Fat and the Academy Awards

I especially liked this: Fat people are subjected to particular scorn and discomfort, because they are often thought (usually mistakenly) to have gotten that way through self-indulgence. This is a particularly inapt view in Griffiths' case, because his obesity came about as a result of an ill-considered radiation treatment when he was 8 years old—for being too skinny, of all things. Griffiths told Joyce Wadler of the New York Times that within 12 months of the treatment, his body weight increased by 60 percent. But Oscars are also notoriously "political" awards and always have been. They are usually awarded based upon what someone is thought to be "due," rather than actual artistic merit. Not that I consider myself the arbiter of "artistic merit" by any means, but please, you can't tell me Jack Lemmon was better in Save the Tiger than Marlon Brando was in Last Tango in Paris, or even than Brando was better in The Godfather than he was a year later in Last Tango, the latter being the kind of once-in-a-lifetime revelatory performance that changed the very definition of "acting," rather than simply a fine piece of work. But there was no way in the world Brando was going to win for Last Tango after the stunt he pulled following his award for The Godfather (Google "Sacheen Littlefeather" if you don't know about it and want details). Conversely, this year I have to put all my money on Martin Scorsese and The Departed despite never having seen it, or even knowing a lot about it, simply because Scorsese is "due." Overdue, really. And there seems to be a lot more "industry momentum" favoring that point of view now than when he was last nominated two years ago.

How about Hattie McDaniel? Oh, yeah, supporting actress. Hmmm.

What about Kathy Bates in 1990?

Great article. Thanks for pointing it out. Awareness (outside of fat acceptance communities) seems to be growing, slowly but surely.

Sheana, Ms. Bates is singled out in the article as being "beefy" but not genuinely "fat."

It's so difficult to even have this conversation, given that Hollywood's definition of "fat" includes Kate Winslet, America Ferrera, etc! I'll go back and read the article again - I'm interested in whether there's any gender issue here? I mean, that a size considered to be "fat" for females isn't considered to be "fat" for males (in Hollywood)?

What about Phillip Seymour Hoffman last year? Dude's not a stick.

"Ms. Bates is singled out in the article as being "beefy" but not genuinely "fat." Beefy? Yum! Seriously, what is the difference between beefy and fat? Otherwise, I liked the article a lot. But what is this beefiness all about? Actually, the author further qualified Bates' size as "somewhat beefy". What's the significance of classifying bodies as meat? What's the difference, for example, between beefy and porky?

I don't know what the difference is between "beefy" and "porky" but the bias is clearly there. Heavy people are being compared to animals (and no, I have nothing against cows or bigs). Cows are thought of as big and stupid, pigs are thought of as dirty and gluttonous, and actually realy pigs are rather clever and they roll around in mug to stay cool because they can't sweat, I believe. I think about things too much, I guess. ;^)

While I'm glad to know that Kathy Bates and nominees like Queen Latifah, Forest Whitaker, John C. Reilly and the aforementioned P.S. Hoffman aren't "fat" in this writer's world, Hollywood certainly thinks so. It was good of him to toss in the mention of Jennifer Hudson (who has been slowly but surely melting, even from the first awards show to Sunday night's SAG ceremony where she won again) as a triple-threat of fat, black and ghettoized. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry at the broadness and insulting tenor of his claims. And what makes this article so iffy for me, I have to say, is that his labelling of Mr. Griffiths' non-nomination as a "snub" is based solely upon his own assertion that History Boys was one of the best films of the year, and Mr. Griffiths' performance equally noteworthy. But I spend some time -- okay, far more time than normal or appropriate -- paying attention to these things, and I've heard no Oscar talk, or any other awards talk, for the History Boys film or any of the performances within it, despite the success of the stage version. The entire film has been well outside of the radar of the Hollywood buzz machine, the studio did no awards campaign and it was put into only very limited release. I'm not really convinced that Mr. Griffiths' size is a contributing factor to his "snub" by AMPAS, I'd posit that it has far more to do with the invisibility of his film. The AMPAS members aren't going to nominate what they don't know.

I'm thinking along the same lines as JP, Hollywood it so screwed up as far as what they consider "fat," but I have been happy about all the attention Jennifer Hudson is getting. It's been awhile since I've even seen anything said about her weight, thank God! She's being recognized for her talent and her style. I hope they keep it up and I hope she doesn't show up next year at this time looking like a pencil!

Very late to this thread I know, but thought I'd add my own recent observations. Richard Griffiths' size is most definitely an issue, with the British media at least. Just the other morning (during the BBC's Oscars coverage) Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull made some smart comment about Griffiths not being able to fit through the door which had his co-anchor Kate Silverton in near-hysterics, and which (in the context of increasingly fat-phobic coverage of almost daily 'obesity panic' stories) has turned me right off this programme. So sad that a man's considerable acting talents must still take second stage to the size of his waist in this arse-about-face world. For the record, I thought both Griffiths and James Corden were fantastic in the screen version of The History Boys - I believe that both are trained stage actors, which probably had a lot to do with it.