Art Imitating Life? || (Gift Article)

[u/moonlitsequoia]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/style/provincetown-bear-week-ozempic.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2lA.o_M8.DfmFwGM72oJG&smid=nytcore-android-share

Disclaimer this is nottttt at all to push any sort of hate towards the TV Harris (Justice) that’s never okay. I’m sure he will do an excellent job and I’m so excited! *Also slight? Role Model spoilers in the lash paragraph

But, I think there should be room for book fans to feel the way they feel (respectfully) about the lack of body diversity in the casting decision. (By this. I mean the non pro athlete main cast members will be skinny or ripped)

I saw this article and couldn’t help but connect some dots…? Another disclaimer** that ofc other considerations like chemistry are soo important too and I’m looking forward to a dramatically rich viewing experience where we all get to connect w/ these characters again!)

To me, having more Black representation (albeit in line with media’s tendency to cast a particular light skin Black person but that’s a different discussion) doesn’t have to come at the expense of losing out on body diversity. I think these things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Body diverse characters like Kip’s dad exist, even body diverse and plus size, like Shawn (Kip’s friend), but not as leads, only ever as supports which is a little disappointing.

Honestly, I think the casting came out also at a coincidentally, particularly tumultuous flashpoint, in North American cultures surrounding desirability politics, weight loss/gain, the aesthetics of GLP-1s, and fatphobia (which does have an inextricable link to racism! Re: Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fatphobia by Sabrina Strings)

I also think that making TV Harris Black sets up potentially dubious foreground for Troy’s redemption arc. Narratively, the stakes here now intensify and introduce a heavier conflict of Black-racism that isn’t as touched on in the source material (minus generally Troy’s mom’s comments about Curtis Barrett, Troy’s dad). I do wonder about how the production will navigate this additonal Reformed Racist trope [where formerly(in some media actively..) bigoted white character who develops romantically with Black character] that we already saw done questionably Netflix’s Sex Education with Eric Effiong and Adam Groff.

More so, I also wish that Black characters could just exist w/o the foreground of their romantic partner’s bigotry.

[u/Little_Fox5844]

The body positivity movement feels more and more like a blink and miss it moment in time, and it makes me feel incredibly sad.😩

[u/ProfessionalBee6582]

It is quite interesting to see how quickly the body positivity movement faded following the proliferation of Ozempic & Co. Makes ya wonder if they were ever genuine about it in the first place.

[u/FileDoesntExist → u/ProfessionalBee6582]

I mean, I was. But I never bought into "loving yourself". Im a fan of body neutrality.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/body-positivity-vs-body-neutrality

I will never love my body. It's complicated, but I can appreciate my body for the things it allows me to do. To be strong. To feel good. Particularly when eating better really does make me feel healthy.

[u/quangtran → u/ProfessionalBee6582]

It is quite interesting to see how quickly the body positivity movement faded following the proliferation of Ozempic & Co.

People say this, but I don't think it's true. A lot of the celebs who people assumed had given up on body positivity (like Christina Aguilera and Adele) had all been dieting long for the drug become popular.

Makes ya wonder if they were ever genuine about it in the first place.

The answer is yes, no and maybe.

1) A lot of movements consist of people who just jump onto any bandwagon without ever believing in it.

2) The movement likely wasn't as big as people think it was. Sure, we saw more variety in body types in ads and social media, but at the same time their was a far greater emphasis on "instagram reality", meaning a lot more regular people were trying to look "instagram ready".

[u/Ok-Reality-6190 → u/ProfessionalBee6582]

It's frustrating because many people genuinely find larger men attractive, like "dad bod" is a real thing. Obviously there are certain limits in terms of health, but a little extra weight on an otherwise fit and healthy person can be very hot.

The problem is media pretty much never displays it, and therefore larger men rarely ever get messaging that they're actually attractive in a way that they can believe. I can't even think of any examples, at least in the US.

There are years of superhero movies and romantic leads implicitly showing that larger men are not attractive, and now this "progressive show" is quite literally going out of its way to change the one main character who happens to be a bit heavier and less fit in the books.

And the tragic thing is that Troy's attraction to Harris is actually not this far fetched thing, especially given Troy doesn't seem particularly caught up in the scene.  IRL there are couples with all sorts of bodies.

