Abolishing The Fat Villain Stereotype in Pop Culture
From Jabba The Hutt to Harry Potter’s uncle Vernon, fat villains permeate pop culture, sustaining real-life biases that demean and dismiss fat people. It’s a trope that, Sarah Stark writes for Inverse, needs to be abolished. While making fat people out to be lacking morals or inherently bad (a fat body symbolizes “evidence of sin,” according to Canadian sociologist Fiona Whittington-Walsh), the entertainment industry’s reliance on fat suits is also problematic. As comedian Guy Branum says, “The fat suit is such a fascinating way of saying that this character is not human. It is hard to be simultaneously told, ‘There are no parts that are right for you in Hollywood,’ and then have somebody put on a costume to look like me.” But in creating more positive fat characters—or simply writing them like any other character—”researchers and creators agree the solution is more and better fat representation.” Read the deep dive on fatphobia in pop culture at Inverse.
Image courtesy of Warner Bros
Via inverse.com link opens in a new window
