Big Success

John Travolta and Nikki Blonski in Hairspray

As the movie Hairspray looks set to turn curvaceous newcomer Nikki Blonsky into a star, Vera Brozzoni ponders on the new girls joining the ever-expanding debate on weight, women and beauty.

Fancy seeing John Travolta in a gigantic fat suit? Fancy seeing a “pleasantly plump” girl steal the heart of the local Don Juan and win a dance contest? Then Hairspray is the film for you.

Tracy Turnblad is an over-over-overweight teenager in 1962 Baltimore who struggles against prejudice using optimism and positive karma as a weapon.
But “lookism” is not the only injustice she meets on her path: when her best friend Penny starts a relationship with a black guy, the bigot society she lives in bares its teeth. But the happy ending just waits around the corner.
Director Adam Shankman, with not so honourable credits like Cheaper By The Dozen 2 and The Pacifier, has created a nice comedy crammed with irresistible musical numbers.

The film, a remake of the 1988 version by John Waters (that later inspired a Broadway musical on which the new Hairspray is based), is not edgy and joyfully subversive as the original; yet it is being released with a specific timing: summertime - that is to say, bikini time.
Summertime, and the livin’ is not always easy, especially for plus-sized lasses.
The media burst forth a plethora of beautiful skinny celebs lying flirtateously on a beach  – not that in wintertime these ladies are demure and modest, but at least they are not revealing the perfection of (almost) every square inch of their body.
An injection of self-esteem is then needed –what’s better than a decidedly overweight, likable heroine in whom the audience can easily identify with?

Even better, the heroine wins right down the line and tells her enemies, played on screen by standard beauties like Brittany Snow and Michelle Pfeiffer, where to get off.  

But Tracy Turnblad is not the only all-round figure that can earn the status of icon in a size zero dominated culture: think of rock band Gossip vocalist Beth Ditto, by far more famous for her size (she is 5 foot tall and weighs 15 stone) and for her outspoken lesbianism than for her music.
Ditto was photographed nude on the cover of the NME in May stirring a debate where opinion ranged from “disgusting” to “hottest”.

Whether Ditto was trying to achieve mere self exposure or to truly challenge the common sense of female beauty, big girls now know that they have their stalwart.
Now, is this good or not?
A few years ago, Liv Tyler and Kate Winslet filled the pages of magazines with their weight problems, and no matter what size they were, both actresses were universally considered beautiful, sexy, feminine.
Tellingly, Winslet had been chosen for the role of Rose DeWitt in Titanic so that the plump girls in the audience could feel “justified” in dreaming about  Leo DiCaprio – who notoriously dated supermodels Amber Valletta and Gisele Bundchen!

Yet, this case is different: both Nikki Blonski  and Beth Ditto are not just round, fleshy and soft: they are obese.
And obesity is widely known to be the fruit of unhealthy choices. Is it good or not to promote the image of a wining, successful woman whose diet exposes her to health conditions?

Especially when health organizations warn that people are getting fatter and fatter due to consumerism and poor food education. Or maybe this is just the first step that the media have to make, in order to change the standardized idea of female beauty.
But is “fat pride” the right answer to “size zero pride”?


 

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