Why Does Hollywood Remain Out of Step With the Body-Positive Movement? (nytimes.com) 688
According to a report from The New York Times, Hollywood continues to praise plus-sized actresses in knockout roles and then reduce them to bit parts about physical weight. Slashdot reader cdreimer shares an excerpt from the report: The first thing Danielle Macdonald did at the Cannes Film Festival in May was break into a cold sweat: The airline had lost her luggage. She was already nervous enough. Ms. Macdonald, 26, had been plucked from obscurity to play the lead role in "Patti Cake$," a drama about a rapper that was about to face the Cannes critics. Now she had to find something glamorous to wear -- pronto -- to the premiere. "As a bigger girl," Ms. Macdonald told me recently, "where was I meant to find something that would fit?" Her story then veered in an unexpected direction -- revealing her approach to Hollywood, which expects its lead actresses to be scarily skinny. "I gave myself a pep talk," she said. "This situation is what it is. Find a way to work around it." The red carpet crisis was resolved (another "Patti Cake$" star, Cathy Moriarty, lent her a black dress), but if the experiences of countless actresses before Ms. Macdonald are any indication, it will not be as easy to overcome the career obstacles that await her post-"Patti Cake$."
For women -- less so for men -- weight is perhaps the most stubborn of the entertainment industry's many biases. Have an average-sized body? Call us when you've starved yourself. In particular, Ms. Macdonald must avoid a cycle that plays out over and over in moviedom, one that some film agents coarsely call the fat flavor of the moment. A plus-size actress, almost always an unknown, lands the central role in a film and delivers a knockout performance. She is held up by producers and the entertainment news media as refreshing, long overdue evidence that Hollywood's insistence on microscopic waistlines is ending. And then she is slowly but surely pushed into bit parts, many of which are defined by weight.
For women -- less so for men -- weight is perhaps the most stubborn of the entertainment industry's many biases. Have an average-sized body? Call us when you've starved yourself. In particular, Ms. Macdonald must avoid a cycle that plays out over and over in moviedom, one that some film agents coarsely call the fat flavor of the moment. A plus-size actress, almost always an unknown, lands the central role in a film and delivers a knockout performance. She is held up by producers and the entertainment news media as refreshing, long overdue evidence that Hollywood's insistence on microscopic waistlines is ending. And then she is slowly but surely pushed into bit parts, many of which are defined by weight.
Mo ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... ney.
Next question, please.
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Next question, please.
Okay, here is the next question: Why is it always about women? Why does Hollywood only use buff guys in leading roles? Why are the male sex symbols never short near-sighted bald guys with beer bellies?
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Informative)
Money.
Next question, please.
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Insightful)
why is this topic on /. ?
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot news for SJWs
Stuff that doesn't matter in the slightest.
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And yet, here you are ...
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's not much new for them. They're way ahead of the news for stuff to be offended about.
To the poster: attractive bodies of either sex are attractive, even if most of us aren't. Get over yourself and live with the fact that you're ugly. How old is this "body-positive" terminology, and where's the yin to the yang - is there a politically correct "body-negative" view? Sounds like a recent California manufactured thing to me. Sorry about you being unattractive and having to go for some "body-positive" shtick in a lame attempt to get laid..
Re: Mo ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think the point is extrinsic. You're not trying to be happy with yourself so the world loves you, you're trying to be happy with who you are so you don't go through life suicidal that Megan Fox is something you can never be.
Almost Confucian -- know where your place on society is, and be happy with your place. The eye will never rise above the eyebrow.
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No, you're trying to be happy with yourself because you don't want to work for it. It's like drugs or alcohol or any other abuse. You want to feel good, but you don't want to actually put in any effort to feel good.
Instead of making an effort to create longterm change and impact your life in a 'positive' way you just blame everyone else for "shaming you" to avoid having to do anything. It's laziness, pure and simple.
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Human beings come in all shapes and sizes, and we shouldn't hold people to arbitrary and artificial standards of beauty or health.
