The Curvy Nerd

For us bigger girls, there aren’t many characters in the media who look like us, who are body positive. Fat girls get to be wacky sidekicks, the butt of the joke (sometimes literally) or simply non-existent in fiction, TV and movies. But every once and a while, a bigger, body-positive heroine emerges, and I think they’re worth sharing and celebrating! Here are my top picks. Please share your favorites in the comments!

BOOKS

Ellie Spencer from Guardian of the Dead

YA novel by Karen Healey

You tend to find only two kinds of big girls in YA fiction – funny sidekicks or big girl romance novels that revolve around her size and reinforce a lot of negative body messages. Thus, Healey’s supernatural romance Guardian of the Dead is a refreshing change – yes, Ellie is overweight and, yes, it does have an impact on elements of her character… but it’s not a book about an overweight heroine. It’s a book about a heroine who happens to be overweight (and it’s not a big deal). For the first time probably ever, I found myself truly relating to the YA character and embracing the idea of picturing myself (as we tend to do when reading) as I am, not as the skinny heroine I’d like to be.

Cannie from Good In Bed

Contemporary Novel by Jennifer Weiner

If Kate Winslet (below) is the patron saint of the curvy girl in movies, Jennifer Weiner is the patron saint of curvy girls in books (and among fiction writers). And her titular heroine is Cannie, the protagonist in Good In Bed, about a plus-sized girl whose ex-boyfriend writes a mortifying magazine piece on how big girls feel they need to try harder in bed. Cannie sets out on a soul-searching and hilarious weight loss journey, and concludes that she doesn’t need to change at all – and she finds someone who loves her, as is. I don’t think Weiner has ever written a “thin” main character — all her heroines are normal or curvy or plus-sized (who, I should note, have positive friendships with thin women, too). Weiner’s latest project is a TV show, entitled “The Great State of Georgia.” The casting call for the lead role reads: “The starring role of Georgia is a big, confident, curvy girl who can sing very well and has a southern accent.” Raven Simone, who is known for being curvy (and weight struggles) is already signed up. This is why I love Jennifer Weiner.

Thursday Next from the Thursday Next series

A Fantasy series by Jasper Fforde

God love Jasper Fforde. Not only does he make Thursday – gasp! – normal sized, he makes her old… with wrinkles! Ok, she’s in her 50s and has some wrinkles in the latest installments of the series, but it’s notable because how often do you see older female characters headlining fiction (or anything)?  Here’s the thing, Thursday isn’t actually big. A lot of bigger girls wouldn’t consider her a “fat” or curvy character and might take exception to my including her on my list. But, Jasper does this fun thing with his books — he has his significant other, on whom Thursday’s physicality is based, model for fun photos snaps of scenes from the book and posts them on his website/turns them into postcard giveaways for fans. And she is delightfully and gorgeously normal sized (maybe a size 8 U.S. or a 10?). So in my mind, Thursday can be curvy, because she is not stick-thin. I think we need “normal,” kick-ass heroines as much as possible, even if they’re not plus-sized, don’t you?

TV

Jane, Drop Dead Diva

A comedy-drama airing on Lifetime

Though Drop Dead Diva sounds like a train wreck – thin, blond model dies and is accidentally dropped into the body of a plus-size lawyer – Jane has emerged as the most big-girl body-positive character on TV. Jane, at a size 16, is unabashed about her size and eating, and gets to enjoy all the things thinner characters do – career success, several love interests and a well-rounded character profile. Two seasons in and the show has resisted giving Jane a weight loss/makeover plotline, though they have address issues of weight loss,  incredibly well.

Every character on Huge

Cancelled ABC family drama

I’ve extolled the virtues of this prematurely cancelled show before, but I’ll say it again: all the characters on Huge, from obese to “plus size” (as in, the modeling industry’s odd definition thereof) to thin but with food issues, are realistic, engaging and body positive, despite the show taking place at a “fat camp.” Notably absent from this list, you may notice, is Lauren Zizes from Glee BUT her actress counterpart Ashley Fink IS included among the cast of Huge — she plays a sex-positive plus sized girl on the show. Huge is a great but rare example of a show where the characters being fat is both a part of their identity but NOT their defining characteristic – ie: they are real people with a wide range of personalities and issues. Good stuff.

