This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Hollywood Fat: From YKTTW
Weasel Pants 747: Could we get some description up in this trope?
- Sparkysharps: problem fixed — somebody deleted the entirety of the old description. It's back now.
- Tricksterson: They redeleted it.
ccoa: Removed natter from page:
- This troper doesn't take Rowling's defense of the overweight sincerely, considering the overweight characters in her book are rarely if ever potrayed in a positive light.
- Neville was a chubby kid, but became a hero in the end. Charlie, Fred and George Weasley were stocky, Molly Weasley was plump, Slughorn was described as being enormous, Professor Sprout was plump, the Ministry Wizard who investigated the Gaunts, and if I recall even the Muggle Studies teacher was a little thick. The only negatively portrayed thick people are Vernon, Dudley, the twin Death Eaters and Umbridge. Compare that to the number of skinny people who are negatively shown (for the most part): Voldemort, Draco Malfoy, Snape, Lucius Malfoy, Salazar Slytherin, Grindlewald, Zabini. Hell, even the name of Slytherin's descendants, the Gaunts, are a reference to being emaciated and deadly thin. The some negatively shown large characters are large because it helps cement the idea of gluttony and greed - Just look at Dudley and him stealing candy and eyeing Harry's grapefruit. He's fat because he's greedy, not greedy because he's fat. The character wouldn't work as well if he were a stick. Often in the books skinniness is shown as being unhealthy. Sirius Black, Lupin and Grindlewald all get thinner in times of duress and its remarked upon as being a negative. And thats not even counting characters being physically fit and being shown as assholes, like Mc Claggan, Crabbe and Goyle. Politically correct or not, body types do help to define a character. A character being large can help them seem either greedy or caring (Dudley and Molly are examples, respectively). A character being skinny can help reinforce a character being either nastily evil or pitifully unhealthy (Voldemort and Sirius respectively). It goes both ways.
- This troper doesn't take Rowling's defense of the overweight sincerely, considering the overweight characters in her book are rarely if ever potrayed in a positive light.
Ambious: Regarding Mellie from Dollhouse, This Troper was actually initially drawn to that character for this exact reason - that she was real, and extremely beautiful. REAL beautiful, not Hollywood 'doll', if you forgive this extremely unclever pun.
