bigfatscience:

heavyweightheart:

heavyweightheart:

heavyweightheart:

I don’t wanna hear any public mourning for the death of Carrie Fisher by JJ Abrams, George Lucas, or any other SW director unless it also involves an unequivocal apology for the fatphobic, misogynistic abuse that they subjected her and her body to, and a commitment to never again demand dangerous weight loss from an actress

Oop, JJ Abrams calls her death “an unfair thing”! Yes, it’s unfair… kinda like the fact that you required a woman in her late 50s to starve herself down to ¾ of her natural body weight in order to be hired back as Leia in The Force Awakens. Kinda like not letting mentally ill, middle-aged, average-sized women see themselves accurately represented by an actress who never wanted to compromise her mental or physical health for work, but who had to because you wouldn’t cast her otherwise. Kinda like how the fatphobia in Hollywood buttresses a multi-billion dollar diet industry for no other reason than to generate disgusting amounts of profit. Carrie Fisher’s death is unfair, but not to you. 

Oh boy, I um… never expected this to get like 1000x more notes than my average ranty post. To be clear, I don’t think Abrams sat down with Carrie and said “Lose weight or we get another Leia.” But she was heavily pressured to lose 35 pounds (a LOT for someone her height) for TFA, and she famously joked that they only wanted to hire ¾ of her. She was sent to a weight loss camp before the original trilogy and pressured into losing ever more weight for the part (you can bet she would’ve been replaced if she’d refused). Carrie had some internalized fatphobia as well, and she was a realist about the industry. She worried she’d look “stupid” at her normal weight in TFA, and she might certainly have gotten fatphobic backlash, but no one was taking that chance. 

Carrie was at the very least coerced by directors like Abrams and Lucas to engage in rapid, on-demand, significant weight loss, and those cycles of weight loss are quite damaging to the heart – in fact, weight cycling can increase risk of heart failure by up to 3.5x. At her age and with her history, Carrie’s body was less resilient and the weight loss for TFA was particularly dangerous. But it was dangerous when she was younger, too. Lucas, Abrams et al could have said she was fine as she was, that she was perfectly capable of acting the part at any size. They had that power. But instead they made it clear that it was her thinness and not just her acting they wanted, she knew those were the terms, and her body paid the price. 

I can’t ‘police’ the grief of powerful Hollywood directors; they’re bazillionaires who don’t read my obscure tumblr blog. But I feel it’s in the spirit of Carrie to call the bullshit like we see it. 

They also “asked” Mark Hamill to lose about 50lbs for TFA, and weight loss increases the risk of mortality for older men and women. 

In addition to supporting the health of their stars, I would have *loved* to see TFA with Mark and Carrie at their natural, heavier, middle-aged weights. Fatter Luke and plumper Leia. That would have been simply amazing.