If we're evaluating physical attractiveness and beauty, then it's based in biological systems developed to maximize species survival.
The human brain has a bunch of odd facilities. There's a prototype and a template system, whereas you can identify a type of thing (computer) or a specific thing (Laptop). The fusiform gyrus supplies face and body recognition, which is why emoticons or cars look like faces.
The fusiform gyrus also supplies an identification of... well, bodies. A woman's body has a narrowe
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every single study done by doctors and healthcare researchers says that being heavy, curvy, fat, or "voluptuous" is bad for your health, leads to a menagerie of diseases, and is the largest impactor of life expectancy, more so than income level.
So, the "body positive" movement is really a "health - negative" movement. Sorry, but facts are facts.
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The healthy average is somewhere between Callista Flockhart and Honey Booboo.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's rather missing the point about the body positive movement. Yes, health is an issue, but not the only one. You also have to ask if Hollywood really gives a shit about presenting thin people as a way to "encourage" a healthy lifestyle.
Not everyone can be their ideal weight and go to the gym three times a week. Personally I don't think shaming them for that is likely to motivate them to do something about it. Certainly doesn't work with me, because all my energy goes into deal with other health issues a
Re:Mo ... (Score:4, Informative)
Actual health issues though are certainly valid excuses. As could also be an inability to obtain affordable, healthier foods. Seems though that a large (pun unintended) vocal section of the 'body positivity' group are indifferent to actual attempts to be in shape, and rather just change society to favour them. Cries of 'Obese doesn't mean unhealthy' and spewing vitriol at anything not as massive as they are ('She isn't plus sized, she's only 170 lbs!') certainly don't help their position.
Re:Mo ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It really doesn't matter if they're making excuses, the fact is that positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement, especially for weight loss which is already often a response to depression from someone who has learned that food is the most likely source of good feelings in their life. If you go forth and make them feel worse, they're just going to eat more and get fatter. Even if you don't give a fuck about other humans on a personal level, if you don't like seeing fat people or if you don't like paying for their medical care, maybe you should just shut your piehole about their piehole.
Re:Mo ... (Score:4, Interesting)
it's not hard to just not shove food down your gullet in quantities that force your body to store fat and balloon to excessive sizes
Reality disagrees with you.
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You are the problem.
It is really not this easy. The problem is that everyone is different. I spent 20 years unable to walk, so I gained weight. Now I exercise five times a week, one hour each day. I can lift heavy weights, and more importantly can now walk! (My trainer has a doctorate degree, that's why I can walk now). But you know what? I gained 100 pounds. Muscle is heavier than fat. I wish I could lose the weight, but I'd rather be able to walk.
When most people are young, diet can easily contr
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Well, with arthritis in knees, ankles or hips, stairs are to avoided.
Instead of walking I would consider cycling.
On top of that a diet change, meat e.g. is bad and a small amount of Alcohol, like 2 beers per day (about 5% about 500ml) should help.
My theory is that it's better to be able to walk 1000m and sleep for 5+ hours than to take an extra flight of stairs. :D
Sounds plausible
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Truly? Because when I go http://www.bodypositive.com/ [bodypositive.com] right there on the first page I find a link to the book "Healthy at Every Size". If I check http://www.bodypositive.com/ar... [bodypositive.com] The first line that pops up includes "you may find yourself fielding questions about how you can be trying to just accept your body size rather than lose weight. ".
Does "managing" your weight mean the same as not doing anything at all?
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Note that they never say that being obese is healthy, they say that simplistic solutions like "stop binging" and "eat less" tend not to be very helpful and that they instead advocate a more positive approach to weight management. Of course you can argue that their approach is ineffective, but not that they are suggesting being obese is healthy.
No, I'm arguing that they are indeed saying that being morbidly obese is healthy, that is the foundation of the Healthy at Every Size program. The argument is that health is not connected to weight.
