Negative depictions of fat people are the norm throughout all of pop culture. Though fatphobia crosses racial, gender, and class lines, audiences judge women the most harshly. Fat characters are frequently shown as disgusting, sad, or unlovable. In the horror genre, fatness is frequently represented as terrifying and unnatural. In comedies, fat bodies are often the source of humor. Though few and far between, there are a growing number of fat positive representations popping up throughout TV and film.
Our theme week for April 2015 will be Fatphobia/Fat Positivity.
Negative depictions of fat people are the norm throughout all of pop culture. Though fatphobia crosses racial, gender, and class lines, audiences judge women the most harshly. Fat characters are frequently shown as disgusting, sad, or unlovable like Chrissy Metz’s Barbara/”The Fat Lady” in American Horror Story: Freak Show or Darlene Cates’ Bonnie from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Fat people are often cast as the villains, their bodies being a symbol of excess, shame, and/or nonconformity–examples being Ursula from The Little Mermaid or Miss Trunchbull from Matilda. In the horror genre, fatness is frequently represented as terrifying and unnatural (Slither and Crazy Fat Ethel II). In some cases, fatness is a punishment like in Drop Dead Diva or Mean Girls.
In comedies, fat bodies are often the source of humor, such as Melissa McCarthy’s character Megan in Bridesmaids or pretty much anything starring Chris Farley. The deplorable practice of donning a fatsuit to get some laughs (Shallow Hal, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and all The Nutty Professor movies) seems to be on the rise.
Though few and far between, there are a growing number of fat positive representations popping up throughout TV and film. Though sometimes problematic, these examples show fat people as multifaceted human beings (Girls), sympathetic (Louie), heroines/heroes (Precious), sexy (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency), and/or funny because of who they are and not their bodies (Roseanne). Are these samples of fat positivity the beginning of a movement? Are they enough to change the prejudice and fatphobia inherent in Hollywood and our culture?
Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.
We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which film you’d like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.
Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.
If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.
Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).
The final due date for these submissions is Friday, April 24 by midnight.
When I searched my mental rolodex for Black female characters in film or television who are unlikable my mind continued to circle. I was lost.
Viola Davis at the SAG Awards
This guest post by Rachel Wortherley appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.
“Thank you … for thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year old, dark skinned, African-American woman who looks like me.” – Viola Davis, Screen Actors Guild Awards (2015).
Viola Davis resounded these words in her acceptance speech at the 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards when she won for “Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series” for the ABC hit series, How to Get Away With Murder (2014). Davis’ speech shows how images of Black women in television are only beginning to change. Before the inception of ABC’s Scandal (2012), a Black woman in a lead television role had not existed since 1968’s Julia starring Diahann Carroll. Since Scandal, Fox’s Sleepy Hollow (2013) and How to Get Away With Murder have been allowed to flourish on network television. Viola Davis’ portrayal of Annalise Keating is brass, vulnerable, sexy, and threatening–all of which is the complete opposite of misconceived images of Black women as docile, maternal, and continuously doting. She is usually a figure who serves others while sacrificing her personal wants and needs.
Mo’Nique as Mary Ann Johnston in Precious
When I searched my mental rolodex for Black female characters in film or television who are unlikable my mind continued to circle. I was lost. With the exception of Mary Lee Johnston (played by actress and comedian Mo’Nique) in the 2009 Lee Daniels’ film Precious, I could not name one character. Writers and executives appear to have an inherent fear of writing women of color as unlikable, even evil. Often a character who looks and feels like Annalise Keating is ascribed as the “angry Black woman.” In fact, Alessandra Stanley, writer for the New York Times, attributed this ignorance in her article, “Wrought in Rhimes’s Image: Viola Davis Plays Shonda Rhimes’s Latest Tough Heroine,” in which she accuses the series’ executive producer Shonda Rhimes and Annalise Keating of being angry Black women. Meredith Grey (Grey’s Anatomy) and her angry rants should takes notes, lest she be an “angry white woman.”
Then I remembered two recent characters from television. Yvonne “Vee” Parker of the Jenji Kohan, Netflix series, Orange is the New Black (2013) and Erin Gray of Neil Cross’ BBC series, Luther. Kohan and Cross create two women, whom also happen to be Black, who are unlikable and even volatile in the perception of general audiences.
