Weight Watching Part 2: Dream, Girls
Tracy Turnblad, this is for YOU!
Welcome to part 2 of my 2-part series on Depictions Of Fatness I Find Notable And Interesting. Last week, I compared Parks and Recreation to Brooklyn 99. As I wrote at the beginning of that newsletter:
Body positivity, fat activism and plus-size representation are interests of mine. However, they are not my areas of expertise. I do not and have never experienced anti-fat bias, nor studied it seriously. If you find frank discussion of this topic uncomfortable, go ahead and skip. If you think I’m not qualified to weigh in, tell me off in the comments. But don’t say I didn’t warn you or own up to the fact that this is all just my opinion, man.
This week, a less analytical, perhaps more passionate musing about heroines of stage and screen.
This is America, babe. You gotta think big to be big.
We need more movies about fat women having a good time and not being depressed about their bodies. This is not up for debate. Melissa McCarthy is just one person, she can only take us so far. Luckily, there is one zaftig heroine so charming, so confident, so sweet and so bold that she has stood the test of time to become one of the greatest characters in all of Western storytelling. A gal whose stand against prejudice has inspired generations, a figure so iconic you can recognize her from a mile away, whether she’s portrayed in film, on stage, in another film, or on stage for TV. I am referring, of course, to Tracy Turnblad.
Tracy Turnblad, the chunky and spunky teen at the heart of Hairspray, is one of the best protagonists of all time. Argue with the wall.
I first encountered Hairspray on stage, when the musical’s National Touring Company visited San Francisco circa 2003. I didn’t know anything about the show going in, but I was obsessed with the poster. I was a know-it-all even then, and I’d internalized the beats of your typical teen fare enough that, after maybe ten minutes, I was sure I knew where the story was going.
It had been established that Tracy wanted to be a dancer on TV, and that she wanted dreamy crooner Link to be her boyfriend, but Link was with a hot blonde and didn’t seem to know Tracy existed. As I sat in the dark looking up at the actors, I thought to myself, “oh, great. He’s gonna reject her and she’ll learn something.” Maybe Tracy would end up with someone less hot but more nice, or discover that dance and the love of her family were fulfilling enough. In any case, she would stop chasing a superficial ideal and I’d have to suffer through the uncomfortable scene of the dreamboat kicking the quirky girl to the curb.
Spoilers ahead.
Imagine my delight, then, when Tracy got the guy. He’s into her, and not after having some sort of Shallow Hal come-to-Jesus get over yourself moment. He sees her dance and gets to know her a little and he’s just down. Tracy never learns to love herself because from the opening note of “Good Morning Baltimore,” she already does. She doesn’t want a diet, she wants a flashy dress to show off her curves, and a matching one for her mom, too.
Just like she doesn’t try to change herself to fit society’s standards, she doesn’t seem all that interested in changing society’s standards to fit her. If the mean girls don’t like the size of her hips or her hair, who cares? Tracy wastes zero time campaigning for Curvy Girl Inclusion because she’s lit’rally so unbothered. As long as she gets to dance, she’s no second-class citizen, and certainly no victim.
Anyway, she has a more pressing prejudice to address: racism. This is the 60s, we gotta do Civil Rights! Tracy’s pro-integration from the get-go, but it’s not until she gets sent to detention (or remedial classes, in the Waters movie) that she actually makes any Black friends. Obviously, they teach her how to dance better. She doesn’t question them when they tell her they’ve been mistreated, visits their hang on the “wrong” side of town, and enthusiastically helps them protest the local TV station, putting her job at risk without a second thought. When Link doesn’t want to protest because of his career, she drops him like a hot potato (don’t worry, he comes around).
This is all before intermission.
Tracy is a true ally, using her platform to advocate for a marginalized group she’s not even part of, and truly not a white savior. The Black characters are fully realized, given dimension and plenty of stage time. Seaweed sings about how much he loves being Black, Motormouth Maybelle sings about how much she loves being fat, and she gets the most heart-stirring song of the production. If you doubt how rare this is, consider that it almost didn’t happen:
On the song “I Know Where I’ve Been” (about the long road to equality, sung by Motormouth Maybelle), composer Marc Shaiman said:
This was ... inspired by a scene late in the [1988] movie that takes place on the black side of town. It never dawned on us that a torrent of protest would follow us from almost everyone involved with the show. "It's too sad. ... It's too preachy. ... It doesn't belong. ... Tracy should sing the eleven o'clock number." We simply didn't want our show to be yet another showbiz version of a civil rights story where the black characters are just background. And what could be more Tracy Turnblad-like than to give the "eleven o'clock number" to the black family at the heart of the struggle? Luckily ... the audiences embraced this moment, which enriches the happy ending to follow, and it is our proudest achievement of the entire experience of writing Hairspray.[7]
When I tell ya I love this show!
In the Waters film and in every other iteration, Tracy offers a simple but powerful message: if you see something unfair, say something, do something. Also, dance.
So, why am I spending your precious free reading time summarizing a plot that’s old enough to run for president? A few reasons…
The key to writing good characters for fat people is to write good characters, and you can make money with stories about a fat girl if she’s a good character, and she can even be the romantic lead and people will accept it, if you write it good. Few know this, but it is true.
