5 Movies And TV Shows That Portray Fat Women Or Different Women As Ugly. This Needs To Stop
Beautiful (adjective): pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically
Ugly (adjective): unpleasant or repulsive, especially in appearance.
These are the two words that society lives by and not just today, it’s been here since forever but we choose to ignore it. Why? I will admit that I once gave in to the unrealistic beauty standards. I wanted to be size 0 like Kareena Kapoor, but then I realised I love food more than being starved to death and today I am a healthy girl who loves herself. So, I flipped the bird to beauty standards who, not going to lie, had my head in a mess for a while.
These beauty standards begin at home and then percolate into popular culture where through movies and TV shows, everyone tells you that the standards of beauty are the same everywhere – long hair, thin, fair. If the girl has braces or glasses or is even fat then she is ugly, unloved, and lonely. Until a fairy godmother enters their lives and magically makes her the most beautiful people on this planet and bam NOW the guy she had a crush on finally notices her, falls in love and lives happily ever after. Well, my dear ones let me tell you that it doesn’t happen. I lost a few kilos last year and my crush didn’t even blink at me.
So here are 5 TV shows and movies that gave us unrealistic beauty standards and should probably not have existed.
Also Read: Shilpa Shetty Says She Was Insecure Of Sister Shamita Shetty Because Shilpa Was Darker. When Will We Stop Defining Fair As Beautiful?
Ugly Betty
We all remember this TV show from the 2000s. I mean, the name itself should have put me off from watching the show and I don’t know how these guys managed to bag 4 seasons. The story basically revolves around a girl named Betty who is nerdy and wears braces and wears clothes that she is comfortable in, but people will make fun anyway cause she is not attractive in the conventional sense of the word. She has been offered a job as an assistant at a fashion publication to act as a dampener for the owner’s son who keeps sleeping with anything that’s remotely active. Yes, apparently, she looks so average, she can kill a guy’s libido. While being a part of a fashion publication Betty is humiliated throughout the show cause of the way she looks and dresses up. I mean, personal choice naam ki cheez hai ya nahi? Why were our parents okay to let us watch these kinds of shows? It teaches nothing but to differentiate between the ugly and the beautiful and tells you constantly that if you’re ugly, you have to scrape by . The whole series revolves around Betty and her ugliness and how towards the end she is modified to fit in the society. The end has the word UGLY disappear from the title. Why? Because now she is all made up?
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
While we fell in love with the trio, there was a slight hiccup that I wish didn’t happen. Anjali was in love with her long time best friend Rahul, but because of her boyish personality, he only saw her as “bro”. Until the hot and happening Tina enters the picture. She is the perfect description of a “woman”. She wears short skirts, high heels, carries her handbag around, wears makeup, has long hair, and sings bhajans etc. Anjali tried her best to be like Tina to impress Rahul only to be ridiculed by the whole college. Basically, that was not enough. Anjali was supposed to grow her hair and look ladylike for Rahul to fall in love with her. Seriously? Kya hai yeh stereotype? First of all, the movie shows that Anajli needed a male to validate her beauty to feel beautiful, and second of all, never change yourself for toxic men. They are not worth it. And the worst part about the movie is that she left the nice guy for this idiot who didn’t even notice her in pants.
Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi
Fun Fact: both Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi and Ugly Betty were inspired by a Spanish/Italian TV show. Jassi wearing her glasses, braces, and salwar suit that are considered “aunty clothes” works in the fashion industry and is made fun of by her colleagues for her fashion choices and her appearance. That is just bullying. For the longest time her boss Armaan doesn’t notice her. He would flirt with her here and there and just use her as an asset in the long run. It did nothing but gave Jassi feelings for her boss only to have her heart broken by this jerk. At some point, Jassi comes across a guy who helps her get a makeover after which Armaan fall head-over-heels for her. Wah, bas isi ki kami thi. It genuinely makes me so angry that people actually think this way. It’s ridiculous how to some people beauty and looks are more important than their amazing personality. Why are we made to think that love cannot be found if you wear glasses, braces or whatever clothes you wear? Girl, love is out there, your crush ain’t shit.
Main Hoon Na
Sanjana is in love with her best friend Lucky who refuses to see past her flaw- her boyish personality. In fact, if you remember he also mentions that she is not his type because of her personality. Sanjana gets offended by that statement and goes to her teacher for help and requests her to turn her into a goddess of beauty like herself. Sushmita (the teacher) agrees and the next day Sanjana enters the college wearing body-hugging salwar suit, long straightened hair, makeup, and some jewellery. And bam Lucky falls for Sanjana. So all she needed was a straightener, a tailor and Sephora for her crush to fall in love with her? So basically a girl has to match the stereotype of the society, while a guy can grow his hair out and still look cool? The guy in question here is Zayed Khan and that hairstyle looks like it has seen better days. I mean, if I were in Sanjana’s place I would keep my self-respect and walk right past that asshole and never speak with him again. Clearly, that boy is all about the looks.
Insatiable
Last but not the least, I present to you the most disgusting TV show of 2018. The show stars our childhood favourite Debby Ryan. She is an obese girl who is bullied in high school for being that way and is called Fatty Patty. Don’t the kids have better things to do? Like maybe…study? Because she is obese nobody wants to be friends with her because apparently it is contagious and people want to be cautious. She has only one best friend with whom she spends most of her Friday nights because humari toh life he nahi hai. Until when she is in a grocery store and happens to come across her crush to whom she confesses her feelings. The guy is disgusted by her “appearance” and shuns her out. Patty sits across the store crying when a homeless man sits next to her and starts fat-shaming her and whatnot. So, she ends up punching him and he returns the punch. Now, since patty broke her jaw she has been on a liquid diet for 3 months, she is now thin as a stick. HOW? She decides to enter a pageant as revenge for everyone who bullied her. Fat shaming is a major problem worldwide. For the longest time, I was conscious of the way I looked because growing up I was told that being skinny is being beautiful otherwise you are a fat ugly piece of shit that nobody will marry. That’s absurd.
Nobody is ever satisfied enough with how women look. Either it’s too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too pretty, it’s just always too much of everything and we need to not let these things affect us. Embrace yourself and love yourself.
