Dove has sparked a furious debate after slamming the Oscar-winning film The Whale in a post on their official Twitter account.
The global consumer goods company, which is owned by Unilever, shared a controversial message asking for better representation in Hollywood in a clear jab at Brendan Fraser and the fat suit he wore in the 2022 hit drama movie.
“Stop giving fat suits awards. We want better representation in Hollywood. #LetsChangeBeauty,” the toiletries giant tweeted.
With this, Dove joins an influx of critics who lashed out at the movie’s producers for using a fat suit to portray an obese man addicted to food.
“Our identity is not your costume,” one angry viewer said.
“This needs to stop rather than be rewarded,” another insisted.
Plenty of the movie’s viewers, however, defended the idea saying there was nothing wrong with actors changing their appearance for the sake of their roles because “that’s what acting is.”
Defending the fat suit was also the movie’s director, Darren Aronofsky, who hit back at critics accusing him of promoting fatphobia.
“Actors have been using make-up since the beginning of acting—that’s one of their tools,” he said.
“The lengths we went to to portray the realism of the makeup has never been done before. One of my first calls after casting Brendan was to my makeup artist, Adrien Morot. I asked him, ‘Can we do something that’s realistic?’ Because if it’s going to look like a joke, then we shouldn’t do it.”
In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Aronofsky continued: “People with obesity are generally written as bad guys or as punchlines.point 256 |
We wanted to create a fully worked-out character who has bad parts about him and good parts about him; Charlie is very selfish, but he’s also full of love and is seeking forgiveness.point 152 | 1
“So [the controversy] makes no sense to me. Brendan Fraser is the right actor to play this role, and the film is an exercise in empathy.”
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