When an opinion article published in the British weekly The Spectator last week questioned the desirability of Penelope Featherington, a character in the Netflix series “Bridgerton” played by the Irish actress Nicola Coughlan, it touched off a firestorm of objection. People rushed to criticize the claim that her pairing with Colin Bridgerton, the chiseled and handsome leading man played by Luke Newton, would never happen in real life because her character isn’t thin.
After the show’s third season debuted on Netflix this month, fans were offended by what they saw as body shaming in the piece, which bluntly stated that Ms. Coughlan is “not hot, and there’s no escaping it.” The article concluded by arguing that efforts to prioritize equality and diversity aren’t enough to “make a fat girl who wins the prince remotely plausible.”
Many pointed out that Ms. Coughlan wouldn’t even be considered fat by many — descriptors like “plump” and “curvy” came up often — but others online still echoed the same point made in the article. One Threads user wrote that she was “not used to seeing a woman like Penelope get the guy like Colin” and that it “wouldn’t have happened in real life,” which was met with a flurry of responses by plus-size women sharing images of themselves, happily coupled.
Danielle Wallace, a plus-size woman from Houston, said in a phone interview that while she wasn’t an avid watcher of the show, she had felt compelled to join the chorus of objectors under the post, as a woman happily engaged to a man who loves her.
“What one person finds attractive isn’t what everybody else finds attractive, and it seems like some people don’t understand that,” Ms. Wallace, 51, said. “Like, it’s really weird to be an adult and not understand that.”
This criticism overlooked something that has been true for many cultures and communities for a long time: Curvy women are desirable, occasionally almost to the exclusion of thinner women. The many examples of bigger women being desired does not mean that fatphobia isn’t a real issue, of course, because it is. But the claim that you cannot be both curvy and attractive is false.
