If so, then you have noticed Amber Riley, who plays Mercedes, and is a plus-sized chick. Check out this post about her from All My Jiggly Bits.

Though in many ways the characters fall into the same old categories of high school drama, there are also things about them that I love to pieces. Amber Riley, who plays the diva-fabulous Mercedes is one of my favorite characters to date!

I was watching the season premiere a few weeks ago, and the first thing I said to myself was, “wouldn’t it be great if they gave the big girl a love interest? I’m used to seeing stupid TV where the big girls are always the best friend-like characters and are never viewed romantically. But, lo and behold, the very next episode Mercedes gets a love interest (although, ill-fated-ly, she falls for her gay best friend).

I agree that Mercedes is awesome, but saw this particular episode a little differently—Mercedes chased after her gay best friend because she didn’t think she could get anyone better. So the jury is still out as far as I’m concerned—will they give her a real plotline and a real love interest, or is she just the comic relief sidekick who did the standard fat chick 101 maneuver and fell in love with the gay guy?

Go watch the video of Somebody To Love (embedding is disabled) and enjoy not only the performance, but Mercedes’s glorious ending.

There was this whole plotline about how without Rachel, the Glee Club had no star, so they had to bring on Kristin Chenoweth. And as much as I love Lea Michele and Kristin Chenoweth, if Mercedes were white and thin (and, um, not cast as a supporting character on the show) there would be no issue here, people. Am I right?

Show History has a fascinating compilation of names and pictures and brief biographies of fat people who worked as attractions in carnival sideshows. (They were also known as “freaks.”)

A little background:

Professional Fat Folk of an earlier age lived to astound a public for whom not having enough to eat was a real possibility, and even a commonplace. From the 18th Century to the beginning of the 20th Century being fat was a sign of health and prosperity.

Seemingly devouring a constant plentitude of food that their audiences may not have had, the showbiz of girth and jiggle was a universal attraction in carnival sideshows, dime museums and circuses.

Fat people used to perform in many different ways, every sideshow looking for a new gimmick. They used to entertain by performing go-go dances, running 50-yard dashes (thanks, Weet, for that link), bicycling, doing acrobatics, and–yes–boxing. A surprising number had stage names beginning with “Jolly” or “Happy.” One was called “Ima Whale.”

Reading this list makes me wonder more about the lives of some of these performers–Dottie Blackhall, for example, was a 600-pound woman who ultimately committed suicide. Anroe Brown, “The Georgia Giantess,” was born into slavery. Clifford W. Krueger retired from the sideshow to become a Wisconsin state senator. One woman “allegedly died while bending over to pick up a four-leaf clover. One died from complications due to weight loss surgery.” Edward Rusk weighed 449 pounds but claimed to weigh 649 pounds (because even in 1895, people didn’t know what 400 pounds looks like). So many stories, happy and sad.

Here’s a short video clip from the 1920s of one of these performers. More photos after the jump:

Jennifer Jonassen: Any dream roles?

Jen Ponton: My dream role? I have the soul of a leading lady, not a sidekick–so a dream role ?(that doesn’t yet exist) would be a FABULOUS fat leading lady who is successful, comfortable in her body, in love (or on her way there)… just like any other starlet. The more we see fat women in those types of roles, the sooner it will be socially acceptable to BE fat.

Amen, sister. And I loved this answer too:

Jennifer Jonassen: How does your size help or hinder your career?

Jen Ponton: You know, being plus size really equals out to the same pros and cons as if I were slim. When there IS a role for me, my competition is nearly non-existent–but there aren’t a whole lot of roles for me. If I were slim, there would be LOADS of roles… and thousands and thousands of girls! So I actually feel that my size is a positive/neutral factor.

She’s also working on a one-woman show called “Fat Chicks Don’t Get Plotlines.” Jen, you are awesome, gorgeous, and inspirational. The world is lucky to have you!

Big women on the stage. By and large, they get a bum deal. If an operatic audience can translate a statuesque and well-fed soprano into a consumptive waif with tiny, frozen hands, and go home streaming snot and tears even though Mimi’s build is more matronly than miniature, why should a theatrical audience not be asked to accommodate a curvaceous Cordelia, a jouncing Juliet, a delectably plump Helen of Troy?

It might be impossible to imagine a fat “straight” heroine in a conventional film, in which Knightley-esque proportions are the norm…But on stage I infinitely prefer a big presence and a big body to the kind of antiseptic, neat-calved, pretty-pretty who packs too many vowel sounds into her Shakespeare – “Oh, my Lo-or-ord!”

It’s an interesting perspective, but the author makes a couple of mistakes. Firstly, in invoking Marilyn’s Law (oh god, not the size 16 thing again, please) but more importantly, in implying (well, outright saying) that many if not most if not all conventionally thin, “pretty-pretty” women can’t act.

I would love to see more fat women on stage and screen, even just more normal-sized women would be a great start. But I also don’t think we need to tear down the “pretty-pretty” girls while we do it. It’s not their fault that they have thin bodies, and it shouldn’t negate their acting abilities. It would just be nice to see them joined by an equal number of larger bodies—who can also be “pretty-pretty,” as we all know.

At the time, the director, Christof Loy, proclaimed her too heavy to wear a sleek black cocktail dress that he deemed integral to his concept. The dress has since become a symbol of skewed priorities among opera directors who value a singer’s appearance over vocal artistry.