Lorraine Toussaint as Yvonne “Vee” Parker in Orange Is the New Black
Jenji Kohan is masterful in her conception of Vee because the quality that makes her unlikable is her ability to be likeable. In Season 2, Episode 2: “Looks Blue, Tastes Red,” we flashback to see Tasha, a chubby, little, 11-year old Black girl croons the Christina Aguilera ballad “Beautiful” to prospective adoptive parents. She can recite the periodic table and memorize up to 56-digits of pi. Yet, despite this they choose another child. Suddenly a tall, dark figure, big hair, in sunglasses approaches, sits, and lights a cigarette. She looks over and Tasha and recognizes that she is from a group home. The woman asks if Tasha cares to learn “the trade” (the drug trade) and Tasha refuses. She wants to find her “forever family.” In that moment, Vee awakens Tasha to the reality that she may die waiting for her forever family and in the same moment Tasha becomes “Taystee Girl,” a nickname that will follow her into Litchfield Prison.
A couple of scenes later a teenage Taystee, who dons a uniform from the local fast food restaurant, is headed to work. Once again, Vee approaches Taystee to convince her to join the business. Here, Taystee continues to be resistant. She wants to make her own way. However, the third time, Vee does not approach her, rather Taystee goes to her. Taystee, crying and desperate, turns to Vee lamenting that her situation in the group home has worsened. This time around, Vee rejects her until Taystee proves that she can be an integral asset to the business. As in the beginning of the episode, she shows off her math skills as she did for the adoptive parent and this time it works. Vee takes Taystee under her wing.
Danielle Brooks as “Taystee” in Orange Is the New Black
Kohan uses these flashbacks in order to demonstrate the humanity beneath the face of prison. In Taystee’s flashback audience see that she was a lonely child searching for her “forever family” but she unfortunately found refuge in the wrong person. A pivotal flashback occurs when Taystee arrives from the craft store with googly eyes, owl, and horse stamps. Her idea is to label their heroin with a stamp in order to market it better. Despite the context of the conversation, what audiences learn is that Taystee is a businesswoman with bright ideas who wants to move beyond working for a “connect.”
As Taystee vocalizes this information, Vee is in the kitchen cooking dinner for R.J. (another young employee of Vee) and Taystee. In this moment, Taystee gazes at Vee as though she is a God-send. Here, Vee is the nurturing, maternal figure that Taystee has always wanted. Another scene in which Vee’s maternity is showcased occurs in real time at Litchfield prison. Vee quickly becomes close to Suzanne who is known to fellow inmates as “Crazy Eyes.” Suzanne who is afraid of Piper—due to Piper’s brutal beat down of another inmate in the previous season—becomes withdrawn around her. Vee sees this and tells her: “at the end of the day, you are a garden rose and that bitch is a weed.” That moment allows for Suzanne to “see” herself for the first time and it solidifies her loyalty to Vee.
Uzo Aduba as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren in Orange Is the New Black
Vee’s declaration to Suzanne is the same method that allows her to insert herself into the lives of the other inmates: Black Cindy, Janae, and to some extent Poussey. Each of these women has experienced some type of loss in their past. Janae, a promising career in track and field, Black Cindy, her daughter, and Poussey her true identity. Vee is their opportunity to prove their worth at the prison amongst the women; to them she sees their purpose. She also becomes the maternal figure of the Black women in the prison where that role is vacant. The Hispanic inmates have Gloria, while the Caucasian inmates have “Red.” Vee’s ability to charmingly seduce individuals is what makes her most diabolical. Her maternity is sinister, a quality that is comparable to the description of the elms in playwright Eugene O’Neill’s play, Desire Under the Elms. Like the elms, Vee appears to “protect, yet subdue.” Vee predatorily isolates the group, specifically Taystee, from Poussey who quickly sees Vee as a danger. Vee uses her feelings of isolation in order to hurt her. For audiences the separation of Taystee and Poussey is the first offense. The second and third come to fruition in the form of injuring Red and allowing Suzanne to take the blame. As Black Cindy attempts to stand up to her, she and Janae quickly see that Vee’s physical threats are to be taken seriously. She is willing to discard of anyone in order to get what she wants. Just ask Taystee’s friend R.J. whom she sleeps with and murders all in one night.