Here is the "manifesto" of the HAES book. I found it through www.bodypositive.com via the author's webpage.
https://lindabacon.org/HAESboo... [lindabacon.org]
While I shall leave the more crazy attempts at debunking all of biology and medicine unquoted, here is the step by step list -
What Can You Do?
Refuse to fight in an unjust war. Join the new peace movement:
“Health at Every Size” (HAES). HAES acknowledges that well-being
and healthy habits are more important than any number on the
scale. Participating is simple:
1. Accept your size.
Love and appreciate the body you have.
Self-acceptance empowers you to move on and make positive
changes.
2. Trust yourself.
We all have internal systems designed to keep
us healthy—and at a healthy weight. Support your body in natu-
rally finding its appropriate weight by honoring its signals of hunger,
fullness, and appetite.
3. Adopt healthy lifestyle habits.
Develop and nurture connections with others and look for pur-
pose and meaning in your life. Fulfilling your social, emotional, and
spiritual needs restores food to its rightful place as a source of nour-
ishment and pleasure.
Find the joy in moving your body and becoming more phys-
ically vital in your everyday life.
Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, and seek out
pleasurable and satisfying foods.
Tailor your tastes so that you enjoy more nutritious foods,
staying mindful that there is plenty of room for less nutri-
tious choices in the context of an overall healthy diet and
lifestyle.
4. Embrace size diversity.
Humans come in a variety of sizes
and shapes. Open to the beauty found across the spectrum and sup-
port others in recognizing their unique attractiveness.
The only thing that isn't explicitly "be proud o
Re:Mo ... (Score:4, Interesting)
And besides...who wants to spend their hard earned money to watch ugly fat people sweat on the big screen?
Movies are supposed to be about escapism to a large extent, so, why would one want to pay good $$$ when they already stare and deal with fat, average/ugly people on a daily basis.
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"In 1999, Allison and colleagues calculated that in 1991, between 280,000 and 325,000 deaths of U.S. adults were due to overweight and obesity (Allison et al., 1999a, 1999b). Six years later, Mokdad and colleagues announced that overweight and obesity (together with physical inactivity) had been responsible for 365,000 excess deaths among U.S. adults in 2000, making it the second-leading preventable cause of death in the United States, behind only smoking (Mokdad et al.,
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Every single study done by doctors and healthcare researchers says that being heavy, curvy, fat, or "voluptuous" is bad for your health
Except for the ones that looked at life expectancy.
Turns out people at the "ideal" BMI have a life expectancy similar to the obese.
(Note that this is the technical term obese, which is significantly smaller than "fat ass" and has a shorter life expectancy.)
It turns out you live longest if you're in the "overweight" category.
Wholly Frigging Ignorance! (Score:3)
BMI [nih.gov] is the measure of BODY fat! A 28 BMI means that you are more than 25% body fat regardless of how much muscle you have. These calculations are certainly estimates for which you can use water displacement and other methods for more precise numbers but the estimate is about the percentage of mass you have which is FAT.
Healthy numbers are different for men and women, but since we have entered the SJW territory of asking "gender" we now have a number for both sexes even on Government sites which is horrif
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Sure, that is the definition of BMI, immediately followed by a "calculator" taking only the height and weight into account (no fat vs muscle). So his comment is perfectly valid, computing the BMI with this calculator leads to errors and considering overweight people that are not. I doubt that large studies do any differently, since they're likely just doing statistics on weight and height as well.
Now, that is fine since the formula is correct on average (*), which means for an entire population the "muscle
Re:Mo ... (Score:4, Informative)
Money.
Next question, please.
These are too easy.
Re:Mo ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right letter 'M' wrong word, although one does lead to the other, especially when lies are being sold. 'M'arketing, PR=B$, selling lies for profit. In this case you must spend in a certain way to be desirable to the opposite sex and once together you must continue to spend or break up and try again. The biggest poseurs are the best people and you must spend big to achieve prominent poseur status. Not only that but you must spend much of it on PR=B$, paying people to tell other people how great you are, the core of US elections and hence mirrored in main stream media, especially Hollywood where the play left wingers in order to be rich and greedy right wingers who pretend to be Democrats for the people when they just Corporate Democrats, Democrats for corporations the other side Republicans, ohh, look they use the same people as well.
