Harris Drover should be plus-size.
Disclaimers: I LOVE Justice Smith. I want to see him in more projects, and he will do a great job as Harris in the show. I am a white, fat woman who is upset because we have once again been shown how fatphobic the movie industry is.
Because yes - Harris Drover should be bigger, and I'm so tired of everyone trying to justify this not realizing just how ingrained fatphobia is in our society.
Claiming that you "didn't read Harris as fat" in the books, when he's constantly described as stocky, with a pudgy belly and NOT LOOKING LIKE THE TEAM, is just you being fatphobic. The argument that Harris is "just an average guy" could fit if Justice wasn't a lanky, thin man. If stocky means broad - Justice is not that either. We are justifying the casting of a thin man by trying to minimize what descriptions mean.
I don't want to trust Jacob's vision if it never contained a bigger actor. I don't care if it's great chemistry - because if Charlie can't have that with a bigger actor, then we change him too. It speaks more to the fatphobia and how deep it's rooted that these things are even the argument.
You can change haircolors. You can change height. Hell, I would even be fine if Harris HAD been an average, broad shouldered guy. But this is the other end of the spectrum.
I get that casting Harris as a black man adds another layer of respresentation. I'm happy that Harris is black, I'm glad to see Justice in this show. But exchanging minorities doesn't make it better.
(No - I'm not equating the discrimination and issues black people have with being fat. I'm talking exclusively about the bingo card movie makers have that simply state all possible minorities and boil each of them down to stereotypes in shows/movies etc)
We are taught from a very young age that fatness and beconing fat is the biggest sin, and the thing we should all steive to avoid. Discussions about food or nutrition are very rarely just that - it will all eventually boil down to fat loss. I can't even search for yoga for fat bodies without being told thatI should do yoga for fat loss. It's so ingrained in us to lose weight, that we cannot be loved if we are fat, and that we need to change before we can be loved.
This was our chance to get a little bit less that. And, in the current state of ozempic riddled celebrities, we deserve a fat character on screen.
It was never a fat or black. It should have been a fat AND black.
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