Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: problem with examples
, started by captainpat on Feb 7th 2012 at 4:57:21 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Needs Help, started by captainpat on Aug 16th 2012 at 4:48:45 PM
Meghan Trainor's song "All About That Bass" enforces this trope while also encouraging larger people as well possibly thin people to enjoy how they look.
Has the editor who added that in actually listened to the lyrics? Seriously:
Yeah, my mama she told me don’t worry about your size She says boys like a little more booty to hold at night You know I won’t be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll So if that’s what you’re into then go ahead and move along…
…Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that No I’m just playing I know you think you’re fat”
Did I miss the memo, how is this making thin people feel good about themselves?
Edited by 76.28.217.19 Hide / Show Replies
I agree, that's a "gushing about something you like" issue that should be edited.
The description in the BBW trope seems to portray large women in a flattering light- which is fantastic, but does it have to do it at the expense of skinny women? We need to keep in mind that the media portrays everyone, even skinny women, as unattractive compared to the digitally altered goddesses we see on the screen and in magazines. This troper knows a couple of naturally thin women who lament their lack of curves, seeing it as a sign they lack femininity and, therefore, sex appeal, and knowing there are people out there who would use unflattering words like "skeletal" to describe them would only serve to aggrevate this further.
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I'm fine with being body positive, but putting someone else's body down to raise yourself up makes you look like an insecure bully.
Edited by 76.28.217.19
Ok, the example section for this trope needs a lot of works We have.
- zero context examples
- Examples that are clearly a tropers or "fans" opinion
- Examples of characters that aren't portrayed as attractive, they may be confidence or flirtatious but it's obvious the work is portraying their body type in a negative light.
When adding or re-adding examples please make sure the example makes it clear that 1) the character is fat 2) is protayed as attractive (Are they a Love Interest, depicted with Fanservice Tropes, or The Beautiful Tropes).
Also make sure you're familiarized with the No Lewdness policy.
- Baya San from Crying Freeman.
- Lucy MK2 in Chapter 69 of Yuria 100 Shiki due to thermal expansion.
- By default virtually EVERY woman Jeanne Da'ack draws falls under this trope with the stated measurements to boot.
- Tsugumi, the main character of the manga Pochamani.
- Alex Robinson likes this trope: Hildy from Box Office Poison and Caprice from Tricked are BBWs.
- Maggie from ''Love and Rockets'' has become a BBW over time◊.
- Another Los Bros Hernandez example: ''Whoa Nellie!'◊, about lady wrestlers.
- The Great Lakes Avengers' Big Bertha◊, a skinny model whose superpowers are only available when she is in her Superhero form. It looks just like her usual self, if she became obese.
- Volcana from the original Secret Wars mini-series.
- Tarot's mother, from Tarot Witch Of The Black Rose. She's not really fat, just a wider version of her daughter, and with an increased bust size to match.
- In the Five Years Later continuity of Legion of Super-Heroes Dream Girl became this, although this depended on her wardrobe.
- This trope was somewhat averted with Bouncing Boy's one-time girlfriend Iresa from the Silver Age. Plump sure, but she was rather plain. The joke, however, was that BB had dated her after he lost his powers and become svelte.
- Francine from Strangers In Paradise is often depicted as such.
- Lois Lane has dabbled in this territory at least once◊, mostly due to Temporary Bulk Change.
- Kanaya Maryam in the Homestuck AU Brainbent is rather full-figured◊, and like her canonical counterpart, she's very stylish.
- Any character played by Mae West.
- The tobacconist in Fellini's Amarcord.
- Marianne Sägebrecht's roles in Bagdad Café and Rosalie Goes Shopping.
- Page image Mama Morton from Chicago. Queen Latifah is gorgeous in everything she does.
- Played for laughs in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo with "Jabba the Slut".
- Fat Slags - Sean Cooley plays the man who uses his infinite wealth and media power to make BBWs globally fashionable, causing all women (especially a few celebrities who get parodied) to become BBWs. Since his PA, Geri Halliwell's Paige, has a huge crush on him, we get to watch her quickly turn herself into a BBW.
- Motormouth Maybelle and Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray (Motormouth Maybelle is another Queen Latifah role in the more recent movie); she later convinces Edna Turnblad to join her, in part due to inspiration from Edna's daughter Tracy.