The current big role of main stream media continuing the divide and conquer strategy, colour against colour, culture against culture, religion against religion and even sex against sex. This being sold by the fake arse SJWs backed by main stream media to break up workers = left and bosses = right (no need to explain why).
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Hollywood would love you to believe that movies drive culture. It might happen sometimes, but those are probably rare, not made by Hollywood, and generally unpopular.
Hollywood movies are made to make money. They reflect culture, or at least what most of us like to think is our culture. At best they're a feedback mechanism... cultural forcing if you will.
If you want movies that drive culture and aren't motivated by profit, support your government's art granting programs and go see independent films.
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Slashdot is now SJW/Politico central. Comments on SJW and political stories get significantly more comments than tech/nerd stories.
Currently on the front page:
144 comments Why Does Hollywood Remain Out of Step With the Body-Positive Movement?
38 comments 'Surkus' App Pays Users To Line Up Outside New Restaurants
32 comments Essential Phone Will Ship Next Week, Shortly After Breaking $1 Billion Valuation
43 comments Roku Gets Tough On Pirate Channels, Warns Users
69 comments Australian Scientists Figure Out How
Re:Mo ... (Score:4)
That's not surprising. Everyone can easily have an opinion on social or political topics -- they are salient and most people can grasp them. It's much more difficult to comment on complicated technical matters.
This is related to Parkinson's Law [wikipedia.org].
Re: Mo ... (Score:5, Funny)
That law is on shaky ground.
I'll see myself out.
Re:Mo ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Oblig: This is He-Man! [imgur.com]
Yeah, I can't imagine how much time he's spending at the gym to get his calves that big.
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Umm...
http://feelgoodtube.com/wp-con... [feelgoodtube.com]
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Umm... (part 2)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
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Umm... (part 3)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
Re:Mandarin vs. Cantonese (Score:5, Funny)
Come on Bill, this article is not worth your comment.
Actually, for reasons I prefer not to disclose, I am very interested in how short near-sighted bald guys with beer bellies can become sex symbols.
Re:Mandarin vs. Cantonese (Score:4, Informative)
Women will overlook a lot of physical shortcomings if you're a decent guy.
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Women will overlook a lot of physical shortcomings if you're a decent guy.
Quite a few happily look up to a midget standing on his wallet
Re:Mandarin vs. Cantonese (Score:5, Funny)
Short, funny little Mickey Rooney scored some of the hottest babage in the world, and it wasn't because of his wallet, since the women he banged were all much more successful than him. Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, even Ava fucking Gardner, who on a scale of 1 to 10 was like an 18.
Here is a photo of Ava Gardner while she was married to Mickey Rooney:
https://www.oldtimeradiodownlo... [oldtimerad...nloads.com]
and Lana Turner:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ssV... [blogspot.com]
And this is what Elizabeth Taylor looked like when Mickey Rooney was tapping that ass:
https://vickielester.files.wor... [wordpress.com]
Mickey Rooney was 5' 2" tall. For all the AAA poontang he had, his dick should be enshrined in the Smithsonian.
Re:Mandarin vs. Cantonese (Score:4, Funny)
Women will overlook a lot of physical shortcomings if you're a decent guy.
Sure, but what if I'm not?
Re:Mandarin vs. Cantonese (Score:4, Funny)
Then you have to take matters into your own hands.
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So will men. But that can only compensate for so much. If you're a morbidly obese person, chances are you've passed that line a long time ago.
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Re: Mo ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh, I don't know. I pay to see John Goodman, Jack Nicholson and many other fat actors. I don't pay to see Kevin James, because his movies are trash.
I spent many hours enjoying the work of Orson Wells, Raymond Burr, William Conrad, Jackie Gleason.
If it will make you feel better, I wish you luck in losing weight. Do it for yourself, though.
