It's time for another movie rant. First, let me make it perfectly clear that I really like the movie Hairspray. I like the story, the music, the dancing, and the characters, as one dimensional as they may be (and hey, it's a musical...they're supposed to be one dimensional). None of those things are a problem.

"Then what's the big deal," you ask?

John Travolta.

Well, not so much John Travolta as the fact that they cast him as Edna (the lead's mother).


See, here's my beef. One of the main messages of the movie is loving yourself the way you are, and that big is beautiful. Yet the casting director saw fit to cast a man wearing a fat suit rather than an actual fat woman in what is a pretty big role (no pun intended). Would it have killed Hollywood to give the role of the large mama to an actual large mama?

I have some experience with the process of casting (albeit in local theater rather than big budget movies). And I'm here to tell you that it can be incredibly frustrating to be rejected for a role simply because one doesn't look right for the part. Now, considering the shortage of roles available for larger women in the first place I can't help but imagine how I'd feel if I was a plus sized actress learning about Mr. Travolta getting such a prime part. I'd be "cussing angry." Isn't it enough that larger women have to watch hundreds of parts go to the eating-disorder elite of Hollywood without watching the role practically made for them go not only to a man, but to a thin man?

I think that sucks.

What do you think?