- The Master Of Disguise features Momma Disguisey, who Poppa Disguisey is most definitely still enamored with because of her all-Italian large figure. In fact, it is implied that wanting this sort of a wife is as much a part of being a Disguisey as being a Master of Disguise, to the extent that when Pistachio marries Jennifer, his "tiny butter-bottom", there is an obvious implication that she will soon grow to fit the trope.
- Especially since camera pans from the Disguisey instruction manual's image of a bride with very large buttocks, straight to Jennifer at the real wedding.
- Yarna d'al' Gargan from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
- Your mileage will most likely vary on the "beautiful" part with her.
- Jabba the Hutt certainly thought so.
- Your mileage will most likely vary on the "beautiful" part with her.
- America Ferrera's character in Real Women Have Curves.
- Ogress Fiona in Shrek, intermittently in the last half of the first movie and almost the whole second film, then all the time from the third movie onwards.
- Queen Latifah again in Bringing Down The House. She is pretty much the embodiment of this trope.
- The French movie On Tour fits this trope perfectly.
- Big Rhonda in Road Trip, played by plus-size model Mia Amber Davis (who sadly passed away in 2011 aged just 35).
- Boule de Suif
- This seems to be a matter of Author Appeal for Terry Pratchett.
- Lady Sybil Vimes of the Discworld is, to put it politely, not 'delicate'.
- Death's adopted daughter is repeated said to be "chubby", too. Her soon to be love interest even notes that her chest alone "contained enough puppy fat for a whole litter of Dobermans."
- "Eleven stone (154 lb) of young womanhood hit him squarely in the chest." Yep, she's not slim.
- This is noted as the standard of attractiveness in Ramtops. Lancre men are much more interested in big women from families that clearly enjoy their food than they are in slim figures and corsetry.
- The main character of The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels and TV series is the "traditionally built" Precious Ramotswe. On TV she's played by Jill Scott, who counts as well.
- Prof. Colette of The Princess 99 has elements of this.
- Mae from The Demons Lexicon is this, and she is also the main love interest.
- Lula, former prostitute turned bounty hunter('s sidekick) in the Stephanie Plum series.
- Title of the book escapes me, but there was a book about a high-school girl going to work at a dance/strip club for extra cash—one of the most popular dancers there is a BBW whose stage name is "Sweet Petite."
- Lady Cunegonde and the baroness in Candide
- Freya Rasmussen from Mortal Engines.
- By 2085 in Larry Niven and Steven Barnes The Moon Maze Game this type has become the fashion ideal.
- Massha in Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures novels.
- Miss Piggy from The Muppets, of course.
- Mellie from Dollhouse.
- Jane (or really Deb in Jane's body) in Drop Dead Diva.
- The title character of Roseanne is mostly this; she appears to have a healthy sex life with Dan and while she's depicted as just an average-looking woman, she certainly doesn't come across as undesirable.
- Suzanne Sugarbaker of Designing Women.
- Dora Mae on Carnivale. Not to mention her mother, Rita Sue, who's a stripper and a whore and taught her daughters everything she knows. And Lila, the bearded lady, has a bigger physique as well. Carnivale likes its women to look realistically well-fed.
- Michelle Corrigan of Doctors has her fair share of relationships. Mind you, they don't always work out so well...
- In The Tenth Kingdom, when we first see Snow White's body (not very well) in her ice tomb, we assume she looks very much like her Disney incarnation, fair enough. But when she disappears from the coffin and actually appears in her spirit incarnation she is both larger in proportions than the standard fairy princess and still lovely.
- Having exhausted every other fetish known to man, CSI examines this trope in the episode "Big Middle".
- Nell Carter on Gimme A Break.
- Glee
- Mercedes. True, while unfortunately there are a few episodes where body image is an issue for her, for the most part she's extremely comfortable in her curves and many fans love her for it.
- Lauren Zizes as well. Not as conventionally pretty or stylish as Mercedes, but far more confident and aggressive.
- Lulu Roman from Hee Haw, a former go-go dancer who had a thyroid condition.
- The Vicar Of Dibley is widely regarded as one of these in-show.
- Dawn French gets cast as this a lot in comedies, including some episodes of The Comic Strip Presents and Murder Most Horrid.