This isn't that complicated (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't that complicated (Score:5, Interesting)
Hollywood is more tolerant of chubby or fat guys in dramatic roles than women: John Goodman, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cox, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brendan Gleeson, Tom Hanks, etc.... even Jonah Hill and Jack Black have been cast in serious roles as fat guys. For fat women, typically if they're in the film or television they are the comic relief and the humor revolves partly around their size.
As you said, Hollywood is interested in making money and even among men the great majority of primary characters in film and television roles are slim, attractive, and athletic. But I still think an imbalance exists.
Re:This isn't that complicated (Score:5, Insightful)
The imbalance is in the human genome.
A woman's suitability for mating is easy to assess visually, mostly. A man's is not, mostly.
This is wired into us, all of us, at a very deep level. Even when mating isn't on the table, so to speak, we still recognize and respond to women visually - and women do it too! Even little babies do it before they've had a chance to be corrupted by evil white heteronormative cismail white evil bad culture. That means that good looking men get very little of the benefits of good looks that attractive women get, but conversely, unattractive men don't lose as much as unattractive women either.
Re:This isn't that complicated (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you dumb enough that this is your main argument? I only ask because you are squaring up to do battle with an obvious strawman. Oh, shit, who am I talking to? Of course you are dumb enough for this.
Let me clue you in. We are a sexual species. We have a dimorphic genome and dimorphic bodies. That means that we see signals of mating suitability in others. Those signals, and the reception of those signals, is one of the very highest callings of our genes and our bodies. This isn't a moral thing, or a cultural thing, it is simply because whenever a specific person or group of our species showed up that didn't prioritize breeding, well, let's just say that we aren't their offspring.
Don't confuse the preferences of non-breeding homosexuals (who have near total domination of the fashion "industry") with the preferences of men. Anyhow, thank you for agreeing with me on the core premise that the appearance of women is important.
Now this is a cultural thing if ever there was one. Wanting to settle down with someone as a couple is not a human universal, it is something that a few cultures invented. It is a wildly successful idea, which is why it has been incorporated into so many cultures beyond the ones that invented it. But you don't need to look beyond the black-supermajority sections of the nearest American city to find a culture that doesn't have any such notion.
If that was the case, why would babies prefer the faces of attractive women? Wouldn't all babies be, according to your theory, boob men? Baby brains grow into adult brains under the guidance of the same DNA that created the baby brain in the first place.
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Hollywood is interested in making money. As long as people prefer to see a certain type of person movies will have more of those people because people will then buy more movie tickets. Most movie stars of both genders are people who are considered to be very good looking for the same reason. Unless you can change the culture, you need to threaten the bottom line. And the Fat Positive movement is still small enough that they are unlikely to be successful in that regard.
Indeed; the body-positive movement has never had anywhere near the support that other movements aimed at treating people on the content of their character have had over the last fifty years. Our comedians regularly ridicule overweight politicians for their looks when it is their political acts that we should care about. Discrimination against people whose weight or look may not fit within certain norms is found through much of our society, and is mostly stupid.
While there are certainly very skilled people w
Okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong! (Score:2)
The term "social justice" is wrong. Justice is personal..
Justice has a meaning, and is not personal. If that were true society would simply be anarchy and survival of the fittest. The definition is conceptual, and comes from Socrates. Like Virtue, Good, Moral, Evil, etc...
Perhaps consider why you have never learned such basic social concepts?
Re:Wrong! (Score:4, Funny)
. The definition is conceptual, and comes from Socrates.
Rather amusing given that social justice killed Socrates.
What the fuck am I doing at the TMZ website?! (Score:5, Insightful)
What the fuck am I doing at the TMZ website?! I thought I was visiting Slashdot!
Howzabout "The airline lost my luggage" (Score:4, Funny)
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I have been on way more than ten flights and never had lost luggage - I've had delayed luggage (by a day), but only once and never lost.
