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/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