On the flipside of this is DS/DCI Erin Gray on Neil Cross’ BBC series Luther. Erin is the only woman on the police force which includes Detective Chief Inspector John Luther (Idris Elba). She is meticulous, driven, and she follows rules by the book. Despite her name, there are no “gray” areas in her concept of the law, just black and white. Erin is the only woman in newly formed “Serious and Serial Crime Unit” therefore has to prove herself as a woman and a woman of color. The first time audiences meet her she asks DS Justin Ripley, Luther’s partner, in reference to Luther’s police tactics: “is he really as dirty as they say?” Ripley quickly comes to his defense and continues to do so as the season progresses.
Nikki Amuka-Bird as DCI Erin Gray in Luther
Erin continues to question Luther’s methods. A prime example occurs when Luther orders her and Justin to confiscate the mobile phones of the public at a crime scene investigation. Erin questions, “On what grounds?” However, Justin explains that to Luther “confiscate” means something different. Erin does not completely understand Luther’s policing nor agree with them. This comes to a head when she witnesses Luther breaking into DSU Schenk’s computer files—in actuality he is obtaining files to set a teenaged prostitute free from her employer. As a result, she becomes suspicious and reports the case. However, she alerts Justin to her concerns, inadvertently allowing him enough time to wipe the history from Schenk’s computer. As a result, Erin is embarrassed and humiliated in front of her superior. She leaves the Serious and Serial crime unit in disgrace.
This moment is what allows Gray to join the unit that investigates police corruption and she is promoted to Detective Chief Inspector. She joins forces with formerly retired DS George Stark to investigate Luther and bring a case against him. In the process, Gray attempts to convince Ripley that Luther needs to be stopped. Season three is when Gray begins to become unlikable for audiences. According to most audiences Gray is labeled as “annoying,” “grating,” and a “stupid bitch.” Upon my first viewing, I also found Gray unlikable. However, now I understand why audiences dislike her.
Erin Gray and Luther (Idris Elba)
Gray’s biggest fault is that she goes against not just the main character, but a multitude of characters who support Luther. One of them being the beloved psychopath Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson). Audiences are quick to love the deliciousness of a possible intimate relationship between Alice and Luther and seemingly overlook the fact that when we meet her she murders her parents and the family dog, and gets away with it. She is clever, delightful, and continuously fights for John Luther. Alice like many of the women on the show has been saved by Luther (he cunningly helps Alice escape the mental institution). Erin is threatening because even as she faces the barrel of a gun in season three, she does not need to be saved by John. Erin’s ability to be independent of the main character is what makes her unlikable. She works to better herself and the law. It is also significant that the majority of women in the shows history who need saving, including the victims, are Caucasian women. While I am not advocating that Black women or women in general, should be diminished to damsels in distress, it is obtuse that a majority of victims are of a specific demographic and gender. In a sense this disparity establishes how audiences are supposed to see Erin Gray in comparison to others. Because she is not a victim, she is other.
Though Vee’s story on Orange is the New Black is closed by Rosa, the escaped inmate who runs Vee over with the prison van, seemingly killing her, Erin’s is very much open. In the aftermath of her attack, audiences last see Erin on a stretcher, shell shocked, and speechless. For audiences her non-death may have been a disappointment, but she has been scared straight into ultimately believing in Luther. Viewers of Orange is the New Black and Luther have equally been satisfied in some capacity by each woman’s demise.
Unlikable white women characters
Claire Underwood, Maxine Lund, Mavis Gary, and Hannah Horvath are just a few of the many unlikable female characters in film and television. They are met with distaste, yet this quality places them under a microscope because they are often people we know. Viola Davis’ statement in congruence to Vee Parker and Erin Gray demonstrate that minorities, whether they are Black, Hispanic, or Asian, want to diversify their roles in film and television. While the general landscape of roles for women of color appear to be expanding on television, film continues to fall behind in the diversity of characters. She should be liked and disliked, loathed and loved, and the bitter pill to swallow, yet the one that we need.
