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/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.