While the musical is no longer on Broadway, it’s still a popular choice for regional theaters and, high schools and colleges. It’s easy to see why: it’s warm-hearted, has a bunch of fun numbers, a bunch of fun parts, and doesn’t require any ritzy pyrotechnics or even a cast that can tap. If your company can stage Grease, it can stage Hairspray. And that’s kinda amazing. How many pre-teen, teenage and collegiate girls get their one and only shot at a leading role because her school decides to do Hairspray instead of Oklahoma? Crow all you want about progressive casting, but you don’t see too many American productions of The Little Mermaid with a big girl in the shell bikini. Or in the flying contraption in Peter Pan. Or wasting away from consumption in Les Mis. I’m not trying to be arch; theater was designed with slim lead actresses in mind, and any opportunity to break that pattern should be celebrated. And more importantly, produced. And produced. And produced.
And she’s…not the only one! Edna Turnblad and Motormouth Maybelle are all, canonically, large. That never happens. There’s room for maybe one bigger woman as Golde, Tevye’s wife, in Fiddler on the Roof, but all the daughters are cast small. There’s, again, one role for plus-sized actress in Dreamgirls. Sure, Queen Latifah was in the movie of Chicago. But on the other hand, when Fredi Walker was too old to reprise her role for the film of Rent, they didn’t cast someone else her size.
We can demand more progress and, frankly, celebrate less. By which I mean, this show is old! Based on a movie that is old! So when the next show comes along that fucks up a weight-related narrative, don’t buy the excuse that it’s just too tricky and dicey and sensitive to get right. Hairspray did it decades ago! And by the same token, you don’t need to spend your hard-earned cash on a crap play because the casting director oh so courageously let a curvy girl play the third lead or whatever, and representation yada yada yada. That shit doesn’t count in a post-Hairspray world. You get no kudos for doing the minimum when the Turnblads are out here doing the most.
If a girl isn't pretty like a Miss Atlantic City…
All she gets from life is pity and a pat
Kindly name a star who hasn't won a contest or a pageant
If she hasn't, she just never gets to batShe must shine in every detail
Like a ring you buy in retail
Be a standard size that fits a standard dressWhen a girl's incidentals
Are no bigger than two lentils
Then to me, it doesn't spell success
The Hairspray of it all is something that came to mind in September, when Lea Michele replaced Beanie Feldstein in Funny Girl.
The party line is that Feldstein just didn’t have the voice. Funny Girl is an awkward show that leans heavily on the undeniable star power of its Fanny, and Beanie, while charming and talented (I saw her in Hello, Dolly! and she was great!), lacked the lungs.
There had been interest in a revival for a while, and Beanie was one of the few young stars with Broadway credits and name recognition, and she’s Jewish, and literally a funny girl…on paper, it all looked fine, but the thing about theater is either you have it or you don’t. And Beanie didn’t.
Critics also cited a lack of chemistry with co-star Ramin Karimloo, and here we get to the thing no one wanted to talk about, and maybe I’m the only person thinking it, but here’s my theory of the final nail in her ticket sales coffin: Beanie doesn’t look the way we want Fanny to look.
We want her, first of all, to look like Barbra Streisand. Streisand’s most famous feature is of course her nose, which was helpful for her turn in Funny Girl, because the lyrics literally call out what Fanny is supposed to look like: “who’s an American beauty rose? With an American beauty nose?” she sings in “I’m the Greatest Star.” In real life, Fanny did have a big nose, and that song is the moment when she embraces her “flaw.”
Her only flaw.
She’s not supposed to be “different” in any other way. She’s supposed to be big-nosed pretty, big-nosed regular. Not big.
To be clear, Beanie Feldstein is beautiful. But she’s beautiful in exactly the opposite way Fanny Brice was. She’s busty and apple-cheeked and has a very cute, actually very small nose. Because of her shortness and her shape, she reads young. Yes, I understand why people didn’t buy her as the beleaguered longtime wife of this guy:
So it didn’t work, and Lea Michele (who is skinny and has a big nose and can sing like nobody’s business) was brought in, to rave reviews and sold-out houses. And, not coincidentally, a different costume that was tighter and more revealing. I won’t go into Michele’s qualifications for the role, or her allegedly iffy past behavior (let’s just say her take on race relations was very un-Tracy-like). I will say, good for ballyhooed understudy Julie Benko!
But I will also say, why the fuck didn’t someone slap a wig on Beanie Feldstein and put her in motherfucking Hairspray? Maybe she wouldn’t have been as psyched about it; Funny Girl made Barbra but Hairspray didn’t exactly make Marissa Jaret Winokur (though she did get a Tony). And I realize I’m just going “we should typecast!” But like, maybe we should? Stop pretending we don’t have certain expectations for certain characters? Start giving Tracy her due as an iconic character? Listen, I’d love to see a plus-size Fanny in a bold and thoughtful production, but throwing Beanie into the role without taking her voice, her persona or her looks into consideration is a step backward, not a high-minded gesture of inclusivity.
And then my brain broke…
So many times. So many times I tried to end this essay. So many ways, so many conclusions. I even published last week’s to force myself to finish this one. But I couldn’t figure it out! I had a whole thing drawing a line from Renee Zellwegger in Bridget Jones to Brendan Fraser in The Whale to Hayley Atwell to Sarah Paulson to Christian Bale to Nicola Coughlan, but since no two actors or roles are exactly alike, I was unable to find a Grand Unified Theory To Fix Casting. Shocking, I know! Things have gotten a bit more complicated in this ol head of mine since I sat watching Tracy and Link fall in love in ‘03.
I asked myself, what would Tracy Turnblad do? She would say there’s room for everyone. Not to judge a book based on its cover. And she’d celebrate all body types, perhaps rather than making them a site of…negativity.
Reader, I TRIED. But I don’t have anything to add beyond “make Tracy Turnblad an iconic role in American Theatrer.”
So I’m going with that.
Bestfully,
Lizzie
PS: recent writing!
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