shortlimbs:

thisisthinprivilege: Thin privilege is the fact that a thin person I know auditioned for, and accepted the role of Tracy in Hairspray, knowing she would be wearing a fat suit. Why she even auditioned for that role in the first place is beyond me. Also, did they really have to cast a thin… So, I have actually played Tracy Turnblad and worn a fat suit for the production. There are several things I would like to say about this:



One—if she was genuinely the best singer/actress for the role, then she deserved to be Tracy. We give young people playing old characters fake wrinkles, so what’s so bad about giving thin people padding so they look overweight? Same concept. If there’s no person that fits the physical description of a character and has the talent necessary to play it, then we use theater magic to make the best candidate fit.



Two—This is not thin privilege. She did not get the role because she was thin. She got it because she was talented and wanted to play the part (which, btw, Tracy Turnblad is actually the most fun role I’ve ever played so I totally understand why anyone would want to do it. She has one liners that still make me giggle to myself two years later)



Three—The fact that you think it’s thin privilege shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what privilege means. It’s ok to be upset when someone thinks you are less deserving of something for the sole reason of being heavier than another, but it’s not ok to be upset because someone earned something in spite of having qualities that would naturally make them less likely to earn it. I know for a fact that if there were a heavy girl who’s auditioned as well as the skinny girl she would have gotten the part. Fat suits are impractical. They are expensive, they are time-consuming on so many levels, and worst of all they’re dangerous. If there was a girl that could have saved them the hassle of a fat suit by fitting the role in ways besides her size, they WOULD HAVE CAST HER I PROMISE. Four—Saying this girl didn’t deserve to be Tracy because she’s thin is absolutely comparable to saying that a heavy person doesn’t deserve to play a role like Eponine because she’s overweight, even though her audition was phenomenal. Sizeism goes both ways, darling.



This is upsetting because I think there are cases where thin privileges actually exist, and as a person who is overweight now, I know that there are a lot of limitations to what I can do because I’m not skinny. However, proposing witch hunts like this belittles the people fighting for equality for all sizes by making them seem unreasonable.



Please don’t hurt the cause, dude. Some people just want to play the fun role.

1. It is not okay to wear a fat suit to play a role intended for a fat girl

2. It is not okay to wear a fat suit for pretty much any reason, ever

3. Fat suits are repulsive and represent thin privilege by definition. It is not the same as dressing up in ‘old makeup’ when you’re doing a high school play, or putting a pillow under your costume when you play Santa Claus. We’ll all get old eventually, and Santa Claus isn’t fucking real. Fat suits are dehumanizing and erase fat people. If you can’t cast a fat person in the role of Tracy it’s time to pick another fucking play to do. “I promise you” that it’s not at all hard to switch plays if you can’t cast one. Yeah, you had to pay for the rights and it’s a bitch, but that doesn’t make it okay.

I was in a play of The King and I as a kid and they had the people playing the roles of the King’s harem wear yellowface. That was not fucking okay. Just because they could do it doesn’t mean they should. And just because they couldn’t “find enough” people of Southeast Asian descent to play those parts doesn’t mean they were justified in using yellowface. I’ve been in theater. “Talent” isn’t the only thing that gets you the role, not by far. Sometimes other considerations need to be made so you’re not being an bigoted jerk, for instance. The only reason it’s okay to wear a fat suit in today’s social climate is because fat people aren’t seen as fully-formed people in their own right, but broken/bad/ignorant thin people who gained weight (i.e., thin people in a psychological fat suit, as it were).

4. You did indeed take advantage of thin privilege, because fat suits are thin privilege (as explained above). Especially in a role specifically written for a fat person.

5. I don’t care if you’re Meryl fucking Streep, you do not get to wear a fat suit and then school us whiny fatties about how what you did is perfectly okay and we just don’t understand what the word 'privilege’ means.

6.

“Saying this girl didn’t deserve to be Tracy because she’s thin is absolutely comparable to saying that a heavy person doesn’t deserve to play a role like Eponine because she’s overweight, even though her audition was phenomenal. Sizeism goes both ways, darling.”

This has got to be the Holy Grail of Thinsplaining, right here. Eponine was written to be thin. Link:

“In adolescence Éponine becomes a ”pale, puny, meagre creature“, with a hoarse voice like "a drunken galley slave’s”, having been “roughened by brandy and by liquors”. She wears dirty and tattered clothing, consisting solely of a chemise and a skirt. She is missing a few teeth, is barefoot, has tangled hair, bony shoulders, heavy brooding drooping eyes, and a prematurely-aged face with only a trace of beauty lingering. She had “the form of an unripe young girl and the look of a corrupted old woman; fifty years joined with fifteen; one of those beings who are both feeble and horrible at once, and who make those shudder whom they do not make weep.”

In short, after your post I feel compelled (as the Internet Emperor) to crown you the Queen of Ignorant Thinsplaining.

Congratulations, Your Eminence.

-ArteToLife

(via shortlimbs)