FILM

Kate Winslet as Hester

2001 drama film Enigma

Do you know how hard it is to come up with film characters who fit the bill? Really, really hard. So I’m going with the patron saint of curvy girls – Kate Winslet. One of my favorite “normal curvy girl” characters of hers is Hester, the “surprise” love interest of Dougray Scott in WWII historical drama Enigma. Hester is hardly fat (she’s maybe a size 8 US, tops), but she’s certainly curvy (helped along by the fact that Winslet was pregnant during filming) AND she’s a nerd, so she gets my vote. She wins the guy over the very svelte, blond Saffron Burrows, proving that you don’t have to be stick thin and shockingly gorgeous to be desireable/attractive. Score one for Team Curvy Nerd!

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, so please chime in with your own favorites in the comments! That said, there really aren’t that many to begin with, a sad fact that needs to change!

Related: RIP: ABC Family’s Huge

Dropping in on Drop Dead Diva

Drop Dead Diva… the fat girl’s dilemma

As I blogged a few weeks ago, I’ve been watching the new Lifetime show Drop Dead Diva. After initial hesitation, my verdict was this: despite the potentially disastrous premise, the show is incredibly charming BUT someday would surely drop pretense, and have the overweight heroine conform to societal standards of beauty.

Since my post, the show has done two diet-and-body-image centric episodes. One two weeks ago, entitled The Magic Bullet, about a mom whose diet-pill popping daughter develops an arrhythmia so she sues, and this week’s episode The Dress, where Jane herself sues a clothing company for not making any clothing over a size 10. The beginning of the end, right? Wrong. Drop Dead Diva continues strong, and continues to flat out surprise me.

Jane’s storyline starts in Pretty Woman style, except the protagonist is fat instead of a prostitute. Both entirely unacceptable in high end Beverly Hills boutiques, apparently. Read the full story

There is nothing like the fat girl feminist dilemma. In general, I go round and round about (post?) modern feminist issues — what does it mean to be a “good” feminist? How do I balance my femininity, and wanting “traditional” elements of gender roles (I’d like to get married and have children, I enjoy cooking, etc.), whilst still maintaining my values? Being self-aware about feminist issues, and those of equality, plus standing my ground on certain issues (I will have your babies, and cook dinner, but only because I want to — tell me I’m expected to do something, and I won’t, ha!), I think I balance my personal value system with living out in the “real world.” It’s not easy, and makes for a pretty pathetic dating life, but I know what makes me happy, and that eventually (hopefully?) the rest of the world will catch up.

But where I struggle is enjoying things that are for the masses, that do horrible, awful things to women, that I enjoy, regardless. I may know better, but does everyone else who enjoys the tv shows, music, movies, book etc. that degrade women and reinforce stereotypes and gender roles that just become further ingrained in the subconscious of the media ingesters (men and women alike)? I take away very different things from The Devil Wears Prada, Grey’s Anatomy, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Sex in the City, etc, in ad finitum, as the average person. Mostly I put my brain, and my values, on hold for a few hours at a time and try not to let the (largely anti-feminist) lessons of these things seep into my subconscious. I remind myself that the fabulous (terribly too thin) woman being presented to me aren’t real, aren’t healthy, and that I’m happy the way I am. It’s a slippery slope. And thus comes my many guilty pleasures, the most recent of which is the Lifetime show, Drop Dead Diva.

Get this for a premise: Deb, an aspiring model with a “perfect” life — big audition, dreamy lawyer boyfriend (who we find out is about to propose), fun life, fabulous friends — gets into a car crash on the way to an audition, and is zipped up to the pearly gates to have her fate decided. Her “case worker” Fred inputs some information into a computer (in a very technologically advanced afterlife) to determine which way she’ll go — up or down — based on her life’s deeds. But apparently the very sweet Deb is just that — sweet, simple and rather shallow, and rates a “zero” on the scale: she is neither good nor bad. Deb doesn’t like being called a zero, and in an act of defiance, hits the “return” button the computer… only to be returned back to earth and deposited in the body of a recently deceased woman named Jane.

Insert situation comedy-drama: formerly blonde, thin, young, ditzy Deb is now in the body of overweight, brunette, brilliant, lonely 30-something lawyer Jane. In a bizarre plot contrivance, Deb retains her memories, but inherits Jane’s intelligence, and ends up working at the same law firm as her former fiance.

It sounds awful. The potential for mixed messaging is rampant — a blonde, thin pretty, stupid girl ends up in the body of a fat smart girl? Most “walk a mile in the other man’s shoes” stories have the potential for insult, but this one is most potent.

But amazingly, Drop Dead Diva is good. Really good. Charming, even. Read the full story