Hi, fat black person here. So… Rebel Wilson blew up in a pretty bad way last week, eh?
Let’s be honest: white folks not acknowledging the work of people of color and claiming all the credit for themselves isn’t anything new under the sun. White women are especially prone to this type of backsliding. (I’ll never do it again! Until the next time.) White women completely missing the point of black women’s anger is especially not anything new.
But, let’s acknowledge something else: those lists your favorite writers are putting out, compiling their favorite romantic comedies staring their favorite big gals? Check them out. Notice a pattern?
Why yes, most of them are quite old.
To be fair, the point of the examples was to show that Wilson’s work is by no means a precedent. There are romantic comedies starring fat women, ones that don’t degrade them or try to play something The Crying Game-esque with their bodies and sizes. There are actually new ones as well of my favorite shows – BBC’s My Mad, Fat Diary – just ended in 2015, The DUFF premiered not to long in the interim, and we’ve had a couple of indie features since then. But that’s been… kind of it for a few years. Do we only get one every other season now, Hollywood?
I keep asking myself, are examples like these really enough for fat women and femmes, or does it just show the very shallow pool of movies to choose from? A lot of these movies that are being recommended make me question what exactly is “fat” to people, which is a whole other can of worms. But fat women of any size falling in love on the big screen and experiencing all its joys and pains is still ridiculously rare on screen. Fat bodies are still marginalized and subject to policing, shaming, gaslighting, and a host of horrors that would likely make people occupying non-fat bodies shudder.
With any representation or marginalized folks, it gets to a point where you ask yourself, “am I asking for this to be normalized too much?” The answer to that question is no, but when fat folks ask something it has a different tone. A perceived air of ungratefulness. We should be glad that someone is acknowledging our existence and daring to feel anything but indifference. So many movies about fat women surround bodily insecurity, usually brought on by men. It’s only been recently that we’ve seen fat folks simply existing in our media, neither good nor bad or objects to be politicized. Just… there. And it still doesn’t feel like enough.
Let me talk about my personal relationship with fat women in romance. Since I was officially deemed fat as a child, I’ve been socialized not to ask or demand too much or say anything at all. Asking for things meant I was ungrateful. I was taught that my body would only be loved by someone willing to fetishize me as a sex object and I would just have to put up with it. Chick flicks made me feel like I could have a meet cute some day, one that wouldn’t involve degradation or a Hot Body Upgrade. Khadijah and Synclaire on Living Single made me feel like I could be respected and powerful in my relationship, and still loved for who I am. As corny as they can be, I very much cherish all of these portrayals, flaws and all. Just seeing someone fat on screen enjoying life at all is victory enough for me, because I’m always worried about what’s going to happen if I dare ask to see more black and brown, disabled, or queer bodies.
To be honest, I could have been alright with a Rebel Wilson-helmed romcom if she had kept her mouth shut and not blocked people trying to show her the error of her ways. I would love to see a brand new romantic comedy starring a fat person no matter how cliché it is. Because I get it. If you don’t know the representation is out there, then it does feel like you’re the very first. Like something is missing. Unlike us peasants, it’s kind of Rebel’s job to know she’s not exactly the first person on fat romcom Mount Everest, but… I get it. I get it because I’m so thirsty for fat women being loved to be normalized. I won’t just take anything, but I’ll definitely take something going towards that goal.
Photo: Eva Rinaldi