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Home » Blogs » Dorothy Snarker's blog » "Hairspray": Bringing big and beautiful back?

"Hairspray": Bringing big and beautiful back?

by
Dorothy Snarker

Hairspray sang and danced its way onto the big screen this past weekend to great reviews and strong box office (No. 3 behind I Now Pronounce You Dumb & Dumber Chuck & Larry and Harry Potter, with the largest opening take for a musical on record). And, according to the Associated Press, its filmmakers hope its success will herald a new acceptance of plus-size women in Hollywood. You hear that, aspiring starlets? You can all stop gorging yourself on ice cubes and Diet Coke, because big is back. If only.

As welcome as the notion may be, I sincerely doubt that Hollywood will begin embracing its Rubenesque side anytime soon. While Nikki Blonsky and Queen Latifah are Hairspray’s beautiful bombshells, they are the curvaceous exceptions to the rule right now.

Heck, even when a role calls for someone with more size, moviemakers often just ask thin actresses to bulk up (à la Charlize Theron in Monster and Renee Zellweger in the Bridget Jones films).

And then there are the wholesale slim jobs they do on other roles, like in 1991 when Michelle Pfeiffer was cast in Frankie and Johnny over Kathy Bates, who originated the role on stage.

Certainly, Hollywood hasn’t always been a land of stick-figure leading ladies. Marilyn Monroe had more curves than Cameron Diaz, Keira Knightley and Nicole Kidman have combined. But over the years, the standards of beauty have thinned — so much so that when I was recently saw the iconic, sexy shot of Catherine Deneuve’s perfect hourglass figure from Belle de Jour again, I had the uncomfortable realization that today they would airbrush her back to about half its size. If you think I’m exaggerating, just ask Faith Hill’s left elbow.

Still, while I appreciate the AP article’s sentiment, even its packaging is a sign that the industry isn’t close to hopping on the "big is beautiful" bandwagon. To illustrate the story, the AP sent along three images: Hairspray stars Blonsky and Latifah and recent Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson. Never mind that Hudson isn’t mentioned anywhere in the article. I guess they couldn’t think of a third successful plus-size actress working in film today. Can you?

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    • Submitted by
    Dorothy Snarker
    on July 23, 2007 - 11:00am.
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    Bekkah's picture

    i was reading the article

    Submitted by
    Bekkah (102 posts)
    on July 23, 2007 - 12:20pm.

    i was reading the article and i happened to glance down at catherine deneuve's picture, and i wondered in the back of my mind "why on earth is that thin woman's picture in here?"

     

    then i read the caption.

     

    and i came to the realization that my definition of thin and hollywood's definition of thin are two VERY different things.

     

    My definition of thin: Kate Winslet, Liv Tyler, Kelly Clarkson

     

    Hollywood's definition of thin: Jennifer "I can count spinal discs" Aniston and Brittany "Since when can skeletons be actresses?" Murphy...

     

     I wish big and beautiful would become popular....i'm tired of trying to admire stick figures. GIMME A WOMAN WITH CURVES DAMMIT!

    Emily's picture

    Oh yeah. :D

    Submitted by
    Emily (29 posts)
    on July 23, 2007 - 12:45pm.

    My definition of thin is the same as yours! I think that there's healthy thin, and then there's bordering-on-skeleton thin. Ick.

    I think that a lot of the plus size women in the media are gorgeous. I tend to see something beautiful in everyone (I blame being an artist and having a love for people in general), and I don't understand why having a different body build than someone else is considered such a bad thing.

    Although, on the other hand, I do find it offensive when people start going on about how much they want to see women who are bigger in the media, calling them "real women." What makes a real woman? I don't think appearance does. I just so happen to be quite thin because of a freakishly high metabolism that I got from my mom, so when people start calling a certain group of women "real women" it makes me feel pretty low. All women are real women, give me a break. Big, small, inbetween, it doesn't matter.

    Maybe I've been taking what they say in the wrong way, but that's just how I view it.

    That's a really hard thing for me to explain, so I hope I got my point across.