- Kadijah James in Living Single (Yep, Latifah again). Also Sinclair, eventually (she seemed to put on 5-10 pounds a season).
- Sadie on Awkward.. She has body issues but has enough confidence to be both a cheerleader and the school's Alpha Bitch.
- parodied by Ruth Jones' character Nessa in Gavin And Stacey who is certainly big, but rough as badgers' behind; Heavily averted by Jones herself in a subsequent biopic in which she played Carry On star Hattie Jaques as very much in the BBW style
- One of the first examples from modern media - Short Fat Fannie - though it may have simply been made as a song filled with ShoutOuts to other songs.
- The titular Rosie from the song "Whole Lotta Rosie" by AC/DC
- "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" by Mika.
- The Glamazons (the ones from America's Got Talent, not the Australian drag queen troupe) especially Caramella.
- Big Fat Blonde by the Rainmakers is a very good example of this trope, as well.
- An Iron Maiden B-side, "Nodding Donkey Blues". "I mean she was big, she was fucking huge! Enormous! You could have sailed the Hindenburg through her legs and never even had landing permission!"
- Bow wow's song Big Girl.
- Comedian Mike epps made a song with the same name as Bow Wow's .
- "I Wanna Be Fat" by the Go Go Girls.
- The Donnie Fritts song "Three Hundred Pounds of Hongry," which has since been covered by several other artists.
- The video to Lo-Rider's Skinny is all about the beauty of the BBW.
- Canadian indie pop singer's song "Chunky Girl(BBW)"
- Rosie Lotta Love from TNA was introduced with this kind of gimmick, even planting a kiss on Jeremy Borash her first interview. Unfortunately she was rather ragged in the ring and was quickly released.
- Vickie Guerrero though she's noticeably thinner now.
- Awesome Kong anyone?
- Now retired joshi wrestler Yuki Miyazaki◊. Hell, her nickname was even the Sexy Tank.
- Effie White from Dreamgirls, Captain Ersatz of founding Supremes member Flo Ballard. In The Movie, Jennifer Hudson was certainly gorgeous in the role, but she actually had to gain weight for it, and is normally at the upper end of Hollywood Pudgy.
- Burlesque star Miss Dirty Martini.
- Magda in Tanz Der Vampire (even when she's played by petite actresses- they end up padded and made up to look heavier and more voluptuous in-character), in contrast to Rebecca, who's usually presented as just plain obese.
- Killer Queen in We Will Rock You.
- A few theatre adaptations of A Christmas Carol have gender flipped Christmas Present and had her played by an actress of this type.
- Ace Attorney has Plum Kitaki. Sister Bikini isn't shy about being flirtatious, either.
- Telma the barmaid in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
- Major Nelly from Battalion Wars.
- Rayn of Jak X Combat Racing was originally going to be this according to Word of God.
- Daxter was terrified by this prospect.
Daxter: Krew... Reproduced?! Ewwwwww. Can you imagine what that tub o' jelly must look like?! - Ririka Yamamoto, star of the h-game Debu Plus.
- Kurumi Kasugaoka from the cancelled dating sim Hachi Koi.
- Lenora from Pokémon Black and White appears to be one.
- Letty Whiterock is often portrayed as one in Touhou fanon, as one possible explanation for why her hitbox is so much bigger than her sprite. The other common explanation is that she's really stacked.
- Yuyuko Saigyouji is also sometimes portrayed as a BBW due to her eating habits.
- Justine in Shadows Of The Damned appears to have been one before her death.
- Kitten and some NPCs in Venetica.
- Muria, the Shaman from Darksiders 2. Larger than Andre the Giant, and absolutely stunning.
- Jamie from Girls With Slingshots. Candy counts as well, but it's offset by her abhorrent personality.
- Reagan from Templar Arizona
- Emma of Suzi X Emma.
- Cho from Kagerou is this, though it's not apparent until later in the comic, after Art Evolution has taken place.
- We all know Phil Foglio likes his women voluptuous, but Jaegergeneral Mama Gkika really works it.
- Alice Pintur of Archipelago is definitely this.
- Whitney from orphaned comic Misty the Mouse is the Latino flavor of this trope. She is fun-loving and always ready to party, never doubting her sex-appeal for a second. Her popularity allowed her to live on in Dutch's art.
- The Misty comic is no longer orphaned as artist Dutch has resumed drawing pages to the ongoing story.
