Disney has debuted its first “plus-sized” heroine in a short film about an obese ballet dancer suffering from “body dysmorphia.”
The obese ballet dancer in Reflect will be the first time an overweight character is portrayed as a hero rather than as comedic relief or a villain.
Bianca, the plus-sized dancer, is said to be a figure “who battles her own reflection, overcoming doubt and fear by channeling her inner strength, grace and power.”
Disney has being pressed to broaden the breadth of its “princess” idea. And activists have requested that the firm visit the “body positivity” movement.
According to the article, in 2016, a prominent YouTuber urged that Disney develop a plus-sized princess and blasted Disney’s The Little Mermaid for making its Ursula character overweight.
Planned Parenthood also slammed Disney, insisting that the Mouse House create a princess who had an abortion.
Furthermore, in the short film Inner Workings, Disney was chastised last year for imposing “unrealistic beauty standards” on a female character. Except for her rear end, which was dramatically enlarged, the character was exceedingly slender.
Last year, actress Kelly Marie Tran revealed that Raya, the Asian Disney princess she portrayed in the film Raya and the Last Dragon, was gay.
However, the debate about depicting fat, overweight, or obese persons in a good manner continues. While many individuals wish to prevent “fat shaming,” others caution that normalizing plus-sized bodies promotes obesity and endangers people’s health.
For example, medical study from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom in 2018 revealed that normalizing “plus-sized” bodies had raised the risk of obesity.
Bill Maher, an HBO comedian and talk show presenter, has likewise attacked the trend of calling fat “beautiful.” He proposed in 2019 that the government humiliate overweight individuals since they are a burden on our healthcare system. And this year, he expressed concern that the term “fat celebration” is oversimplifying the obesity crisis.
Maher took to Twitter in August and wrote, “There’s a disturbing trend going on in America these days with rewriting science to fit ideology. We’ve gone from fat acceptance to fat celebration.”