I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes: My Beef with the Portrayal of Fat Women in the Performing Arts
By: Olivia Hrko
Tags: Television, Film, Theatre, Women, Fat

Kat from the show Euphoria (Source)

Reading Playlist

Toward the end of first semester my sophomore year at college, I was sitting in a foundational directing theory class. The main topic of discussion for the second week in a row was casting. We went through to look for people who can balance the paradoxes within a role. This character is tough but the actress who plays her must also be able to show the cracks and vulnerability in that to do the whole arc of the play. This character is fiercely loyal, but is also very indecisive. Find actors who can play those dualities. Here’s how to audition them. While discussing these principles, the discussion turned to that of representation. The professor said something along the lines of

“Everyone, no matter what race, height, age or anything should be considered for the part. The essential factor for the part unless specified in certain cases like Hamilton, or Pose, or just in general, roles that are specified for folks of color, or of certain sexual orientations is that they can balance these paradoxes. Because theater is about showing human experience, and everyone human goes through some basic experiences.”

This sounded good to everyone in the room and we started trying to theoretically cast the play we worked with all semester, when a classmate’s hand went in the air. This person was like me. They were plus-sized and they and I had had numerous discussions about roles for fat people or the difficulty of getting cast when just being in the bodies we had. The professor called on them and they asked “Does this sort of blindness for casting include people of size?” My professor’s answer? No. Now this shocked me. I went to a liberal arts college in the center of New York City. THE city the rest of the country considers the ideal metropolis for the east coast liberal. The bluest of blue, and my forward-thinking, progressive professor just said ‘No. people of size cannot be considered for just any part.’ My classmate was just as shocked as I was and asked why. The answer was because theater is ‘supposed to portray an ideal. It’s a story told by people the audience is supposed to see the best of themselves in. People of size are no one’s ideal or the best of anyone.’ What I took from that was everyone’s human experiences could never possibly be my experiences. I couldn’t have human experiences, I just had plus size experiences. So I could only portray plus size experiences.

Well, let me make the first apology to my parents. I should have never cost them so much money getting a higher education if I could only portray plus size experiences. I shouldn’t have taken my myriad of Shakespeare classes where I learned to break down classic poetic text. Shakespeare doesn’t write about plus size people. I should have auditioned for admission to university with a completely different monologue. Arthur Miller never says “Catherine wears a size sixteen dress” in her character description of A View from the Bridge. Why wasn’t I told? What about more modern works? There are some very famous roles for plus-size women nowadays, right? Sure. There’s Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray. Or maybe if I’m looking for something I can really sink my teeth into dramatically, Helen; a plus-size librarian from an aptly named Neil LaBute play Fat Pig. So, I’m sorry mom and dad. They didn’t have courses where I got to learn about all the new and exciting roles for plus-sized folks. If I knew those were the only stories I’d be able to tell, I would’ve taken the classes. I would’ve sang “Good Morning Baltimore” until my vocal chords looked like torn wallpaper. You all would have gotten your money’s worth for my tuition — But, sadly I missed out. I wasn’t told soon enough.

Maybe I should apologize to my professors as well. If I’d known I couldn’t ever actually play Ophelia in Hamlet or Aimee from The Humans because of my weight, I wouldn’t have wasted precious class time with my attempts to act like a regular person. Do I sound ridiculous enough yet?

Now, this is not to be a fight about the performing arts representation problem. This is coming from a very personal place. I know and understand there is a huge conversation happening in the entertainment industry about producing and showcasing more diverse plays and casts. Especially for people of color, or people with disabilities, or people who are members of the LGBTQ+ community. These conversations and actions are essential, but this article is specifically about my beef with being a fat artist and how fat women are portrayed in media. I’m speaking from my experiences and quite frankly, my rage. It’s about to get real angry and upsetting folks, and here’s your chance to click out.