Rachel Wortherley is a graduate of Iona College in New Rochelle, New York and holds a Master of Arts degree in English. Her downtime consists of devouring copious amounts of literature, television shows, and films. She hopes to gain a doctorate in English literature and become a professional screenwriter.
“As much as I would like to sit through a movie like this and enjoy it for what it is (ground-breaking sci-fi entertainment that will go down in history), I simply can’t. James Cameron’s attempt to create a more spiritual, natural, and peaceful society leaves me annoyed that once again this idea is filtered through a white, Western, male member of a patriarchal society. Some theorists will consider Cameron’s Alien trilogy feminist, because of Sigourney Weaver’s empowered Ripley (legend says it was written to be asexual–with casting deciding the character’s sex), but she still has to prove her femininity and womanliness by saving cats and small children. I fear that many feminists will laud Avatar as well–for creating a world where the people worship a female entity (“Eywa”), because the Clan leader’s female mate/wife is as powerful as him, and since the female lead is as empowered as Ripley. However, like Ripley, Neytiri too has her feminine trappings, as her power can be explained away through her heritage.”
“Cameron can only seem to conceive of an ideal society five light years and nearly two centuries removed from our own if it exactly mirrors an episode of Fantasy Island in which he’s the guest star, but it’s cool. He’s got a revolutionary political message to communicate: if we don’t all buy Priuses and reject militarism and imperialism right quick, we’ll destroy our planet and rudely intrude upon blue fucker utopias everywhere, thus ruining countless enlightened neo-primitive sex parties attended by the universe’s hottest aliens.”
“There’s a way to tell a true story, and there’s a way to completely botch the shit out of a true story. Shit-botching, in this instance, might include basing the entire film around an upper-class white woman’s struggle to essentially reform a young Black man by taking him in, buying him clothes, getting him a tutor, teaching him how to tackle, and threatening to kill a group of young Black men he used to hang out with.
However, a filmmaker might consider, when telling the true story of Michael Oher’s struggles to overcome his amazing obstacles, to actually base the film on the true story of Michael Oher’s struggles to overcome his amazing obstacles.”
“What was the intended message of this film? It won an Oscar, so I know it had to have a message, but what could it have been? I’ve got it (a suggestion from Davetavius)! The message is this: don’t buy more than one Taco Bell franchise or you’ll have to adopt a black guy. I’ll accept that that’s the intended message of the film, because if the actual message that came across in the movie was intentional, I may have to hide in the house for the rest of my life.”
“Perhaps Blomkamp’s vision is to convey the notion that our greatest hope for an internationally practiced humanism is to fully experience the isolation and desperation at the individual level. I want to believe that this is his message. But I fear I may be giving him too much credit, for in the end Blomkamp never fully considers the implications of violent discrimination and segregation on anyone but (white, male) Wikus, the original perpetrator of this alien apartheid in the first place. In the end, Wikus becomes a victim, too, yes. However his victimhood is meant to be understood as a courageous act of martyrdom, and, more specifically, one of choice. After all, Wikus told Christopher Johnson to board the Mothership without him; Wikus would stay behind to fight the bad guys. If nothing else, Wikus was given the luxury of choice and self-determination, a luxury not afforded to the “others” of this film, woman and prawn alike.”
“The script isn’t bad. After all, if movies didn’t routinely take shortcuts by using familiar, stylized codes for characterization, they couldn’t tell their intricate tales in about 100 minutes. It’s just that the script is so tidy and effective that it doesn’t come anywhere close to transcending its form. At times I wondered if the film would have felt as artful if it had been cast with more familiar Hollywood types, say Julia Roberts as Miss Stubbs or Anne Hathaway as Jenny, both of whom I find exude a sweetness that always makes me aware of how terribly charming they are. Would the film have been as engaging if everyone had American accents? I wonder if audiences’ own aspirations to sophistication might make us a bit blind to how ordinary this film is.”
