It’s gotten to the point that I can’t avoid the trailer and advertisements for Amy Schumer’s new vehicle I Feel Pretty, so that means it’s time to write about it.I’ll start by looking at her own words when she was included in Glamour’s plus-size issue’s “Women Who Inspire Us” feature.
“I think there’s nothing wrong with being plus size. Beautiful healthy women. Plus size is considered size 16 in America. I go between a size 6 and an 8. @glamourmag put me in their plus size only issue without asking or letting me know and it doesn’t feel right to me. Young girls seeing my body type thinking that is plus size? What are your thoughts? Mine are not cool glamour not glamourous.”
Setting aside the fact that there is nothing wrong with being fat regardless of health or perceived attractiveness, I think it’s pretty hard to believe Amy believes there’s “nothing wrong with being plus size” when she is so desperate to make sure that people know she isn’t. She thinks it’s a problem that young girls might think she is, and she claims it’s “not cool” and “not glamorous” that someone would suggest she is plus size. It makes me wonder how she would act if she did think there was something wrong with it?
I think it’s pretty apparent that Amy believes there’s something wrong with being plus size, but even if you disagree with that, she’s made it very clear that she doesn’t think she is plus sized — including shouting her dress size from the rafters. But suddenly, for this film, we’re all supposed to believe that she shares the plight of the plus size woman? What was the last store you were in that didn’t sell clothes in size six or eight? Even if we assume that she’s a size 12, which is what others seem to speculate, she’s still firmly in the realm of straight sizes, as she took the time to point out on Instagram.
To be clear, Amy is larger than the Hollywood ideal, and that has affected her career, and that’s bullshit. But the undeniable truth is that she’s relatively thin, as well as white, blonde, traditionally “pretty,” currently able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual, and thus fulfilling most of the beauty stereotypes. Sure, she’s not a size zero, but that doesn’t make it okay for her to slip the identity of fatness on and off like a fatsuit in a way that suits her career goals.
But even if we pretend that Amy could pass for “fat” and/or “ugly” by some definition, we’re still left with a hot mess of fatphobic bullshit.
This entire movie is built on tropes that reinforce fatphobia, regardless of the intent. The “comedy” of this movie is based on the idea that it’s hilarious that a fat woman would have confidence…
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Movies’ getting raked, and deservedly so. I think this might have been a say something movie like 20 years ago. This isn’t even whitenoise. It’s whitenoise with a smell. It is too far beyond to spark needed commentary, hope it disappears and just goes onto the long list of un-funny moron comedies that Hollywood puts yearly, by the gross. Maybe she is the fat GP in a I’m not playing a fatso character? Meh.
I haven’t heard of this movie, but this seems like.a good place to share something I experienced yesterday — I went to a chamber music performance, and the cellist was a young woman who definitely was in the plus-size range. She was wearing a stunning black gown that had a halter top, so her arms, shoulders and upper back were entirely bare. Very practical for a cellist, but also GORGEOUS. Her arms and shoulders were round and full, no visible collar bones at all, and just *beautiful*. I am a straight woman happily married to a man but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. And I was SO . PROUD . OF . HER for having the confidence in her own beauty and her own musicianship to wear that gown despite the fact that many people would say she’s “too fat” to be showing her bare arms that way. She was glorious, and it made me very happy to see her. I just wanted to share that with everyone here.
That’s lovely! Thank you for sharing.
I think stuff like this is the inevitable result of trying to appeal to a group of people you hate and/or know nothing about. You can’t create a relatable fat character when you don’t see fat people as human, and you can’t write convincingly about fat peoples’ experiences when you keep ignoring our experiences and mentally replacing them with cartoony War on Obesity stereotypes. That’s how we get movies where the ‘liberated’ fat woman drinks her daily two-gallon shake with pride when what we should be getting is a movie where the fat woman *does not drink a daily two-gallon shake,* because that just isn’t the way it works.