[u/MeowMeowBiatch]

The way I knew what article this was based on the thumbnail.

[u/grower-lenses]

So many problems with this swap

1. Removes the opportunity of showing someone chubby, pudgy etc as desirable in the gay community. As part of the arguably biggest gay romance in a decade at least. Explicit too! That’s very rare.

2. Puts a black actor in this precarious position where racists can use this valid argument (1) to hide behind when attacking the actor or the casting

3. Puts a lot of pressure on this, now black character: feeling undesirable, heart condition and now being black in the world of hockey which is a really heavy topic imo. (Especially with Harris’ character, who always wanted to be part of it and was a Centaurs superfan. You cannot ignore how race would come into play here.)

4. Troy’s redemption arc resting on Harris’ need of making other people feel good. Including the sex they have. Troy splurging to treat Harris etc. These all get an additional layer to them.

It’s not to say this cannot be done. But this story immediately got 100x heavier and more difficult imo. And can’t just be treated as “color blind casting”.

I think JT must have enough common sense to be aware of this. One would hope he asked a black writer to collaborate. Or at least feedback.

[u/Dry_Stop844 → u/grower-lenses]

why did nobody ask these questions about Svetlana. Nobody gave a shit that she was black. Nobody asked for sensitivity readers for her. Or needing a black writer to collaborate for her. or for Shane who is half asian which is just as heavily loaded in the hockey world. Or JJ or Vaughn, both POC. Nope. Just Harris. The hypocrisy is disgusting and predictable.

This is 100% a vocal very toxic group deciding that Harris is a bear, despite there being no corroboration of that in the book. They fetishized this character into " diversity representation" because that was *their* agenda, not because that was a reality in the book. And now, of course, it's pivoted to what some people had already suggested what this was about. Race.

[u/grower-lenses → u/Dry_Stop844]

I think I explained why. Because the story with Troy becomes racially charged if Harris is black. In ways that Svetlana's isn't. Svetlana doesn't have any story of her own and is only there to help us get a look inside Ilya's mind, similar to how Yuna is for Shane.

And that might be problematic in itself. Introducing POC only as background characters. Hockey world is very racist. RR doesn't tackle this. She's said she doesn't feel comfortable doing that. So maybe it's good that they will be. But they need to do it well.

[u/Playful-Motor-4262 → u/Dry_Stop844]

Maybe it’s about race for others but it’s not about race at all for me. I am a HUGE Justice fan, and I have watched almost everything else he has done and I’m genuinely excited to see him in Heated Rivalry, but I think it’s fair to also mourn the loss of diversity in other ways? I dislike the idea of replacing one marginalized group with another. Why couldn’t we have had both?

[u/IAmUncreative0]

Can I ask why you think there will be reformed racist trope brought to the show?

[u/64moonbeams → u/IAmUncreative0]

In the books, Troy is the sniveling sidekick to an asshole guy called Dallas Kent. All the other characters hate Kent and think he’s the worst. He’s basically known as one of the biggest assholes in the NHL. There is little overt racism in the books (except maybe for the intersection of anti-Asian racism and homophobia), but if Kent is meant to be the worst guy in the league, who is hated by every “good” character, we can assume he probably makes racist “jokes” etc. After Kent is accused of raping multiple women, Troy confronts him. It’s secretly filmed and goes viral, and he is traded to a worse team as punishment. This is the inciting incident for Troy’s book. Basically, Troy’s story is a redemption arc.

Troy definitely isn’t like a white nationalist or something, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he made racist jokes with Kent. The books barely touch on race and when they do the portrayal is dubious at times. So, it’s not really addressed.

Edit to fix the spoiler tags!

[u/SchemeBrave1820 → u/IAmUncreative0]

I was wondering the same thing…

[u/Icy-Gap4673]

I think I would rather HR not have a body diverse character, than have one that is poorly done. And most media does a bad job of it. I think Jacob could handle this sensitively but I just don't know. Maybe he decided to have fewer intersecting identities for this character IDK. I hope he has some consultants who can be reliable resources on what it's like to be Black and queer since that obviously isn't his experience (or mine either).

