There were two pinnacle scenes in the first season of This Is Us: the close-up shot of Milo Ventimiglia’s butt—which broke the Internet for obvious reasons—and the moment where Kate Pearson, played brilliantly by Chrissy Metz, stepped on the scale and weighed herself, completely naked.
It’s a scene that touched millions of viewers for its vulnerability and authenticity. Kate even took her earrings off to ensure she was as light as possible on the scale, a neurotic ritual many people who’ve struggled with weight know too well (including myself—I remove my glasses). What transpired for the rest of the season was a weight-loss journey so brutally honest and relatable that it brought tears to my eyes on several occasions. Kate’s anxiety about flying, her apprehension about walking up long flights of stairs, her fear of strangers mocking her at parties: These are all emotions familiar to most plus-size people. Emotions that had never been explored on television—not with this level of empathy, at least.
Because up until this point plus-size people on TV weren’t people: They were two-dimensional caricatures designed for cheap laughs and ridicule. The Fat Best Friend was allowed to exist, sure, but she wasn’t given a love interest or any real personality. Oh, and her weight had to be referenced—usually in some kind of mean, wisecracking way—to imply bigger people deserve to be demeaned and humiliated.
That was the (awful) message pop-culture sent for years, but then This Is Us came along and presented a woman whose body and weight issues weren’t the butt of some joke. They were handled with sensitivity and kindness and decency. It sounds cheesy, but Kate’s storyline on the show truly was groundbreaking.
But it’s also only the jumping-off point. 2017 was all about representation in entertainment: queer representation, people of color representation, female representation, and, yes, plus-size representation. Granted, the majority of TV shows and movies are still about white, straight men, but we’ve certainly made progress. To keep moving forward, though, representation has to become normalization: having lots of different characters exist harmoniously without the things that make them different being, well, “things.”
Our culture, at this point, is still programmed to view plus-size people as “other.”
On This Is Us, Kate’s weight is still very much a “thing.” It’s understandable why. Our culture, at this point, is still programmed to view plus-size people as “other.” If Kate’s storyline didn’t mention her weight, fans would’ve talked about it, probably cruelly, and asked why the show wasn’t addressing it. Instead, we saw a three-dimensional character like Kate that addressed her body image issues head on.
And tackling Kate’s weight directly, oddly enough, caused viewers not to think about it so much. After a full season of the show, they’ve fallen completely in love with Kate and are now just invested in her story—wherever it goes. Weight-related or not. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Maybe This Is Us needed to acknowledge the thing that made Kate “other” and talk about it so much that it was no longer “other.” Addressing Kate’s weight directly, but empathetically, destroyed certain expectations and biases toward larger-bodied characters on screen. It humanized her. It normalized her. Now, she’s simply a character existing in the world. But it’s frustrating people wouldn’t have accepted that from the start.
Going forward, though, larger-bodied characters shouldn’t have to obsess about their weight or hate their bodies to be understood. Their mere presence on a show shouldn’t be heralded as “groundbreaking,” “important,” or “inspiring.” Those words suggest it isn’t normal to have them. It still “others,” just on the opposite side of the spectrum, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid. We needed this language before This Is Us—and Kate did move the dial forward in many ways—but we shouldn’t need it anymore.
Take, for example, Will & Grace. When the show debuted in 1998, gay characters in pop-culture were still rare and often written as stereotypes. Will Truman and Jack McFarland were two of the first ones on TV who didn’t have some kind of inner turmoil about their sexualities. They were two successful, hilarious guys who happened to be gay. It was pioneering. It needed to be called out and celebrated, so we did—but now gay men are much more a part of pop culture’s fabric. Look at Kevin Keller on Riverdale for a recent example; his sexuality isn’t explicitly mentioned on the show, and he doesn’t struggle with it. He’s just gay.
True “representation,” if we still want to call it that, will happen when we stop talking about it—and just start seeing it.
It took years for Hollywood to be comfortable with that—years of gay characters struggling with HIV/AIDS, coming out, bullying, and essentially every other stereotypical narrative. Gayness—like weight on This Is Us—had to be explicitly mentioned over and over in a humanizing way for mainstream audiences to not see it as different. Just like Sophia Burset’s transgender backstory was necessary in the first season of Orange Is the New Black but has slowly became less discussed as the show continued. Hopefully, we’ll soon reach a place where trans actors can tell trans stories that aren’t only about transitioning.
Of course, there can still be gay characters who come out and plus-size characters who struggle with weight, but these narratives don’t need to be the first points of entry. It’s important not to erase characters’ backgrounds, hardships, and identities; everyone’s lived experiences are nuanced and different, and that should be reflected in the entertainment we watch.
But queer characters, Black characters, Latina characters, plus-size characters, and anyone else who has been othered shouldn’t have to be written as archetypes in order for America to get on board. They deserve the full spectrum of human emotion. Yes, sometimes that’s dealing with very real issues like racism, size-ism, and homophobia; those shouldn’t be ignored because they still exist. Other times, however, the biggest problem of the day is letting someone on Tinder know you’re not interested. We rarely see plus-size characters deal with conflicts like that without some kind of stereotypical subplot attached—but it’s about time we did because that’s how the world works…and looks. Authentic stories about all sorts of people should be expected now—and not lauded as something revolutionary.
True “representation,” if we still want to call it that, will happen when we stop talking about it—and just start seeing it.
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