Obesity on the big screen: Society ‘hides’ fat people – Body size intersects with oppression

Modern television fiction does not shy away from polarizing topics. From the capitalist nightmare of ‘Severance’ (2022) to the mental health issues of ‘Euphoria’ (2019), series and films are increasingly incorporating social discussions into their plots in response to the growing interest. Today, for a series or a film to be successful, it must actively participate in the social process.

This trend is particularly reflected in awards such as the Golden Globes. However, despite this progress, most series or movies have yet to “break” one of the last taboos in fiction: the lack of physical diversity and representation of chubby characters.

Anti-obesity is an accepted, widespread discrimination—tiny airplane seats, comments about the body—and fat people remain culturally marginalized. Society “doesn’t like talking to fat people, looking at fat people, believing fat people and listening to fat people,” says Virginia Tech researcher Lyla Byers, who spoke to “El Pais.” “We’d really rather fat people didn’t exist in public.”

Even some medical terms like “obesity” or “overweight” are problematic because they are based on a non-inclusive measurement: body mass index (BMI). “BMI was never intended to be used to measure individual health. It’s a very simple metric for a very complex issue,” notes Jennifer Graves, author of Framing Fat, a book that challenges the dominant weight discourse. “There are still significant civil rights issues facing obese people regarding the lack of protection from discrimination in the medical system.”

Laziness, stupidity, gluttony or a non-existent sex life are some of the concepts associated with fat people, according to Jeanine Gailey, a professor of sociology at Texas Christian University. “When women are not desirable, according to beauty standards, they are not shown on the screen,” she notes.

And, when fiction does introduce fat characters, they’re often limited to old-school stereotypes, from the bullied little girl in Debbie Ryan’s Insatiable (2018) to the stupid, lazy Homer Simpson. “A lot of people in society watch these shows or these movies, internalize these depictions and believe these things about fat people,” says Ariane Prohaska, a researcher at the University of Alabama. “This leads us to treat fat people differently and treat ourselves differently, in a way that makes us think we need to constantly improve our bodies.”

The reduction of obese people to caricatures particularly affects traditionally marginalized minority groups. Body size intersects with oppression. Big Shirley, a character on the TV series ‘Martin’, is a classic example of problematic portrayal of fat black women on television, as is America Ferrera’s character on ‘Ugly Betty’.

Fat white women have managed to diversify their roles in American fiction thanks to the work of actresses like Melissa McCarthy or Lena Dunham. But “Hollywood Fatness” is not representative of the US as a whole. Chrissy Metz, for example, said in 2016 that as part of her contract on “This is Us,” where she plays a woman struggling with her eating habits, she had to lose weight.

Although fiction lags behind a society that is highly critical of negative representations of fat characters in productions like “The Whale,” the industry will eventually accept that non-Hollywood bodies exist and deserve to be represented, with complex stories and no humiliating fat suits. It’s a slow road, but we’ll get to the other side at some point…

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