Lifetime Movie Alert
From the fine network that brought you such titles as Mother May I Sleep With Danger? and Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear comes a film that may be of more interest than usual, as it stars Nikki Blonsky of Hairspray fame as a plus-sized girl. The movie is called Queen Sized.
Unlike Hairspray, which was set in 1962, Queen Sized takes place in present-day South Carolina, where Blonsky is Maggie Baker, a plus-sized high school senior who has always pitied herself for not being skinny, pretty or wealthy. When her name turns up on the list of nominees for the homecoming court as a prank, she’s mortified…
Blonsky bares flesh in Queen Sized in two scenes she says Lifetime offered her the “artistic choice” to cut. In one, she wears only a bra and pajama bottoms as she faces herself in a mirror and nitpicks her perceived shortcomings. In another, filmed from the back, she undresses in a bathroom stall, to avoid having to change in front of her peers.
Says Blonsky: “I’m not about exposing yourself. But I realized that a lot of plus-sized women are ashamed of their bodies or are scared to show them – let alone on TV. So I said: You know, ‘I’m not scared, because this is what we look like.’ This is what most of America looks like in their pajama bottoms.”
I am really bummed we won’t get to see Nikki all dressed up at the Golden Globes (especially if she wins; stupid AMPTA) but at least we’ll get to see her in this!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Fat Positive, Hairspray, Movies, Nikki Blonsky, TV
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Hello Ladies,
I am kind of bummed about that as well, especially because I was really looking for a certain dress that’s been in the works for her you know where. Oh well, I am sure it will be on display on our star at the SAG Awards. BTW, Nikki will be wearing some IGIGI pieces on Queen Sized as well.
I freakin love lifetime on Sunday afternoons. “A Mother’s Revenge”, “Co-ed Call Girl”, and this Sunday’s classic “The Healer” are the type of cinematic tour-de-force that make the movie industry the social changing genre it is.
That said, this sounds exactly like an episode of “Made” on Mtv.
I think I have a crush!
Definately love her attitude, unfortunately I haven’t seen Hairspray (multiple gasps)! But I do love Nikki, because she’s just so adorable. I can’t wait to see this lifetime movie, though I am not enthused by the lifetime network often, this should be great!
ohhh, i really want to see that movie. Can i download it from somewhere?? I mean legally???
Normally Lifetime movies make me want to shove rusty pruning shears into my eye sockets, but I just might have to give this one a shot, considering I loved Nikki in Hairspray and I’m from South Carolina…
I think that this will be an interesting movie. Especially if an actual plus sized gal plays the part, not some skinny minny in a fat suit (and exagerated fat face make up).
When is it on?
It’s on tonight at 9pm! I’m taping it! :)
It’s on tonight? I knew my live-in boyfriend had to leave town this weekend for a reason…
Hmmm…I’m wary of Lifetime after that horrendous “Fat Like Me” movie, but I do love Nikki Blonsky…Damn, I’m just going to have to watch it :P
RE: the comment on the cancelled Golden Globe Awards show…bear in mind that it’s more than just an evening without visible star power. SAG members (including the mega-talented Miss Blonsky) won’t appear if it means crossing the Writers Guild picket lines. The Guild is fighting the good fight here; let’s not carp about a missed red carpet or two, but rather applaud the solidarity of the actors to the writers’ cause!
As for the LIFETIME movie, it sounds like a great follow up to last night’s UGLY BETTY and “real women” on the runway.
“Normally Lifetime movies make me want to shove rusty pruning shears into my eye sockets… ”
I just peed a little. So funny!
You guys have to report back as to what you thought of it! I will need to DVR it, I think.
While I love Nikki Blonsky, I would love to see her in a role that’s not… as a fat girl.
She’s talented, and beautiful, and I’m hoping that the third movie she’s apparently in (Harold, I think?) will maybe just…. focus on her, not her size.
I just got to watch Hairspray with DH last night. It was great!!! DH even liked it (though he did call it a chick flick), but then, he has a boob fetish and likes big women so maybe that’s why he liked it. I even thought John Travolta did pretty well as the mother, fat suit and all (I do wish they could have found a fat actor/actress for the part, but JT did a good job). I plan on watching Queen Sized when it comes on.
