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textualdevianceKeeping up a bit with what's going on with the Oscars tonight, and y'know, as happy as I am for the success of Precious and Mo'nique and Gabby, I do wonder when we're going to see more attention for a broader range of big gals in American entertainment media.
It certainly doesn't make up for racism or any of the other awful things that black and Latina women endure, but it's still a little unsettling to me that the greater acceptance they seem to get from their communities and the public eye in general is more or less completely absent for bigger women of other backgrounds.
The number of successful black and Latina celebs who are around a size 12 or bigger isn't significantly greater than the number of white and Asian celebs that size, but when you consider it as a percentage of overall numbers from each racial group? Or as a percentage of overall population? Yeah. Bigger white and Asian women are woefully underrepresented in American movies and TV compared to our numbers here in the offscreen world.
It's been 12 years since Camryn Mannheim won an Emmy and dedicated it to all the fat girls, and we've been basically invisible since then (and so has she, for that matter.) We had Sara Rue for a short time, but then she lost weight, went blond and subsequently vanished. About the only time you see a fat white chick on TV, she's either the butt of some joke, or she's a contestant on some horrid weight-loss-via-torture show. And forget seeing fat Asian women at all. Seriously, folks: Name one.
I imagine that there's certainly racism involved here: There's a popular notion that black and Latina women are generally "wilder" and thus that may mean they're less bound by the constraints of cultural asceticism that keep white and Asian women under greater pressure to be thin. (And obviously, this notion does a disservice to all the women involved.)
I've also heard people say that they feel that lighter-skinned big people look more vulgar somehow. Like, seeing Queen Latifah in a body-hugging, cleavage-baring dress is no big deal, but put the same dress on Christina Hendricks, who has a rack of similar generous proportions, and suddenly people think she may as well be walking around naked. And that's for someone who, aside from her boobs, is otherwise average size. It's like a vast expanse of pale flesh is, in and of itself, somehow more attention-getting and therefore more offensive. Weird.
Whatever the reason, though, it sucks. I'm very happy that we fat chicks are getting any pop culture recognition at all, and I'd never trade the awards these two are getting for their wonderful work for anything. But I also can't help but hope that this might help open up Hollywood to a broader range of women in general, of all sizes, all colors, all ages.
We should be seeing a female Jack Black, or Seth Rogan. We should be seeing women of William Shatner's and Alec Baldwin's ages who have put on similar amounts of weight since their early career days having just as successful a go. American TV should have even half the number of talented, larger women that have been gracing British TV screens for decades. We should have our Dawn French and Ruth Jones. Hell, we should at least have a Fern Britton. And we don't. Heck, many of the curvier women we do have we borrow from the Brits anyway (Polly Walker and Judi Dench, for instance.)
Don't get me wrong: I adore those beautiful, curvy women of color. I'd certainly never turn down a night with Sara Ramirez, that's for damned sure. ;) But it's a really odd color barrier, IMHO, and one I wish would go away.
It certainly doesn't make up for racism or any of the other awful things that black and Latina women endure, but it's still a little unsettling to me that the greater acceptance they seem to get from their communities and the public eye in general is more or less completely absent for bigger women of other backgrounds.
The number of successful black and Latina celebs who are around a size 12 or bigger isn't significantly greater than the number of white and Asian celebs that size, but when you consider it as a percentage of overall numbers from each racial group? Or as a percentage of overall population? Yeah. Bigger white and Asian women are woefully underrepresented in American movies and TV compared to our numbers here in the offscreen world.
It's been 12 years since Camryn Mannheim won an Emmy and dedicated it to all the fat girls, and we've been basically invisible since then (and so has she, for that matter.) We had Sara Rue for a short time, but then she lost weight, went blond and subsequently vanished. About the only time you see a fat white chick on TV, she's either the butt of some joke, or she's a contestant on some horrid weight-loss-via-torture show. And forget seeing fat Asian women at all. Seriously, folks: Name one.
I imagine that there's certainly racism involved here: There's a popular notion that black and Latina women are generally "wilder" and thus that may mean they're less bound by the constraints of cultural asceticism that keep white and Asian women under greater pressure to be thin. (And obviously, this notion does a disservice to all the women involved.)
I've also heard people say that they feel that lighter-skinned big people look more vulgar somehow. Like, seeing Queen Latifah in a body-hugging, cleavage-baring dress is no big deal, but put the same dress on Christina Hendricks, who has a rack of similar generous proportions, and suddenly people think she may as well be walking around naked. And that's for someone who, aside from her boobs, is otherwise average size. It's like a vast expanse of pale flesh is, in and of itself, somehow more attention-getting and therefore more offensive. Weird.
Whatever the reason, though, it sucks. I'm very happy that we fat chicks are getting any pop culture recognition at all, and I'd never trade the awards these two are getting for their wonderful work for anything. But I also can't help but hope that this might help open up Hollywood to a broader range of women in general, of all sizes, all colors, all ages.
We should be seeing a female Jack Black, or Seth Rogan. We should be seeing women of William Shatner's and Alec Baldwin's ages who have put on similar amounts of weight since their early career days having just as successful a go. American TV should have even half the number of talented, larger women that have been gracing British TV screens for decades. We should have our Dawn French and Ruth Jones. Hell, we should at least have a Fern Britton. And we don't. Heck, many of the curvier women we do have we borrow from the Brits anyway (Polly Walker and Judi Dench, for instance.)
Don't get me wrong: I adore those beautiful, curvy women of color. I'd certainly never turn down a night with Sara Ramirez, that's for damned sure. ;) But it's a really odd color barrier, IMHO, and one I wish would go away.
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I guess there's Margaret Cho, but she's lost some weight and you don't see her around much anymore either, so she might not count. :/
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Being milk-pale and fat, I am with you, Miss Deviance. The mere sight of my pallid cleavage sends people into spasms, even if I'm sitting next to a black lady who is busting out of her clothes. I hadn't really thought of it as a double standard before, but it is very weird.
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That's interesting, and I hadn't thought about it before. Perhaps darker skin is visually/mentally perceived as a kind of 'clothing' or covering, at the very least?
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A full-bodied adult woman, regardless of her actual sexual persona, represents a stronger, more autonomous sexuality than a woman who is physically smaller and more child-like. White men would theoretically already see themselves as comfortably dominant over black and Latina women, and therefore wouldn't feel as threatened by that stronger sexuality as they might by a white woman who could theoretically challenge them for power.
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