12 Times TV And Movies Nailed Fat Characters And 11 Times They Failed
1.Nailed: My Mad Fat Diary
Rae, the protagonist in My Mad Fat Diary, struggles with her body image and mental health, but it's explored in a nuanced and meaningful way. The wider narrative never shames or belittles her, and she gets to be a whole person with a lot of feelings, not all of which are related to her weight. She also gets a very hot romance.
2.Failed: Insatiable
Debby Ryan wears a fat suit (never a good start) to play the "before" Patty — a teen girl who is fat and loses a bunch of weight when she is assaulted and has her jaw wired shut. It's offensive, dehumanizing, and harmful in so many ways.
3.Nailed: Good Girls
Retta's character, Ruby, on Good Girls is a flawed woman — but her fatness is not one of her flaws. In fact, her weight is never referenced at all. Instead, she's a fully-realized and complex character in her own right, with a fraught character journey that is entirely unrelated to her size. While doing morally questionable things (which is all part of the fun), she is also shown to be a good mother who is in a loving relationship with her husband.
4.Failed: Shallow Hal
Probably one of the worst offenders of all time, Shallow Hal sees Gwyneth Paltrow don a fat suit to portray Rosemary, whose "inner beauty" manifests as thin Gwyneth as perceived by Hal, who is hypnotized to see what's on the inside. The premise itself is disgusting, and then the movie leans into every harmful stereotype and lazy fat joke imaginable.
5.Nailed: Drop Dead Diva
The premise of Drop Dead Diva sounds messy — a thin model dies and her soul winds up in the body of a fat lawyer — and there are some bumps along the road, especially at the start, but on the whole, it's a respectful, fun, and moving exploration of body positivity and narrow beauty standards.
6.Failed: Friends
Former Fat Character is an overdone trope, typically using a thin actor in a fat suit for "comedic" effect — and there's no doubt Fat Monica is the most infamous example of all. While thin Monica is treated as a beautiful control freak, Fat Monica is portrayed as repulsive and absurd, and someone who can't stop eating.
7.Nailed: Derry Girls
Nicola Coughlan's Claire on Derry Girls is a smart, funny, caring, queer, ambitious, slightly unhinged character who just happens to be plus-sized. Her body shape is completely irrelevant to who she is or how she's treated.
8.Failed: Fate: The Winx Saga
Changing Terra into a fat chatacter — which she wasn't in the original show — should have been a positive step towards representation, but instead, her portrayal is just depressing. The treatment of her character is fatphobic by both other characters and the narrative itself, and she doesn't remotely come across as an actual authentic fat girl.
9.Nailed: Our Flag Means Death
Samson Kayo's Oluwande on Our Flag Means Death is no doubt one of the best characters. He's warm-hearted, brave, and logical, plus his romance is very sweet and he gets some genuinely swoon-worthy moments.
10.Failed: Brooklyn 99
Brooklyn 99 is hailed by many as a progressive unicorn of a sitcom, which makes the pervasive anti-fatness all the more glaring and hurtful. The most egregious example, of course, is Fat Terry, played by Terry Crews in a fat suit, but the bumbling portrayal of Hitchcock and Scully also sucks.
11.Nailed: Rutherford Falls
Reagan Wells, played by Jana Schmieding, is one of the lead characters on Rutherford Falls and is really the heart of the show, who is thankfully treated with the respect and nuance she deserves. Although the show is a comedy, her body is never treated as a joke.
12.Failed: Avengers: End Game
When Thor gains weight as a result of binge eating and depression in Avengers: End Game, it could have been a moving portrayal of the very real impact grief can have on you physically as well as mentally. Instead, he is the butt of multiple distressing fat jokes, with lingering shots of the fat suit Chris Hemsworth is wearing to depict how "gross" he is now.
13.Nailed: What We Do in the Shadows
Fat characters are often excluded from supernatural stories, so it's great to see the way Guillermo in What We Do in the Shadows is not only included but portrayed in a way that subverts expectations of stereotypes of what such a character can be. He's a total badass and it's the best.
14.Failed: New Girl
New Girl is just another sitcom with the Formerly Fat Character trope, this time with Schmidt, who is shown to be a sad, binge-eating, unlucky-in-love dork as portrayed by Max Greenfield in a fat suit. The show is also pretty anti-fat in general, with a lot of negative comments made about Nick's weight (even though he is definitely not fat).
15.Nailed: Ghostbusters
The 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters is criminally underrated for a bunch of reasons, but not least because of the way it has a fat character — Melissa McCarthy's Abby Yates — who is not only a smart and capable hero, but who gets some pretty awesome action scenes, too.
16.Failed: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The Harry Potter series — both the books and the movies — are pretty aggressively anti-fat. The fat characters are always depicted in a negative way — especially Vernon and Dudley, whose fatness is tied to their greediness and selfishness. On top of that, the third movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, has that horrific scene in which Aunt Marge literally blows up as a result of a spell from Harry.
17.Nailed: Glow
Glow features a diverse range of female characters, but it's Carmen (played by Britney Young) in particular who shines as a powerful fat athlete. As a pro wrestler, her body is her strength, and it's never treated like a liability or something to be ashamed of.
18.Failed: The Simpsons
The Simpsons is perhaps one of the biggest proponents of negative stereotypes of fat people — portraying them as lazy, bumbling fools, or lonely losers. Homer is the most obvious example, but it also extends to other characters like the Wiggums. Then the episode "King-Size Homer," in which Homer gains weight in order to claim disability and work from home, turns up these insulting cliches by about 100.
19.Nailed: Hacks
Megan Stalter's turn as Kayla on Hacks is a scene stealer — she's hilarious, outrageous, quirky, and kind of terrible, and it's entirely unrelated to her weight. Plus, she rocks a stand-out colorful, whimsical wardrobe in a way fat characters don't often get to do.
20.Failed: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
There is a character who is literally called Fat Bastard. What more is there to say? He's portrayed by Mike Myers in a fat suit, and his body is exploited as a source of grossness and even villainy. His appetite is so over-the-top he has cannibalistic tendencies. Horrific.
21.Nailed: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
Mo is glorious, glamorous, and has the best style and the best lines on Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. Their weight is never made fun of or treated as a negative. Plus, they get interesting friendship and romantic storylines.
22.Failed: Pretty Little Liars
Yet another Formerly Fat Character portrayed by a thin actor in a fat suit. Seriously, just ban fat suits — they are dehumanizing and insulting and never really look real, anyway. Case in point: Hanna on Pretty Little Liars. Her past as a fat girl haunts her, and her narrative on the show — especially in the first season — is rife with incredibly damaging anti-fat messages, both implicit and explicit.
23.Nailed: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has a lot of body diversity across its extended cast of characters, but Spinnerella in particular is a wonderful example of positive fat representation. There aren't enough fat superheroes on our screens, and she is a very powerful one.