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CSB Years ago my aunt died after a long illness, but sooner than expected. I quickly gave notice at work, booked airline tickets, rented a car. On the bed were piles of neatly folded clothes. Loaded up my suitcase, off to the airport.
Flew to St Louis, got my car, drove 2 hours to my Uncle's place. And found a problem. I had no shirts.
Turned out my wife
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What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck this horseshit. I can't even go to a tech site without seeing this crap.
Answer: Attractiveness (Score:5, Insightful)
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Customers spend more money on what they're attracted to. Stop trying to do "conversion therapy" on them like a 20th century Puritan who can't stand the thought of a gay man.
Or, directors and producers have convinced themselves that you should never hire a woman of below average attractiveness or above average weight.
Movies are supposed to be entertaining, and you know what's entertaining? Variety.
A world consisting of super-models is fairly dull, a large female actress who is written with a personality can actually be really entertaining to watch.
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Movies aren't supposed to make me puke, which is what I'd want to do if I saw any of a number of famous bloated females in a bikini.
So do you also avoid any movies with John Goodman because you don't want to see him in a speedo?
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But most fat people, including me, just want to see fat people that are regular people. Who are the fat characters in Harry Potter? The Dursleys (obnoxious idiots) or Dolores Umbrage (obnoxious sadist). Who's the fat character in NCIS? House? The West Wing? None. Who's the fat character in Lost? Hurley, the comic relief. etc... etc... Di
Disagree about Hurley (Score:2)
I don't see how you can claim Hurley was the comic relief - he was actually the "regular" person if you look at all the oddness happening around the other people (even despite his curse). He was mostly the sensible one... and he ended up pretty well at the end. I would say he's one of the better characters in the show.
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It's conversion therapy if you're demanding that the fat people be consistently cast as romantic leads. And admittedly, I'm sure there are people demanding that.
I'm pretty sure TFA covers that.
But most fat people, including me, just want to see fat people that are regular people. Who are the fat characters in Harry Potter? The Dursleys (obnoxious idiots) or Dolores Umbrage (obnoxious sadist). Who's the fat character in NCIS? House? The West Wing? None. Who's the fat character in Lost? Hurley, the comic relief. etc... etc... Disney animated films? Ursula (villain), Maid Marian's helper (comic relief), Pumba (comic relief), Governor Ratcliffe (villain) - The Princess & The Frog was conspicuous for having two relatively important characters that were fat. CSI had the fat medical examiner (if I remember right).
Most people can either look in the mirror or walk down the street to see "normal" people (blind people being the obvious exception). We go to movies because it offers an escape from reality and NOT normal people. Who wants to watch a version of Game of Thrones where the people are huffing and panting after a few swings a sword? How about a version of Jaws where the cast is too heavy to swim away so gets eaten in the first scene? Nobody! We go to see the most attractive p
Why doesn't Slashdot push more liberal agenda? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know what to think unless someone in corporate tells me. Please tell me what to think next.
2) Because movies are fantasy and nobody fantasizes about being an unattractive slob.
Why is nobody advocating for more smelly, greasey, fat men in movies? Because you can't frame it as a poor innocent child-women argument.
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Why is nobody advocating for more smelly, greasey, fat men in movies?
Because Jack Black.
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Yeah. Put another way: who wants to spend an hour looking at fat people?
Seriously, this is not difficult unless you're a complete tool. Hollywood makes a visual product to appeal to viewers. Viewers like looking at good looking people. Ergo, Hollywood doesn't normally put fattys on the screen.
How many social justice cult meetings do you have to go to before you can't add 1 + 1 and get 2 any more? How far up your own ass do you have to be to miss something that's 10 times more obvious than obvious?
What would be because 'Body Positivity' is a sham (Score:4, Insightful)
There is literally nothing positive about being fat. You feel worse, your cloths don't fit well, you smell bad, oh and it will FREAKING KILL YOU.