    ~

    "Most beautiful but dumb girls think they are smart and get away with it, because other people, on the whole, aren't much smarter." -Louise Brooks

    Laura's picture

    All women are real women

    Submitted by
    Laura (125 posts)
    on July 23, 2007 - 2:48pm.

    All women are real women

    Total agreement.  I've never quite gotten the prescribed aesthetic du jour, whether it's applied to thin, thick, tall, short, femme, butch, whatever.  I've been attracted to every point on the spectrum at one time or another, and it's never been based solely on body type.  Beautiful is found everywhere, you just gotta be open to seeing it. 

    roxbnl8's picture

    "real women"

    Submitted by
    roxbnl8 (6 posts)
    on July 23, 2007 - 6:13pm.

    for me, "real women" refers to women who treat their bodies naturally. this means no crazy dieting/anorexia/bulimia/excessive working out to become skeletally thin. "real women" implies that the subject in question is honest, healthy, and (most importantly) happy. it's not necessarily size that defines "realness," but how down-to-earth and "real" a person actually is! maybe others feel this way, too, so i hope that helps you understand and not feel targeted for your natural thinness. :)

    helenm's picture

    Yeah, I find the targetting of thin women a bit weird too

    Submitted by
    helenm (22 posts)
    on July 24, 2007 - 6:00am.
    I know what you mean Emily, so often people do assume to be 'real' you cannot be thin. Due to various reasons, largely down to genetics, I am very thin but I eat a lot. This makes me no less a 'real' woman than Jennifer Hudson (but equally so, no better a woman either). However, due to me not having perfect facial features (symmetrical eyes, cute nose, killer cheekbones) I would never be considered to be stunning either. And this is what bothers me about people who feel that the media isn't representative when it comes to beauty - they don't take it far enough. We live in an age of plastic surgery and that if someone has too large a nose, or a weak jawline, you can pay a small fortune to get it 'fixed', so we now get kids aspiring to have a face or boob job. Surely this isn't healthy either? Rather than saying we should have plus sized models and then aspire to be like them, couldn't we just accept that we shouldn't be encouraging girls to look no further than beauty as the be all and end all of life. Because it doesn't matter how much we complain, they are never going to use models with wonkey eyes to sell beauty products. And I know people will say, 'yeah, but by having more plus size models people are less likely to feel bad about their weight', maybe that is true. But then people will feel bad because they aren't naturally pretty like Queen Latifah. There is always someone more beautiful out there. We need to get people to understand that that is just life, and it really isn't very important. So next time you are about to commend your young neice or sister on being beautiful, why not commend her on her ability to catch a ball, or do her sums, or how nicely she talked to you.
    ice cream's picture

    I don't like the Hollywood

    Submitted by
    ice cream (not verified)
    on July 24, 2007 - 6:41am.

    I don't like the Hollywood definition of "normal" much as I consider it to be underweight but call me shallow, I think there is a difference between curves or rubenesque and plain overweight! And frankly, I am getting as tired of people claiming overweight is beautiful as I am of people claiming underweight is beautiful.

    To me, any weight that creates health issues, for the individual, is not a "beautiful" weight!

     

    "call me old fashioned but I prefer feminism that leaves a little something to the imagination!"

    Muriel's picture

    Am I the only one

    Submitted by
    Muriel (35 posts)
    on July 24, 2007 - 6:53pm.
    ...who thinks that Renee Zellweger looks about 100,000 times better when she was "fat" than when she got skinny? Her smile looks a wee bit fake in the skinny picture, too, unlike the genuine smirk in the picture on the left. Nobody has fun on a diet.
    CountessEntwistle's picture

    I miss curvy women...

    Submitted by
    CountessEntwistle (35 posts)
    on July 25, 2007 - 12:48pm.
    I miss seeing women that didn't look like toothpicks, women that could also double as a lock pick on TV and in movies. Nowadays, I have to witness women who look more like human stick insects with wigs attached to their heads. There is nothing wrong with having curves, there is nothing wrong with NOT being rail thin. Please stop dieting, please stop starving yourself. You're doing more harm, not only to yourself, but to women worldwide than good. You're just reinforcing body issues and prompting more people to become anorexic.

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