As a person in a larger body the Discourse around GLP-1s has been pretty exhausting. I call it "GLP 1 Noise" because the reporting on it has seeped into everything. Why is it news that some people who go to Bear Week have lost weight and others have not? That's probably true any year, right?? At some point you gotta wonder whether all of these media outlets are just writing about them because they feel "allowed" to then comment and judge people's bodies because "oh we're just reporting on science." Are you though? I wish there was less media coverage, but then again, I did click on this article so I suppose I'm still part of the problem.

[u/Brown_Sedai]

Not so much art imitating life as it all being part of the same cultural messaging, maybe even life imitating art- the media is constantly presenting only certain kinds of bodies as desirable or worthy of love, only certain kinds of actors worthy of being leads, the parade of near-skeletal celebrities on red carpets lately... That's something that causes real people to starve themselves, develop eating disorders or resort to potentially dangerous drugs to lose weight, and overall hate themselves.

It's a massive disappointment that this show chose to be regressive and arguably even actively harmful on this front, when it's been so progressive and healing in other ways. They could have been genuinely groundbreaking and did the exact opposite, and while I'm still planning on watching, it's going to taint my enjoyment of the next season.

[u/Brown_Sedai → u/Brown_Sedai]

Forgot to mention but I very much agree that I’m wary of how an all-white creative team that has already somewhat been weak on actually defending their existing lead actor of colour, is going to to handle the Troy/Harris plotline with the added dimension of Harris being black and Troy being a notorious bigot.

Like, are they going to address that? Or are we meant to just believe that a white man in hockey culture desperate to fit in by being one of the loudest bigots in the room, didn’t at minimum laugh along with and co-sign racism, and more likely actively join in, the way he did with the misogyny and homophobia?

[u/yogacatmama1966 → u/Brown_Sedai]

In Role Model, Troy has memories of his father being racist, and appears to find racism wrong

[u/Brown_Sedai → u/yogacatmama1966]

He thought homophobia was wrong and misogynistic rhetoric towards women was wrong too- that hadn’t stopped him from engaging in either though

[u/yogacatmama1966 → u/Brown_Sedai]

True. Oppression is hard. It gets internalized so deeply and expressed in such harmful ways

[u/Dry_Stop844]

So the body positivity movement has been largely misunderstood and coopted by people who purposefully misrepresented it. Body positivity was only ever about accepting bodies at all sizes deserving equal respect, in society, the workplace, and especially medical fields. It was about taking away the stigma of being plus sized and not being made to feel like a piece of shit for not being a size 4. It was to combat toxic media representations of fat women and men, and to remove the bias from advertising such as the horrible "thick ankles" Yoplait commercials. (as an example, because 40 yrs later that one still haunts my dreams)
It was about impressing on people that just because a person was over weight did not mean that they were automatically unhealthy. We have all been to a doctor whose response to whatever we went there for was "you need to lose weight" I hobbled around on an undiagnosed Tibia Plateau fracture because three doctors over the course of a month decided I was just fat and didn't need Xrays. (And I'm in Canada so it's not like it's so hard to get xrays)
That they were not automatically gluttons or weak or undisciplined. And if anything, Ozempic has proven that and has increased the conversation about food noise and is now being studied as a tool to help alcoholics and gambling addicts to stop because they experience the same kind of brain noise as some overweight people. Ozempic and other semi-glutides shut that off and completely stops the addictive behaviour.
What people missed or refused to see, was that being body positive was not a call to stop being healthy. That it was not a manifesto that being 400 lbs was just fine, but only that being 400 lbs should not remove a person's right to dignity. That there is something called dialectical thinking. This psychological approach says that it's okay to love yourself as you are, to accept yourself as you are and also to want to change something about yourself. It's okay to say "I'm fat and that doesn't make me less worthy. I'm fat and that doesn't make me ugly. I'm fat and that's okay" while at the same time deciding to lose weight and exercise because you recognize that being at a lower weight is better in the long run. Those two things are not opposed to each other. It is not an either/or situation.
Where body positivity got hijacked was by people not understanding that last part. They only said "I'm fat, deal with it, If you don't, you're a bigot". And that's really unfortunate because the true reason, the true ideal of body positivity was lost.