It may be hard to believe, but the push for body diversity in media’s portrayal of women started over twenty years ago.
In the 1990s, plus size beauty Emme became the first model to earn a supermodel salary at a size 16 or 18. Despite two decades, change seemed to be crawling slowly until Australian actress Rebel Wilson lit up the screen in the Pitch Perfect movies.
Advertising has embraced race and sexual identity more easily than age or size. However, women of varying sizes and shapes are slowly creeping into advertising, the runway, and even movies.
I was eagerly awaiting the release of “Pitch Perfect 2”, to see the irrepressible actress who gravitates towards playing women with high self-esteem and a wicked sense of humor.
I love her. I love her character’s insistence: “I’m the hot one.”
And, she IS most definitely the the hot one.
She even wears her name proudly. “Fat Amy” is sassy, confident, talented, in-your-face… a whirlwind of positive energy and personality. She owns her body, every inch of it.
Rebel Wilson owns the movie too – she’s got the major love story, the big duet, the funniest lines, all the movie’s sass, and the screen comes alive when she grabs the lead in a song.
It’s about time we start to see size diversity among women driving onscreen plots.
No wonder the New York Times critic A.O. Scott said, “If the whole movie were just Fat Amy singing in a rowboat — you’ll see what I’m talking about — I would not go away mad.”
If you contrast her with the whiney, drab Lena Dunham and the self-deprecating Melissa McCarthy, we have a confident heroine who knows her worth.
McCarthy’s Saturday Night Live hosting job featured characters who were constantly disgusting someone with flatulence (how long has that been NOT funny?), wearing food-stained clothing, eating something disgusting, or falling down.
Now, you may not think an actor has much control over the parts they receive, but they do.
Witness Andy Garcia, whose often refused movies in which he would play a drug dealer or criminal, or appear nude. Why? He did not want those type characters associated with his Cuban heritage. On the rare occasion he did play a gangster, he refused all jobs for similar roles afterwards, refusing to be typecast.
Now that actresses like Melissa McCarthy, Rebel Wilson and Lena Dunham are becoming more powerful (i.e. their movies make money and they are moving into producer roles), it would be nice to see them think about the impact the roles they play will have on younger women.
In my world, whether you want to lose weight or not, you simply don’t humiliate or shame or degrade yourself. That doesn’t lead anyplace positive or supportive.
The sooner movies and TV feature a range of healthy and differing sized characters, the sooner young women will realize life doesn’t happen between the sizes of 0-4.
Then, we can focus on everyone being healthier, instead of focusing on thinness.