“The Hurt Locker is a powerful anti-war film, which can almost get lost in the breathless action sequences. Its message is subtle but unmistakable: war utterly breaks you. The final scene of the film, which has been criticized for its ambiguity (we see James voluntarily back in action after a brief return home and a too-familiar scene representing shallow American excess), is actually a haunting, almost terrifying reminder of our implication in war. If you see James as a hero at the end of the movie, you haven’t understood a frame of the film you just watched. Yet the film teases us with a traditional genre representation of the hero. We want him to be a hero, only finding joy in the adrenaline rush of war, but he isn’t. He’s an empty shell of a person, nothing more than an animated suit heading toward…nothing. He’s walking off into the abyss. War has ripped out his humanity. This is what we do to our soldiers: we ask them to do the impossible in combat, and it destroys them.”
“I saw Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds when it first came out and then again recently in the sweep of the Oscar season. I remember upon first viewing being surprised that, unlike all the posters and marketing would have you believe, Brad Pitt is not the hero of this story. In fact, it is an unassuming, quiet, doe-eyed Jewish girl, Shosanna (played by Melanie Laurent) who carries the film. Brad Pitt and his cronies just kinda happen to be there, bludgeoning and scalping people (this is, after all, a Tarantino flick), and faltering in their plans to sweep the Nazi regime, while Shosanna plots, schemes, threatens, and even fraternizes with the enemy in her mere disguise as a woman to bring the Third Reich to its knees. It is because no one expects her to plan such an attack that she is not viewed as a threat and able to get away with it. Shosanna’s womanhood is both her handicap and her ultimate weapon.”
“Certainly, all of the issues addressed in the film — including (but not limited to) rape, incest, teen pregnancy, poverty and illiteracy — have been addressed before by other films, and when addressing such topics, it’s all too easy to come off sounding preachy or melodramatic. Precious does not fall in to this trap. Precious addresses these topics honestly and directly, never undermining the horror of it all but still making it clear that these are real aspects of life, and that they aren’t death sentences. Though the character Precious is forced to deal with a huge number of issues that no young woman should ever need to face, the audience is not supposed to pity her. Precious is too strong a character for that.”
“The Coens are, in my book, among the most consistently innovative filmmakers working today. And I don’t mean “innovative” in the sense that, as directors, they splice and dice filmic conventions the way Baz Luhrmann or Danny Boyle do, for example. Rather, they’re consummate storytellers, fancy jump cuts be damned, and their stories, no matter how dark, how disconcerting, become somehow universal, funny, and true. What’s ultimately so disconcerting about this movie, however, is its skeptical take on the Judeo-Christian tradition of parable and storytelling as illustration and explanation. The Coen brothers are undermining their own profession here, their own modus operandi, and call into question narrative’s effectiveness in light of a chaotic universe and incomprehensible suffering. It’s a dangerous move but ultimately a rewarding one.”
“Insert Pixar dilemma: Pixar has a girl problem. I don’t want to dwell too much on this, as the blogosphere has already run Pixar through the dirt (as it should). Noted in Linda Holmes’ blog on NPR, after 15 years of movie making, Pixar has yet to create a story with a female lead. Ellie is the only female voice in this entire movie and she is dead and gone within the first ten minutes. She’s not even allowed an actual voice as an adult. (see PT: #3). The entire story is told by a male octogenarian and a boy, Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai), who is seventy years Carl’s junior, and who—instead of being a real-world boy scout—is a Wilderness Explorer (see PT: #2). It is devastating to watch this movie in a theatre of mothers and young girls who are forced to stretch their own experiences into the identities of these stock male characters. (PT #4: Employ an inordinate amount of male writers.)”
“Bingham’s other female sidekick is Alex (Vera Farmiga), a sexy, strong-corporate-woman. She meets Bingham, a fellow super-traveler, in a hotel bar. They hit it off, do the deed, and she becomes the love interest. They exchange contacts and meet for booty calls in cities where they happen to cross paths while on business. As their relationship progresses, he goes through the formal “sworn-bachelor-stumbles-into-love” process, schlepping it all with sentimentality and making it confusing to understand the direction of this movie. Aren’t I supposed to be watching a movie about the tragedies of people losing their jobs? Or am I supposed to be focused on Ryan Bingham’s thawing heart? Or no, it’s this: Ryan Bingham has a hard job and travels a lot. It makes his life experience void of human connections. He is now in the process of making it better as a result of his pesky sidekick on one shoulder, and his hot woman-equivalent on the other. YES!”