- Tina from Sabrina Online.
- The erotic cosplayer known as Luu. Let's just say she's one of the few cosplayers out there who can truly pull off Cattleya. She can even do the pillow trick!◊
- "Annoying Girl", later renamed "Special Girl", the character based on the woman who later became the author's wife, in The Binder Of Shame. At first he refuses to date her for fear of what his friends might think of him seeing a fat girl, but upon realizing exactly what a Dysfunction Junction his gaming group is, he decides to drop them in favor of her.
- Principal Waxelplax from The Fairly Odd Parents
- Vivian Garcia-Shapiro (Isabella's mom) from Phineas And Ferb.
- In an episode of Family Guy, Lois gains a lot of weight, and Peter finds he likes having sex with her like this. In a later episode, he mentions going into a lonely fat woman's club, indicating he still likes 'em big.
- Another episode has Stewie, for reasons not entirely clear, playing banjo and singing a song about such a woman.
"Twice as tall as me, three times the girth."- In "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story" Stewie's future self lost his virginity to one. Surprisingly, there were no jokes made at his expense for this, and only one line that referred to her weight at all, about "cracking open those Lane Bryant stretch pants."
- This may be because they were too busy making fun of what an utter wiener Stewie turned out to be. For example, said cherry-popping was such a horrendously embarrassing experience that if you had precognition and saw that in your future, you'd just stay a virgin all your life.
- LeShawna from Total Drama Island. Bonus points for also being a Sassy Black Woman.
- In Home Movies, Coach McGuirk dresses in drag for Halloween (which really turns on the girl he's with) - he describes himself as "a big beautiful woman".
- Considering the occasional Fan Yay one may encounter, Coach McGuirk's girth is attractive even when he's not in drag. See Big Beautiful Man.
- One of the Muses (specifically Thalia) in Disney's Hercules is a BBW.
- Miss Kitty from An American Tail: Fievel Goes West falls under this; she's husky and very good-looking.
- Susan Strong from Adventure Time, according to Rebecca Sugar, she was created with this concept in mind.
- To a lesser extent, Fionna. She was designed to be "chubby cute." This is prevalent in the concept art, but she's a lot slimmer in the show.
- Some fans see Jungle Princess as being this.
- Futurama
- Also, the robot stripper from "The Lesser of Two Evils" episode.
- Farnsworth's new girlfriend in "300 Big Boys" after the stem cell reveal.
- Leela's body becomes one in the fifth season.
- Two-Tone from 101 Dalmatians: The Series
- Betty Gilligan.
I added the examples I'm familiar with back in with context, except for Ririka Yamamoto who already had it (the fact that she's the star of a hentai game (albeit a pretty nasty one) kind of makes it a given that she's portrayed sexily).
So we just add them back in with a note about how they're presented as attractive?
I already had to move some of those examples back her. An example should always explain "how" it fits the trope. In this trope the example need need to make it clear that 1) the character is fat (How fat? full-figured? chubby? Obese?) 2) how are they portrayed as attractive (Are they a Love Interest, depicted with Fanservice Tropes, or The Beautiful Tropes).
Both of those traits need to be discussed in the example for it to have the correct context.
Edited by captainpat
@@[=grimAuxiliatrix=]@@
I think she's bigger than hollywood pudgy but still, it immediately hit me as 'whoa what the hell, how is that even overweight'. I wouldn't call her 'fat, but beautiful' but just 'not skinny, but beautiful'. I doubt she'd even buy plus sized clothes- I'm bigger than that and I don't. Also the picture looks kinda weird and offtopic due to that. Made me think 'wait, is this a trope about caboret dancers/weird posing/black people having to wear 'exotic' costumes cos of teh sexy'? It's great as a random pic of a sexy lady but for this topic?- just no. Or does it mean my standards are skewed when I think of this as a normal-sized person?
The Mellie example from Dollhouse bothers me. She is not fat. She's more Hollywood Pudgy and certainly not large enough for me to consider her a BBW.