I found it kind of interesting that Ricki Lake, who starred in the original Hairspray, decided to do all of that publicity about her dramatic weight loss and how much happier she was asd a skinny person right around the time the new Hairspray came out, or shortly afterwards.
Whereas Nicki Blonsky is doing all of this fat acceptance stuff these days.
I’m going to watch the movie, but I’m skeptical. They’re showing “To Be Fat Like Me” right before it, as a buildup. Which isn’t promising. And I noticed that there are some of the standard, ludicrous, cliche fat jokes in there, such as her breaking the big chair when she sits on it. I can’t tell you how ridiculously sick I am of that one; I guess if I’d EVER seen someone bust a chair just by sitting on it – one that wasn’t already broken – I might think the joke had some merit, however unfunny. But I’ve never seen it or had it happen to me or heard of it. So whatever. Then all the promos keep showing her standing there making it look like she’s stuffing herself and then, oh hilarity – spilling food on herself. Because that’s hilarious and it happens all the time. Because if you’re fat, you spill food on yourself. And you eat all the time.
I hope it is better than it looks. Frankly the best thing I’ve heard/seen on TV of late was “How to Look Good Naked.” When Layla said at the end, “No more dieting!!!” I was amazed and thrilled. They even let it go without a disclaimer! Awesome.
About the breaking the chair thing, the chair was tampered with so it would break just to embarrass Maggie (Nicki’s character) into quitting.
Well, I got through about 3/4 of it. High school angst, even when it’s fat positive, just isn’t my thing.
I haven’t seen Hairspray, but Blonsky is a real-looking, attractive girl and a very good actress. As someone already mentioned, I would like to see her in a role that does not have to do with her being fat. Wouldn’t it be great to see a fat actor in a leading role in a movie that doesn’t make his or her fatness the main focus? That deals with the issues of being fat in a very matter-of-fact way? C’mon, Hollywood, get with it!
I was glad to see that the chair thing was because they had played a prank on her as opposed to it breaking because she was fat. The movie had positives and negatives but overall, I just found it pretty boring. I’m glad for the positive things about it, though.
I thought the movie was pretty terrible, and I’d love to get either Mo Pie’s or Weetabix’s take on it, if they saw it.
The problem was that the main character clearly suffered from a binge eating disorder, and it was never really addressed. At one point she has a full on breakdown and goes screeching into her house and dumps out all the food from the freezer and sits in the middle of it shoving ice cream into her mouth and sobbing. That’s just a little much for me.
As someone who also suffers from compulsive binge eating at times, I don’t think it’s as clear cut as “kids made fun of me, must eat everything and cry!” It’s a little more subtle than that, at least for me.
Also I wonder when this movie was made. She’s gorgeous no matter what but Nikki looks much heavier in this movie than she does in current photos/magazines. I hope she’s not getting a lot of pressure to lose weight. But again, she’s beautiful no matter what weight she is at!
There’s an interesting discussion about the movie here and quite frankly it doesn’t sound like it was that good.
I never hid food in my room either, I was never that ashamed of myself.
I recorded this while we were out of town and watched it late last night, while I was doing some other things. I was astounded, Maggie (the main character) was shown as an out of control, eating disordered fat girl, not as an average fat teenager. From the shoveling food in, to the hiding food all over her room, her treating her mother horribly, etc, I was not happy about this movie.
It is a damn shame as it had a good idea behind it and could have been an uplifting movie about a fat girl that broke out of the mold.
i saw approximately 30 seconds of that tonight, so i’ll have to watch for it again… every night this month…
some one talked about nikki looking bigger in this than in hairspray. you have to remember that in hairspray she was also dancing 8 hours a day. she said she had to have a protein shake like every half hour b/c she was dropping weight so fast.
and the thing about john travolta in a fat suite… every since hairspray became a musical, it’s been tradition that the mother was played by a man in a fat suite. [random, i know.]
ooh, i want to hear some conversations on “how to look good naked”!!
I watched Queen Sized (and then taped it for posterity) and it was the BEST two hours that I have had watching a movie in a looooooong time!
I just wish that I could have been that vocal when I was in high school as I can relate to the teasing and harassment she had to endure. A very well done picture and her clothes were cute too!!!!
This should be required watching in every high school and, come to think of it, college too!
Lifetime is a crappy network that reenforces stereotypes and gender roles of both women AND men.