What’s the skinny about Hollywood’s fixation with tiny stars?
Research shows plus-size leading women are often overlooked for main acting awards while fashion designers favour size four celebs for red carpet gowns
My body size is normal and healthy but when you put me next to a model, I look obese
HANDS up who can name a single winner from the Emmy awards this month?
Thought so. What sticks in the mind is not who lifted the gongs but who won the red carpet.
Nicole Kidman in fluttering scarlet, Reese Witherspoon who had forgotten to put on her skirt and 79-year-old Jane Fonda with a back-length ponytail and electric pink gown.
These are important images, flashed around the world then pored over for fashion tips and style inspiration. And what do all these women in their exquisite outfits have in common? They are all tiny.
One size 10 actress, Rachel Bloom, had to buy her own Gucci gown for the big night. By not being a tiny “sample size”, the star and creator of Crazy Ex Girlfriend ruled herself out of borrowing finery from big labels who only want their clothes worn by size four and six women.
She said: “That’s the whole problem with the fashion industry. My body size is literally normal and healthy but when you put me next to a model, I look obese.”
At least Bloom was invited to the Emmys. Plus-size fashion website Navabi looked back at five years of TV and film awards – and discovered that women who were size 16 or bigger received just 10 per cent of nominations.
The average UK woman is a size 16 and one in four women is a size 18.
The picture improved, slightly, when they added in size 14 – the second most common size of women’s clothes in the UK.
At the Bafta TV awards, 22 per cent of women nominated were size 14 or bigger, including Miranda Hart and Sarah Lancashire.
And what were these non-skinny women nominated for? Comedies and supporting roles. Since 2013, one in 10 comedy nominations are plus-size women, such as Amy Schumer and Melissa McCarthy, compared to just seven per cent in dramas.
At the Oscars, eight per cent of leading women nominations were a size 16 or above. In lesser roles, it was 20 per cent. No plus-sized leading lady has won an Oscar in the
last five years. Patricia Arquette, a size 16, won for her supporting role in in 2015’s Boyhood, which also brought her a Bafta and a Golden Globe.
Bethany Rutter, Navabi’s social media manager, is a plus-sized blogger and model. She thinks the lack of average-sized bodies on the red carpet is a symptom of a wider problem within the entertainment industry.
“It’s not just that these ceremonies don’t want to reward the work of plus-size or even average-size women,” she explained. “It’s that they don’t get that work in the first place.
“I can easily watch 10 TV programmes and not see a single plus-size woman or even an average-size woman.”
And if, in the 11th show, there is a body that Bethany recognises, it’s quite possibly there as light relief.
She said: “In comedy, we’re not necessarily expected to believe that anybody plus-sized has a rich interior life, or a romantic story line.
“We are viewed as faintly ridiculous, or that our bodies are inherently comedic. That’s why we are over-represented in comedy.
“That’s not to say these plus-size actresses in comedy are not extremely talented. It’s just that they are allowed to be in those roles in a way that more serious actresses are not allowed.”
If a bigger woman does make it on to the red carpet, she faces a tough time finding a suitable dress. When Ghostbusters star Lesley Jones needed something to wear for the premiere, she asked the usual suspects. No one wanted to provide a frock for a 6ft goddess with boobs and a bum.
Christian Siriano stepped forward and made her an epic gown. Jones returned the favour at his recent fashion show, sitting in the front row as models of all different sizes and ethnicities walked down the runway.
Bethany said: “It feels like people, like Rachel Bloom and Lesley Jones, are speaking more about being rejected by designers and how hard it is to be dressed for things.
“But I don’t feel it’s impacted on designers, apart from Christian Siriano who’s always been very good. He’s the only one that can be relied on to save plus-sized celebrities in their hour of need. “Talking about it doesn’t change how the fashion or entertainment industry operates. These companies are just shameless and have got used to operating like this.” For Bethany, a good place for fashion houses to start would be making sample sizes bigger. “Putting larger models in their shows is only helpful if it’s the start of a change rather than a token gesture. She said: “Using plus-sized models can feel like a boxticking exercise – we’ve done our diversity for the year by having some size 16 models on the catwalk. “A good starting point for designers would be to change the way they work with samples.
“That’s often cited as the reason they can’t dress people – we don’t have the dresses in anything other than sample sizes.
“They are the ones who can change that. It’s a reason. It’s not an excuse.”
Bethany thinks this revolving parade of very thin women in extremely expensive dresses is bad news.
She said: “It reminds us that our face doesn’t fit, that this is not a world for us.
“It reinforces that we are systematically excluded from fashion. The bigger you get, the less you have access to.
“The plus-sized women I know are an interesting, intelligent diverse group of people with rich inner lives and human relationships, romance and yet the characters we see on TV or in films are just a trope to show ridiculous or disgusting or stupid fat women are.
“There’s no reason why the smart, thoughtful women with dramatic romances who are always played by thin women could not be played by fat women. It’s just that they never are.”