Full-figured women have achieved unprecedented success in recent years.
Rebel Wilson, Melissa McCarthy, Gabourey Sidibe, Adele, and Beth Ditto are enjoying opportunities that might previously be unavailable to women of a certain size and it is heartening to see women in entertainment who are a more accurate reflection of American audiences.
Sidibe rose to fame after starring in the 2009 movie “Precious” and has also had roles in “Tower Heist” alongside Ben Stiller and Showtime’s “The Big C” alongside Laura Linney. Wilson has had recent turns in “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and “Pitch Perfect,” released on October 5. McCarthy stars in the CBS sitcom “Mike and Molly” and a few years ago, starred in “Gilmore Girls.” Beth Ditto is the lead singer of Gossip and is a prominent body image advocate. Adele is one of the most successful female recording artists of all time, with several Grammy awards and albums that are consistently at the top of the charts.
There was a time when there wasn’t much hope of success for full-figured and overweight women. Hollywood maintains rigid standards of beauty, particularly for women and even today, we are part of a culture where female celebrities and their bodies are under a great deal of scrutiny. We are part of a culture where tabloid magazines obsessively track how recently pregnant celebrities lose weight. We are part of a culture where “Mad Men” actress Christina Hendricks recently took offense during an interview when she was referred to as full-figured simply because she is curvy. We are part of a culture where full-figured singer and
actress Jennifer Hudson received more acclaim in some quarters for slimming down and becoming a Weight Watchers spokesperson than for winning an Oscar for her performance in “Dreamgirls.” In one of her Weight Watchers commercials, Hudson goes so far as to say losing weight has been her biggest accomplishment.
Anytime a woman is able to achieve popular success despite this toxic culture, it is worth taking note. That success, though, comes at a rather high cost. In “Pitch Perfect,” Rebel Wilson’s character Amy goes by “Fat Amy.” She does this, she says, so “twig bitches” don’t call her fat behind her back. Wilson has a significant role in the movie and wields her deadpan comedic style with great aplomb but her size is still a plot point.
Her size cannot go unacknowledged the way body size is unacknowledged for her slimmer costars. Wilson also recently starred in “Bachelorette,” where during the first half of the movie, her character, Becky’s size was a major plot point and a source of much of the movie’s humor. In the movie, Becky is getting married to an attractive, successful man and her three best friends Regan, Gena, and Katie simply can’t believe Becky, as the overweight friend, is the one to get married first. On the night of the bachelorette party, Regan and Katie try to fit into Becky’s dress while Gena takes a picture for Facebook because nothing is funnier, I imagine, than humiliating the bride to be. When the dress rips, the rest of the movie is spent with the three bridesmaids trying to right a wrong borne out of cruelty. “Bachelorette” does, however, complicate the traditional fat girl narrative in that as the plot unfolds, Becky’s weight becomes less of a source of fascination and we see that it’s Becky’s thin friends who cannot control their appetites for drugs, love, or attention while Becky, for the most part has her life together and gets the guy.
In both of her most recognized roles, Melissa McCarthy has been relegated to fodder that exploits her body size. In “Bridesmaids,” which co-stars Wilson, her character Megan is butch, ribald, and hypersexual.
As critic Michelle Dean asks in her review of the film, “why must her looks be made the essence of her buffoonery?” and also notes that, “Almost every joke was designed to rest on her presumed hideousness, and her ribald but unmistakably “butch” sexuality was grounded primarily in her body type and an aversion to makeup.” Because McCarthy is eminently talented, she is able to rise above the script’s limitations but she is given desperately little to work with. In “Mike & Molly,” a show about an overweight couple who meet at Overeaters Anonymous, McCarthy’s size is regularly a plot point across all three seasons. Overweight actresses are routinely constrained to roles and plots that make their body a focal point and, more often than not, a source of ridicule or humiliation.
They are always considered overweight long before they are considered women. The constancy of this erasure is telling.
It’s easy to assume that things are getting better for overweight women in entertainment because there is, indeed, more visibility. The problem is that we can still count the number of singers, actresses, and models who are larger than a size four.
In late September 2012, Wisconsin morning news anchor Jennifer Livingston received a letter from Kenneth Krause that read, in part, “Surely you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.” Krause felt like Livingston was failing in her responsibility as a role model because of her size and felt no hesitation about letting her know. Livingston was offended by the letter and addressed Krause’s comments in a four-minute segment on the evening news, chastising him for suggesting she is less of a role model because of her size, and for implying she should be solely defined by her body. The incident made national news and mostly it revealed that
when it comes to women who are overweight and highly visible in popular culture, we haven’t come very far at all.
Courtesy of
www.blogs.wsj.com
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