size and representation in Shrek
phoetiquette asked: What about Fiona from Shrek? I know she isn’t a Disney character, but does she partially fit the bill of a fat princess, or does she not count b/c she starts off thin, or because her fatness is part of being an “ugly” ogre, etc? ——————————————————
I’m not sure what the “what about” refers to- main, fat leads? To be clear, I don’t deny that it’s possible to scour the last 4-5 decades of children’s media and find a handful of fat leads, but their limited presence does not negate the fact that fat people are vastly under and misrepresented in media. No matter how positive of a representation Fiona is, it doesn’t even matter because she is one character in a sea of characters that are otherwise generally a fairly uniform (small) size.
As far as Fiona goes, I’m of several minds. At least this franchise has sequels that were nearly as popular as the original so it’s less of a “no one sees it tack on”, but in the first movie, yeah, I don’t think it counts much because she spends 95% of the movie looking like a generic pretty princess.
My second “meh” feeling about her and characters like her is that I find the messages in those movies to often not go much beyond a surface-level feel-good. The movie does not teach us that all sizes are beautiful; it teaches us that Shrek is considered ugly by everyone, and Fiona is considered ugly by everyone, yet in spite of their ugliness they love each other because love (and happiness) isn’t about appearance.
The message is never really, “You can be fat and beautiful” even though we end up sort of interpretting it that way, as do the characters at times, but I think there’s a difference. I get really tired of fat characters always being props for the “beauty on the inside” messages because isn’t that what society is always telling fat people 99% of the time to begin with, that they’re only beautiful on the inside, that for someone to love them they need to show personality because their looks are never going to cut it, that only the magical transformative powers of love will make someone think their body is wonderful?
What I would really like is a character that is not treated, or feels, like they are ugly just because they are fat. Someone who does not need some magic fairy or trickery in order for someone to fall in love with them “despite” their fatness. Fat and beautiful- on the outside. If that makes sense
~originally a reply, reposted by request~
And let’s not forget that when Fiona turns “ugly” her facial features become more like the ones from a black womyn, wider nose, thicker lips…
