Body-Shaming in “Woke” Shows Like Bridgerton and Brooklyn 99

I have believed I was fat my whole life, even when I wasn’t. In fourth grade, when I really began becoming aware of female beauty standards…When I was in middle school and thought that the reason boys weren’t asking me out was because of my body…When I was in high school and my father told me that if I didn’t lose weight, no man would ever love me.

Unfortunately, those are similar to experiences many young women, and certainly many young men, have. And it is not ok.

So this topic is definitely close to my heart. Being happy with your body takes constant upkeep; being happy with yourself is a battle we all fight every day. In a lot of ways, though I am heavier now than I ever was in high school, I am significantly more comfortable in my own skin. In some ways that also isn’t true. I definitely cringe every time I have a double chin in pictures. And yet, I know plenty of people who have, by a specific set of standards, “better” bodies than me that have to fight harder against feelings of pressure and inadequacy. That’s because it actually has nothing to do with what we look like, and everything to do with what we are told about ourselves…and what we tell ourselves.

I could talk a lot about loving yourself, about how your worth is not how closely you resemble a narrow and, often, unhealthy stereotype. And that is a fabulous message, one I believe in deeply. But the grievance I would like to put forth today is one with current media, and in particular, media that is supposed to be “woke.”

Shows like Brooklyn 99 and Bridgerton, which are hailed for diverse casts and considered the more “woke” shows of our time, still fat shame. Who decided that was ok?

In Brooklyn 99, the constant butt of the joke is overweight cop Norm Scully. Not only is he overweight, he is slovenly, stupid, bad at his job, and, at times, downright disgusting. Haven’t we seen that stereotype enough? It’s honestly beneath a show that has such powerfully written and well-rounded characters of diverse races and ethnicities, as well as sexualities. That doesn’t excuse them from this vice of reducing an overweight character to a slobby caricature. We are supposed to laugh easily at this foolish man who is always eating, as other characters that we are supposed to like and care about treat him like trash. His weight is not coincidental in that, either; his eating habits and his health are specific jokes a large portion of the time.

An even newer show that falls into this same trap, though perhaps less egregiously, is Bridgerton from Netflix. The major difference here is that we are supposed to roll our eyes at the people who are body-shaming Penelope, namely her mother and her sisters. I guess that’s a step up?

I like Penelope quite a bit. And I appreciate that there is at least a person with a frankly beautiful, though not traditionally Hollywood-style, body in the show. But is it too much to ask that, especially in a show set in a time period where women with a healthy — or even not perfectly healthy — amount of body fat were considered the beauty ideal, that I could have just one program that had a fat girl whose character wasn’t constantly shamed for being fat?

Absolutely weight and body shaming is an important conversation we should have. There are definitely shows tackling that, and doing it well (though, certainly not enough). But in a show that is a stylized and, in some ways idealized, version of the past, where the main couple talks about masturbation and the literal queen is an older black woman, can we not have some diversity of body type without having to call constant attention to it?

There are some shows that talk specifically about the discrimination and perspectives of minorities. Those are wonderful shows, and, again, there should be more of them, for any classification.

But honestly, I would like to see myself, my body type, represented on screen without it being the only thing many or most of the characters see about them. Oh, and, while we’re at it, I would like to see a romance with a fat person where their partner isn’t seeing “past” this part of them to their soul underneath, as if their weight is something to be overcome. Penelope falls into the exact same stereotype of the lovestruck chubby girl, who is seen as just a friend to the boy she likes while his attention is caught by a girl more suited to beauty standards. Again, haven’t we seen that enough?

Part of the problem is that there’s only one girl from this demographic. When there is only one person of color, one LGBT+ person, or fat person, they end up seeming like a representation of everyone in that demographic. If there were several people, Penelope wouldn’t be the only one to hang my hat on.

Our beauty standards aren’t etched in stone. What has been considered attractive changes dramatically across centuries and millennia. Still more, our bodies are not worth more or less based on how they fit into what is considered attractive at the moment. Can’t we all agree that this way of thinking is not only horribly outdated, but often sexist and deeply damaging.

I want to see more fat characters who don’t have another character referencing their weight every scene they’re in, who don’t have their weight informing every interaction.

True representation is not just having a fat person in the cast, and it’s certainly not “let’s give the fat guy a part so we can laugh at him.” At best, that’s tokenism, and at worst, it’s still discriminatory.

Obviously Brooklyn 99 and Bridgerton are not the only offenders, and I truly like and enjoy both of these shows. I think they are valuable shows with a lot of good things to offer. And there are plenty of shows, if not most, that simply ignore the existence of anyone beyond very specific body types. When they do show “curvy” women, it’s still a very specific body type that is in the current zeitgeist as more attractive, with curvy hips and butt, and a small waist. That’s a whole other, very related issue, but not one I am going into today.

Absolutely there are times and places where a character’s identity, whether that be sexuality, race, weight, religion, can be the centerpiece of a story. But there are times when all I would like is to have a character who looks like me be treated as just another human being in a TV show.