Voight made a video called “Return of the Little Black Dress” where she spoofs the incident… and makes reference to her previous weight with jokes like the dress saying: “I thought our being together was… a bit of a stretch” and then apologizing and saying “I was wrong. Size doesn’t matter.” Of course even the NYT points out, if size doesn’t matter, why was she fired at size 30 and then rehired at size 14?

This all seems very “all’s well that end’s well!” and “getting skinny is the best revenge.” But of course she should never have been fired in the first place, and I guess in her place I’d be a little more angry, a little less willing to take the blame upon myself for being treated unfairly. And yet…

Still, for Ms. Voigt there have been upsides to this humiliating episode in her life. For one, she looks and feels terrific. After her surgery, by monitoring her diet and exercise closely, this 5-foot-6 soprano reduced her dress size from 30 (at her heaviest) to 14, with resulting benefits to her confidence and health. In recent seasons she has been winning acclaim for portraying characters meant to look alluring, like Puccini’s Tosca and, in a career milestone, Strauss’s Salome, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2006.

And while she hopes that the little-black-dress incident will not be the defining moment of her career, she said, “It’s allowing me the chance to talk about the subject of obesity, especially childhood obesity. It’s become so much more prevalent in society today, it really frightens me,” she added. “I had a weight problem, and will have one for the rest of my life. It’s a constant battle. Gastric bypass is not a cure, it’s a tool.”

So what do you think of the video and the article? Are you as ambivalent about it as I am?

Thanks to Eleanor for the link!

In the comments, msruth mentioned Russia’s “Big Ballet” and on her advice, I went to go take a look and read all about them.

The Big Ballet is a troupe of dancers from Russia who weigh a minimum of 220 pounds each. I highly recommend clicking on the larger size of the picture, and going to visit the photo gallery for some more beautiful and inspiring photos.

The Big Ballet formed in 1994 and set out to deliberately and, above all, self-confidently challenge accepted social standards in a world where the pursuit of slenderness and beauty seems obsessive. The dancers courageously and imposingly prove that grace, elegance, charisma and nimbleness is not the demesne of the “thin”, proudly presenting their voluptuous yet surprisingly sinuous and flexible figures.

Msruth described them as:

[W]omen who had done it since they were kids, were obsessed, gave it all their time, were really talented etc etc, but had been getting increasingly marginalised by their schools as they grew into their adult bodies…so they formed their own school or something, I don’t quite remember, but hurrah! Anyway, to quit rambling, the point was they were so graceful and beautiful and such amazing dancers, that even though at first I thought it was just going to be a novelty thing, but by the end I’d forgotten they were ‘fat ballet dancers’, they’d just become dancers.

Again, that photo is so lovely. And as I said on Flickr, such a contrast to the “headless fattie” photo discussed here. Awesome.

[ETA: And it turns out Weetabix posted about the Big Ballet on this very blog over a year ago! Check it out; she's got even more info for you.]

Those of you out there who have seen Fantasia and who fondly remember the hippo ballet sequence might appreciate this rare glimpse into the history of Disney animation: photos of actress Hattie Noel, who was the live action reference for Hyacinth Hippo in the film. I don’t know much of the history, but I’m gathering that Hattie Noel’s contributions haven’t always been publicly acknowledged. The photos can be seen here and here, where many of the ancillary issues surrounding Disney politics and race are being discussed in the comments.

BFDude Matt, who sent along the links, says:

I know comparing a fat woman to a hippo can be misconstrued but I think it’s a positive piece. It’s great to see more old Disney reference made public (Disney has always been secretive about their process, to not ruin the “magic” of animation) and for Hattie to finally get credit… Always so wonderful to see a fat woman take center stage!

Cartoon Brew also linked to a video of Hattie jitterbugging (her entrance is at 3:47). So what is your response to all of this? Is it a part of Disney history that we should be proud of, or is it uncomfortably tinged with racism? Or both?

You know, she’s the first fat villian who really has some power. The other fat girls in Disney movies are either fairy godmothers (who twitter a lot) or singing teapots. Up until Ursula, the female villians were all tall, angular women with pinched faces (Cruella DeVille; the Wicked StepMother in Snow White; the aunt with the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp; Maleficient, who is also awesome for rocking that head gear) and she ends up embodying ultimate power (and, you know, getting stabbed by a boat, but whatevs). In fact, I groove on Ursula so much that I spent the better part of 2006 trying to pull together an Ursula costume for Halloween (that fell apart at the 11th hour, so I went with the Hello Kitty costume I’m wearing in my picture on the sidebar instead).

I could wax philosophical about the psychology involved, about the transition of ideal body image over the decades, about how sexuality becomes twisted into the perception of evil (and apparently how Divine influenced the artist’s concept of Ursula… all things come back to Hairspray!) but what has really got my tentacles in a twist is now that they’ve brought a Disnified version of Little Mermaid to Broadway, we were finally going to get to see Ursula stomp around in real life, see those tentacles swish and the poor unfortunate souls cower at her power.

And sadly, the director didn’t even have the stones to let a fat chick to play a fat character. Apparently, the original actor, Emily Skinner, was canned because she was too fat. Her replacement? Not fat.

And that? There are no words.

(Thanks to Fatshionista for the head’s up)

Rei says:

Here is PROOF that you can be a big girl and have some AMAZING moves. Her rhythem and grace show her excellent skill, it’s obvious that she practices a LOT and she has really impressive muscle control and flexibility (check out the back bend) . It looks easy…but what she’s doing is a lot of hard work (I know…because I’m a beginner myself) This is her first performance and she’s gorgeous.

Enjoy!