actress, some view her as an inspirational individual refusing to conform to Hollywood expectations, and some see her as a role model to look up to.

Lawrence, who is known for being proud of her un-Hollywood style, has inspired many for her refusal to fit the image of a typical Hollywood actress—high heels, long dresses, size zero pants. She told US Elle that, “I don’t want little girls to be like, ‘Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I’m going to skip dinner.’ I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong — not thin and underfed.”

The modern expectations of “thin equals beauty” has given young fans the idea that to be attractive, they need to be thin. Lawrence has as a figure being true to herself. “I’d rather look chubby on screen and like a person in real life,” she said to South African magazine Marie Claire.

Tripping up the stairs on the way to receive her Best Actress Award during the Academy Awards and giving reporters her middle finger afterwards were two examples of her acting, “like a regular person,” sophomore Paige Kaufmann said.

According to HollyScoop, Lawrence was first discovered at the age of 14 in New York by a, “passer buyer,” and made her first on-screen appearance in Devil You Know. She moved to Los Angeles to start her career with a minor role in Cold Case. She then was in The Poker House and The Burning Plain in the same year. Her rise to fame was in 2010 when she starred in Winter’s Bone, which gave way to The Beaver and X-Men: First Class.

In 2012, she starred in The Hunger Games, and no further explanation of her fame from that point on is necessary. All in all, she started at a young age and as a result, she knows of the expectations and the image of a woman she is being pressured to meet.

“The world has a certain idea. We see this airbrushed perfect model,” she said during a discussion with Yahoo! She knows of the social expectations, yet she stands strong against them.

A fresh breath of air in Hollywood, she has been attracting attention for her talents as an actress and for her sense of what is right. “They [shows like the Fashion Police] put values in all the things that are wrong and that it’s okay to just point at people and call them ugly and call them fat and they call if fun,” she told Yahoo!

The “Katniss Everdeen” Lawrence portrayed is a courageous, strong, independent and witty heroine while Hollywood has proven to influence its women to flaunt their bodies for fame; the example Lawrence is setting for her fans is superb. “Listen up and take points if your name rhymes with Smiley,” The Guardian Express said.

It’s evident to say that Lawrence has taken Hollywood by storm. She gathers more and more loyal fans with her charisma and above all else, just how “down to earth,” as Kaufmann said, she is.

“She is the kind of woman young girls should aspire to be,” online magazine Babble said. She is a true role model for the growing world her fans live in and it seems as if everybody can’t get enough of her. “Let’s hear it for Jennifer Lawrence!”