I'm sorry, if that's so much of a hard reality then you really need to readdress your priority that you're personality is so fragile that you have to try to make everyone else feel as bad as you just to get by. But you're kill yourself, and encourage people to NOT try and address extreme weight issues is doing way more damage to other people that your own hurt feelings. Hey, I used to weight 370 pounds. Worked my literally ass off to get down to about 290. It's hard, it sucks, but it's what you have to do if you intend to make it past about 40.
Re:What would be because 'Body Positivity' is a sh (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly this. "Body Positive" is euphemism, it is code for "fat is OK". Fat is not OK. Normalizing fatness leads to more fatness. I read a study that determined that the best predictor of obesity was not genetics, it was your social circle. If you hang out with and associate with fat people, you are more likely to be fat. Obesity is a self perpetuating epidemic that has no upside.
Same Reson (Score:2)
The same reason they make sequels to rubbish movies: It makes money!
Face-Positive (Score:2)
It's what people want.... (Score:2, Informative)
Having spent 25 years working on movie and TV sets, I would argue that it's what people want to see. They want to see good looking (often young), fit, thin people. Generally anyway. And it's certainly more the case for actresses. Even women want to see that I think. These viewers -customers- vote with their dollars. It's subtle. Subliminal. But actors who are overweight, much like those in regular life, can face the same societal prejudicial issues: you're lazy, stupid, and ineffective. A pro
This is too easy ... (Score:2)
... because the answer is simple:
"We get what we ask for."
That explains CNN, Fox, Hollywood and TV and radio and the movies and shit.
"We have found the enemy and he is us. [thisdayinquotes.com]"
"AVERAGE SIZE" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Body Positive" (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, I'm all for being comfortable in your own skin. As a fellow fatass, I can support that position.
That, however, is not what's going on here.
I am not supportive of forcing that comfort on to others in the name of "acceptance". Healthy is sexy, and carrying around more fat that necessary isn't healthy. I'm not about to whine and cry about how women don't find me attractive because of my weight; I understand my beer gut isn't bringing all the girls to the yard, and that's OK. That's part of accepting my body as it is; not trying to force others to change their perspectives.
And can we lay off the whole "men aren't as impacted by body image issues as women are" please? Look at most of the leading men in hollywood; well muscled. It's a common misconception that men don't suffer from this issue, same as women.
Because they sell fantasies? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm positive I like this kind of body (Score:2)
Super Pochaco! Yeah, I'm a BBW lover! This anime is ridiculous!
Maybe NSFW [google.ca]
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Disgusting. She doesn't even have a dick.
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Well... OK... I know anime has an infinite variety of preferences.... But I like heavyset girls, but still with curves. That's a tough mix to get right. I used to date this roller derby girl but she was a bit too strong and dominating. So I'm back to searching for a big curvy submissive girl.
Fatties are ugly. (Score:2)
And nobody wants to fucking see them in films they paid to see, and had to watch ads and trailers as well, unless it's a character that's necessarily a fatty.
Screw the "body positive" movement (Score:3, Interesting)
And I say this as a fat man. While I don't believe in fat "shaming", I also don't think it should be considered a positive. The only positive I can think of being fat is that I can more easily float in water. All that means is if I'm on a plane and it crashes in the ocean, I can last 10% longer than a thin person before dying of exposure.
Basically, we should encourage people to be in a healthy weight range, and not beat themselves up if they're not perfect.
The real reason though is our brains are wired to be attracted to healthy people. In our evolved brains, healthy people will give us healthy offspring. Hollywood might consider women like Scarlett Johansen or Jennifer Lawrence to be fat, but most guys see them as fat in all the right places. ;-)
Enquiring minds (Score:2)
This is why (Score:2)
"Average-Sized"? (Score:3)
Uh, "Average-Sized" is very different in a lot of places in the world. At one extreme is a place like where I live, in Vietnam. Most woman, while not rail thin, are not very fat. On the other hand, a place like the American Samoas, I understand people there are very overweight. Even in the U.S. whereas people in the big cities pay a bit more attention to their waistlines (and in some places like Colorado really go out of their way to stay in shape), a quick trip to the mid-west will make you realize that humans come in some pretty big sizes.