Is there room in this trope for a bit of Truth in Television? If so, what I would add is something like this:
"It's interesting to note that, for most of history, large women were considered quite desirable, because of what it said about their lifestyle. The human body is programmed to adjust its size depending on the person's food intake and activity level; to get fat, eat too much and don't exercise much. The vast majority of human beings were too busy working in the fields and suffering malnutrition to get fat; the ones who were able to do so were the Idle Rich. And money is definitely attractive. Now, today, the indicators have switched, and Hollywood emphasizes toned, slim bodies... but for much the same reason: being able to exercise that much (and afford the plastic surgery) suggests a similar excess of free time and money."
Any thoughts?
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I, for one, think that would go great for adding to the analysis page, since the No Real Life Examples Please rule is still in effect.
Aw puck, Darkwing's on a killing spree again, we guillotin'in again.
There's way to many x just x. We really to provide context for some of this examples.
Why this trope has the "No Real Life Examples Please" notification. does anybody see anything wrong about it? because i'm thinking in deleting it.
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Subjectivity. The trope is about heavy set women being portrayed as attractive in media. Real life isn't media. See TRS thread
Your friendly neighbourhood Regent
I don't want to sound like I'm 'discriminating against BB Ws', but not everything in the list for this example fits the Trope.
The BBW as a trope is about women in media being portrayed and perceived as generally attractive.
One example: Roseanne Barr's eponymous character from Roseanne doesn't fit the BBW Trope, because as the entry itself notes, she may have an active sex life, but she's not (in the least) portrayed as attractive because of her size.
Likewise Ursula might be fetish fuel for some and she certainly isn't portrayed as ugly because of her size, but the size is intended to contrast with Ariel's skinny 'Hollywood ideal' figure.
This BBW Trope (rather than the term as it is used far more loosely on the net) isn't about 'Big Women Tropers find attractive' (that's what this page's Troper Tales is for), it's about 'portrayals in media of Big Women as Beautiful'.
Angry gets shit done. Hide / Show Replies
I agree, and I am speaking as a big woman who is far from beautiful. While no doubt many of these women, particularly any character played by Queen Latifah, are gorgeous... well, they certainly aren't all gorgeous. Ursula, early on in her introduction, lamented how unattractive she was, and I somehow doubt it was because of the tentacles or mole. And her human form was far from chubby. Muriel from Courage the Cowardly Dog is just an old, large woman - not particularly ugly, really, but she's not beautiful.
Arguably, given the inherent rarity of any plus-sized women, the trope could simply address larger women as a whole, regardless of how attractive they are. But the title is a bit misleading.
Edited by Ophiucha
Gilgamesh
Is there is a Spear Counterpart of this? I can think of quite a few heavy-set male characters that are quite voluptuous. And not even necessarily for any kind of fat fetish (too much fat can become Gonky) — just where someone might not look quite as good without their girth. There are lots of examples in Bara, and in the bear community, and in the Furry Fandom, and in various fictional characters too (Bowser comes most to mind).
Edited by Gilgameshkun Hide / Show Replies
Some personals sites use the term Big Handsome Man. I'm not sure whether it's tropable because fewer people seem to think they can measure male handsomeness.
There are a variety of gay-themed works pages on tvtropes where this certainly would apply.
Mr Death: Yeah, I know, bad form to edit someone else's discussion topic, but piss off jackass.
Edited by MrDeath Hide / Show Replies
Uncalled for, dude. Very much uncalled for.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Skinny doesn't equate good health. I guess you've never heard of anorexia, bulimia, or any other eating disorders. While Obesity is a problem, being underweight is also a problem. In addition, there are better ways to construe your message.
Je veux ton amour et je veux ton revenge!
I am really, really not sure that we need that huge paragraph on how feminism leads to fat hate. I mean, certainly that may have something to do with it, but it's really much more complicated than that (there's also the shift from large generally meaning rich to large generally meaning poor, for example), and the whole thing is presented as flat-out fact with no citations or anything to back it up. Of course, we are not Wikipedia, but that's all the more reason to stay away from the root sociological causes and just say that there are many periods in history in which fuller-figured women were the standard of beauty.
Edited by bluepenguin
Re Hairspray, you'll get major squick either way re Edna Turnblad. In John Water's film from the 80s, she was played by Divine. You know.. transvestite, Russ Meyer, Pink Flamingoes... THAT Divine.
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As I understand it, she is always played by a drag queen in the stage show as well.
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Concerns over the description's length,and content
, started by Ultimatum on Dec 9th 2010 at 4:44:08 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman