Needs Help: Hollywood Thin

There needs to be more to this page, than tropers pointing out thin actress.

I suppose it tries to say something like "skinniness directly associated with being healthy and wholesome, and being a requisite to being attractive". But yes, it mostly reads as a laundry list of slender actresses.

It's a Useful Note, or a casting trope.

There is a narrative trope here, the concept that Beauty Equals Thinness, or maybe Thinness Equals Goodness (maybe as a sub-trope of Beauty Equals Goodness) but that would require a rename. In either case the article would need a rewrite outlining the positive associations our culture makes with thinness, and the way that in order to be considered truly beautiful by mainstream standards a woman must also be thin, and therefore the way that beautiful and good people in narratives are generally portrayed as thin, and especially that female characters who are presented as beautiful are generally presented as being thin. The Thinness Equals Goodness trope also covers the negative assumptions that get made about people who aren't thin - that they're lazy, unhealthy, greedy - as well as the positive assumptions made about thin people - that they're healthy, motivated and "good". It's common in narratives to see fat people portrayed with the above negative stereotypes, common enough that when they're portrayed positively it makes a fairly noticeable exception.

Should we start by cleaning out all the examples that don't refer to thinness? Those ones about overly muscular guys or about generally attractive people?

Depends, I think, on whether a consensus is reached whether the actual trope being referenced here - the one that 'Hollywood Thin' plays to - is 'Beauty Equals Thinness' or 'Thinness Equals Goodness' or, I guess more specifically 'Female Beauty Equals Thinness' (which cuts out the examples of men being chiselled and muscley, etc).

edited 7th Sep '11 4:28:31 PM by raisingirl83

What you're describing sounds like a trope all right, but the article already describes a very different trope: the tendency of live-action works to present underweight women as beautiful and healthy. Should this exist?

This is Not A Trope. It's a stealth rant. Cut it.

Oh wow, those male examples have no business being here. Number one, muscled does not equal thin in any way - the description even says that non-beefcake guys are seen as scrawny and weak, i.e. thin guys. Second, men in media are allowed more variety of body-shapes for different roles while women are not, though this is a debatable and charged statement.

Cut the complaining and male examples, see if it can be salvaged and objective.

Even if we got rid of the complaining and the muscular men, we'd still be left with a page that's essentially a list of thin women. There's trope to be had about thinness being treated as beautiful but that's a storytelling trope which is far removed what from what this page is supposed to be.

There's nothing here to salvage.

edited 23rd Oct '11 5:27:51 AM by captainpat

alright crowner's hooked

Hold on. Is Hollywood Thin actually casting-speak? Like a phrase people making the casting decisions actually use.

edited 23rd Oct '11 6:10:05 AM by captainpat

The phrase is out there. People uses it here. Some other mentions here. here, here and here.

But that doesn't seem like industry cast speak. Least something people on the production side would use.

Yeah, maybe not. I only heard it was on some discussion here.

Yea, well tropers have a bad habit of assuming things about the production side of works. If this phrase does get use a lot in magazines or tabloids then there may be a case for that.

The tabloids aren't as official as the industry itself, but they reflect the accepted norms - if they didn't, they wouldn't sell umpteen copies a day. Tabloids are very persuasive to a certain demographic and how these celebrities are perceived.

I don't think there needs to be examples but this is a phenomenon, namely that very thin and narrow (female) characters are not only healthy and desirable but much more common than in real life. The hypocrasy here is that with rising overweight/obesity rates in North America, the beauty industry/film industry is still hell-bent on using thinner and thinner models and passing them off as normal and non-Photoshopped.

I think we can define the phenomenon term without turning it into too much of a rant. (Why is it hypocritical for Hollywood to push thinness when obesity rates are rising?)

edited 26th Oct '11 10:29:15 AM by Routerie

Why is obesity even pertinent when discussing weight obsession and undereating?

Eh, ok, hypocrisy is probably the wrong word. It's in bad faith anyway, but I can withdraw some of that as not being especially pertinent.

edited 26th Oct '11 10:20:55 AM by Gillespie

Why should we have an article on this? It's not a trope of any kind. Just a criticism of Hollywood's thinness standards. Not exactly unwarranted, but still just a criticism. We won't be missing anything by not having an article about this.

edited 26th Oct '11 10:21:58 AM by Insignificant

This does read an awful lot like Cookie Cutter Cuties

Five days, 2:1 ratio in favor of cutting. Calling this.

Let's remove the wicks, then we can cut it.

edited 28th Oct '11 7:09:47 PM by MetaFour

Ick, sad this will be gone. At least it can be a casting page...and isnt Hollywood Pudgy The Same Yet Fatter? But it has a lot of support (compared to this page) to involve actually cutting that page? Leaves a bad taste in my mouth...

edited 28th Oct '11 8:03:05 PM by MegaJ

Removed the examples. Or about half anyway since someone, probably Camacan, already got them.

Wicks cleared.