Hollywood, being a den of actors/actresses/people working in coffee shops waiting to be discovered, has an unusually high proportion of young attractive people. So if the casting director walks down the street maybe they have a skewed sense of "Average-Sized". (Or maybe they're just trying to sell tickets)
There is nothing body-positive (Score:2)
about Danielle Macdonald.
Times like this... (Score:2)
It's this sort of inane bs that makes me wish for a war; anything that might serve to shed some of the mountain of navel gazing crap we keep adding to the pile. I am convinced that excessive peace is not healthy.
Who cares! (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously /.
Stop this crap.
Fat shaming (Score:2)
I dunno. How about this insight? Maybe our collective judgement dislikes fat people because, I dunno, maybe because anyone who disregards their own health and eats themselves in obesity looks really unhealthy, and mating with that decided unhealthy human is not in the best interest of the species? Evolution happening right before your eyes.
In other news, this is not news for Nerds and it definitely doesn't matter.
News for nerds, stuff that matters (Score:3)
I mean, I get it that we eat too many twinkies sometimes, but we also don't work for Hollywood. Except on render farms. Jezz! What's wrong with you guys? You are not Huffington Post, you are fucking slashdot! How about a discussion on the best programming languages to naturally incorporate machine learning along with traditional computation constructs?
Starving? (Score:2)
Just because the average is now overweight or obese does not absolve your continued gluttony.
Partly because of Actors ... (Score:2)
It's Partly because of Actors whom are often smaller sized ... the ideal TV/Movie actor and actress have a distinctive body type that is not that common in the general populace. To be on screen you need a large head in relation to the torso. "Big" people have difficultly obtaining that body type ... their heads are more in proportion to their body size.
On the screen, that won't do. If you've ever had much contact with on-screen personalities you may have been surprised at how small they are in real life. Th
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Not Profitable (Score:3)
Call me crazy, but perhaps people don't want to pay to watch fat people? Hollywood knows its audience wants escapism more than any other form of entertainment. If we wanted to watch a bunch of fat people, we wouldn't need Hollywood. We have an abundance of those in our everyday lives.
We are Hollywood customers in part because non-fat people are the exception to the norm. Look at a show like Jessica Jones. If the lead actress (and the supporting actresses) weren't body-hot, I wouldn't have even given the show a chance (and neither would have enough people to keep the show in production). If the Jessica Jones character were played by a fat woman, the whole premise of the show would have been too unbelievable to entertain.
And the notion that men are less affected by body image than women is laughable at best. By and large, physically attractive women go for physically attractive men, with only an occasional diversion from the standard; meaning that men have to either be genetically lucky, or spend a lot of time and effort in maintaining an attractive physique -- just like women. Imagine that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone's asleep at the wheel.
No, James Damore awoke the sleeping liberal dragon with his Google Diversity Memo. That was 11 days ago, and every day since has been a day of liberal rage--not just on Slashdot, but in all news media.
Personally, I think they're just getting warmed-up. The real show will start in 2 weeks, when classes begin at the universities...
Re:Holy fuck Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just liberal rage; this whole country is turning into a steaming pot of rage, threatening to boil over. It's not a good sign that there's so much clear division in this society now.
Unfortunately, I really can't think of any really good historical parallels. 1930s Germany has some similarities, but unlike them our economy is pretty good (except for some people in it) and we didn't lose some big war we're paying reparations for and we don't have hyperinflation. The fall of Rome has some similarities, but I've never read about them having huge divisions in their society between certain groups of citizens becoming violently opposed to each other. The US before the Civil War has some similarities, but there the division was mainly between different regions (encompassing entire states), whereas here it's not so much, it's more urban vs. rural.
Re: (Score:3)
It's noisy fringe vs noisy fringe. I'd be fine with the KKK and the Reds mutually wiping each other out. Hell, I'd throw the firecracker between the armed lines myself.