I’m going to say fat person when talking about me. That’s the only experience I can speak from with this. It’s the language that’s been used around and about me, and it’s become the word I’ve decided to take back when I describe myself. I’m fat. I’m fat, I’m fat, I’m fat, I’m fat, I’m fat. I’m really fucking done with trying to hide it or apologize for that in any capacity. That includes being afraid of pointing myself out in anyway shape or form. That includes when I talk about dream roles and mention romantic leads I say “in an ideal world” which is just “if I was skinny”. I’m done with feeling like my being fat is the reason for every single problem in my life. It’s not the only reason for my anxieties. It is not the reason for my lack of a love life. Those actually stem from other facets of my self-worth. My weight has nothing to do with them, and I am sick and tired of people acting like that is the Rosetta Stone of my experience. I’m sick of having it be a third party’s view of my life and I’m sick of seeing it as the only problem I could possibly have in the movies and shows and plays I watch and read.

We can start with something like This is Us which made amazing strides with Kate’s character in later seasons, but at first the only thing that came up for her was her weight loss and how this was finally going to be when she did it. It was only in later seasons where we got to see Kate go through just incredibly human and universal themes; a hard relationship with her mother, never fully getting over the death of her father, the challenges of having a child with a disability and a partner who isn’t all the way present when dealing with it. We can think of older films like Death Becomes Her, which chucks Goldie Hawn into a fat suit and then only makes her ready for revenge when she has a killer body that can rival Meryl Streep’s.

Newer iterations of characters making a weight loss or fitness journey have started taking the fact that fat people are still people into account. Though it is still by making the journey appear to be about self-confidence and self-worth. Think Brittany Runs a Marathon. Now, I totally understand a person’s weight is tied into their self-esteem frequently. I myself have always had a tough journey surrounding my body’s reflection in a mirror; but instead of making the weight loss the ultimate way a plus-sized woman can take care of herself and grow into a confident budding flower, why don’t we see possible stories where she’s just, confident? Why are fat women always shy and demure, trying to make themselves as small and insignificant as possible? What is wrong with a plus-sized woman being vivacious and bombastic, or incredibly smart and not trying to detract attention from herself because she is plus-sized?

There are moments of this as well, but not nearly enough. Some places to start looking are the show Dietland, which while still about weight loss is also still about living your life no matter your size and getting angry at the media in the world that pushes ways to be ‘perfect’ onto women of any size. Euphoria has a character who is just becoming confident in her sexuality and her size. She doesn’t care, and has possibly the greatest line I’ve ever heard in regards to this topic.

“There is nothing more powerful than a fat girl who doesn’t give a fuck.”

This is the kind of journey I think fat women need to see more of in new characters; and in regards to already written to characters? Consider plus size actresses for those ingénues, or bad bitches, or even just leading roles. Because news flash: and I know it may be shocking. Plus sized women are human. Plus sized women have doubts in faith. Plus sized women have to grieve many different types of loss. Plus sized women get betrayed by friends. Plus sized women get betrayed romantically for other reasons than their partner wanted to be with someone thinner. Plus sized women can lead board rooms or operating theaters. Plus sized women can be angry, happy, sad, numb, crazy, good at their jobs, funny other than self-deprecating jokes about their own bodies. Oh, and plus sized women have sex, contrary to popular belief. Plus sized women can seduce. Plus sized women fall in love and it’s reciprocated, sometimes, with people who are “normal” looking. Plus sized women are women. Plus sized women are human, so plus sized Ophelias are possible; so are plus sized AND pregnant Stella DuBois’, and while we’re at it, Juliet can be plus sized too. So can Romeo, so can Stanley Kowalski, and so can Hamlet. Plus sized people are capable of being in media in any role because plus sized people are human.

The thing that I think got pounded into my head the most in college was the thing I fell in love with, the classics. I loved the stories of Ajax and Antigone, Heracles and The Bacchae because the entire point of those plays was for the audience to see a story so emotionally provocative they went through a catharsis. They watched these human beings go through terrible trials and tribulations, and they felt a purging of their own bad emotions and feelings. The people in the audience weren’t great kings and fierce demigod soldiers, but they still watched these people be human and saw themselves in these characters, because these characters just went through very human things.

So, I leave my readers with this. When you are watching tv, or film, or a play, are you watching for an ideal, or are you watching to see yourself in someone else? Would it be easier for you to see yourself in a character if that character looked like you, or must you change yourself to be more like these “ideals” on screen to be human?