Needs clarification and a better description : Hollywood Pudgy

I don't understand, how is healthy weight "subjective"? Whether you find a healthy weight attractive is subjective, but whether someone is overweight, underweight, or their target weight is objective and provable.

It's not like doctors just make this up as they go.

Yeah, but the nature of this trope requires that we decide it just by looking at them. This is not a medically sound determinant.

It doesn't have to be a medically sound determinant, as long as it's a reasonable approximation. It's not like we're dispensing actual medical advice.

I feel like what you're saying is like saying Gentle Giant is subjective because we can't run genetic tests on a fictional character to determine whether they have a rare mutation which causes gigantism, or that we're not allowed to state that a character is (biologically) male "just by looking" and instead have to take a DNA sample to check their chromosomes and/or test the type of cells their reproductive organs have developed. Appearance is not a medically sound determinant of sex, after all.

edited 3rd Apr '11 8:32:53 PM by Atz

This trope is about a character who is of thin or of average build being treated or thinks of them self as being down right fat or overweight. The problem is what constitutes as an average build is going to vary from person to person.

The key phrase is average build, not a healthy one.

edited 4th Apr '11 8:11:28 AM by captainpat

bump

x5 They don't?

Nobody has any ideas?

Like I said early I'm in support of putting a subjective banner on this trope. It's pretty telling that the real life section is the largest section on this trope.

How about an specific character. Is this an example of Hollywood Pudgy [1]◊? She is insecure about her weight if that helps.

Who? the character she's playing or the actor?

edited 5th Jun '11 5:58:21 PM by captainpat

I don't know, that girl is clearly overweight. She's not obese, but she is over average. This trope is more about women who are pretty average, but Hollywood sees them as overweight. I think pretty much everyone would see her as overweight.

Hollywood isn't a Hive Mind so we can not definitively say what "Hollywood" wants or thinks. Also, I don't see why we would need a second opinion to classify this women as overweight, it's either she is or she isn't.

Like I said early ultimate different people are gonna have different perimeters of what "average weight" means. Whether this lady qualifies as "over average" will depend on personal definitions.

The character become a plus sized model so she is at least average and if the average american is overweight than she goes beyond what's normal or healthy. Does a character not qualify as an example if she goes beyond pudgy?

The whole point of Hollywood Pudgy is about the contrast between body image when the same body is seen by modeling business, tabloids and (maybe) Hollywood versus the world outside them. How this majorly manifests is the way how non-fat actresses (slim or a healthy average [and I don't mean "American average" here]) are cast for roles that are meant to be "pudgy". Another major way is how tabloid writers (and maybe readers too) seem to have glasses on that add 10-20 pounds on any woman in any photo, hence captions where average, slim or even thin female actors, TV celebs, singers etc. are accused of being "fat" or "pudgy" for various reasons.

It works about like this.

"tabloid vision off" vs "tabloid vision on"

• anorexic-type thin = thin, underweight, starved
• lanky, bony, thin = slender, average
• average, very trim = normal, average
• average, slim = pudgy, bit of fat
• average on the pudgy side, non-trimmed average = inexcusably fat
• pudgy, somewhat overweight = obese (rarely seen in female roles)
• overweight = very obese (doesn't exist in female roles)
• obese, very overweight = (sometimes seen in female gag roles)

edited 7th Jun '11 3:08:32 AM by peccantis

That seems like a clear cut case of Your Mileage May Vary. This trope can only exist if there is a contrast between what "hollywood", show business, tabloids, etc. thinks is fat and what the audience thinks is fat.

edited 7th Jun '11 5:16:01 AM by captainpat

Okay, so given that the trope is "characters that the story itself tells us are overweight are actually not" and not "characters who think themselves overweight even though nobody else really thinks so", there are clearly examples that don't belong.

Is there a trope where they do go, so that they can be pasted there?

"Characters who think themselves overweight even though nobody else really thinks so" sounds like People Sit On Chairs to me. Distorted body image happens in IRL and including it in a story is just another (realistic if minor) flaw in a character. Are we going to make a list of characters who are depressed? Or who have diabetes?

Then again, it would go beautifully with a few similar things some Suethors like to do with their Sues... goes like this.

• Sue: "Woe is me. My tiny mouth is ugly, and I have no friends. Besides I'm so fat."
• Love Interest: "Sue, I must kiss your charming little rosebud of a mouth."
• Sue's 87 friends: "Oh Sue, don't worry, we still love you."
• Love Interest: "How light you are in my arms, Sue, like a feather. Your frail, willowy body awakens my protective instinct."

edited 9th Jun '11 9:06:35 AM by peccantis

I don't think this is abaout distorted body image. If we compare it to Hollywood Homely than it should be about a character who is seen by us as more normal because she obviously hsd on a few more pounds than a runway model or movie star. Like this[1]◊ vs her friend [2]◊. A better picture for the page might be one of the Dove Girls.

edited 9th Jun '11 2:43:04 PM by atheywa

This is already a trope, though for the life of me I can't remember it's name. Check Lost And Found.

Again, that's an Audience Reactions

But Your Wings Are Beautiful?

edited 9th Jun '11 3:47:14 PM by captainpat

My interpretation of this trope was that it is when a character is described as being much fatter than she would be considered in real life. A pretty subjective trope, since it does rely on what we personally see as a fat.

For instance, Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, for an in-universe example. She is never fat or overweight...but the fashion industry perceives her average weight to be too fat for them.

However, it isn't generally used ironically. Generally, you see a girl being proclaimed fat or overweight when she's really just a pretty average weight. Perceptions of weight and appearance have changed, mainly due to films portraying very thin as the average.

So examples where the girl would actually be considered overweight by health standards aren't examples. There's no "Hollywood" about it.

So does anyone have any suggestions on how we re-work this page in a objective trope?

Someone who understands what the trope was meant to be (maybe the one who wrote it) should repair it with how it specifically relates to Hollywood Thin. It might be relevant that the average fashion model is about 5'10", 115 pounds, and a size 4 at most. The average American woman is a height of 5 feet and 4 inches. A normal weight for the average woman is no more than 145 pounds or she will medically be considered overweight. On average the American woman is 164 pounds, and a size 14.

But that's the kind of simplistic calculation that makes calculating a "healthy" weight such a thorny subject. For example, it doesn't take into account whether the person is naturally big, nor the fact that being muscular make you heavy (in fact, muscle is a lot heavier than fat). Someone who's more of an expert on this subject can explain this a lot better than I.

Besides that, how are we supposed to know how much an actor or actress weighs? If it's not written down somewhere, we can't make the call. This is something we're going to have to eyeball.

Well looking at the body is more efficient than looking at the weight. It's easy enough to tell by looking whether the 175 pounds on the 5 foot man are muscle or fat, or if the 5'10'' woman at 150 pounds is thinframed and somewhat overweight or heavyframed and slim.