The Spectator published a despicable article bodyshaming Nicola Coughlan

4 months ago 23
ARTICLE AD

In Bridgerton’s Season 3, Nicola Coughlan’s Penelope Featherington has the main “love story,” with Luke Newton’s Colin Bridgerton. Netflix has already released the first four episodes and they’re great. So far, these season is doing better with balancing all of the B-plots, because I’m still mad about how Eloise Bridgerton’s stupidity sucked up too much time and space in Season 2. I’m fine with the “Polin” love story because I love A) friends-to-lovers stories and B) stories about the quiet wallflower getting the guy. If anything, I think Nicola is killing it this season, while Luke Newton could… try harder at this acting thing. But I digress. Notice how none of my Bridgerton conversation is focused on Nicola’s size. That’s because I don’t give a sh-t – Nicola is gorgeous, she has a round face which makes her ageless, and she’s curvy-thicc with a nice rack. I find it entirely plausible that a guy would kiss her once and lose his mind and want to marry her immediately. Well, The Spectator’s Zoe Strimpel disagrees. Strimpel devoted an essay to bodyshaming Nicola and claiming that Nicola is “not hot.” Here’s the relevant portion:

…Not all vectors of marginalisation are created equal – at least where sexy scripts and trash romance television are concerned. The fact is, if you’re a casting director, you can fill your stage or screen with people of any sexuality, gender identity, age (within reason), ethnic background, religion, health status, psychological disorder (‘neurodiversity’) or even disability such as partial sight or hearing – and they can still look like perfect tens and thus plausible romantic leads.

And so the unspoken final frontier of oppression is also the most debilitating: not being hot. As the sociologist Catherine Hakim has written, ‘erotic capital’ is a key part of an individual’s ability to progress, impress and make money. It is certainly important if you want to have a lead romantic role in big American productions like Bridgerton. Attractive people, noted Hakim, have easier, more prosperous lives. Love and sex as well as money often come to them more easily than to the plain, old or chubby.

The only physical attribute that works against universal erotic capital in almost any context is fat. I should know, it takes one to know one. I blame my baby. But into that thorny bramble marches this season of Bridgerton, with podgy Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) as the star, finally attracting the tender gaze of perfect ten Colin Bridgerton, whom she has long loved and supported from a friendly yearning distance. Penelope’s frame is not generally named in Bridgerton’s world, but her bookish sexual marginality and apparent destiny to be unloved by Colin forever is clearly its result. Her life on a plump periphery of the svelte and beautiful is also the fuel behind her (spoiler alert) secret identity as the all-powerful gossip scribe Lady Whistledown.

Nicola Coughlan, one of the raunchy comic stars of Channel 4’s smash hit Derry Girls, is a lovely person to watch. She has an expressive face, and I always enjoy her trundling about shrubberies and across richly furnished rooms towards the nearest quill, or looking morosely on from the sidelines at grand balls.

But reader, she is not hot, and there is no escaping it, as I was reminded recently when she graced Harper’s Bazaar’s cover in a fabulous outfit that still did not change her not-hotness. Coughlan is an actress of great value, and might be adored, but she is simply not plausible as the friend who would catch the handsome rich aristocrat Colin Bridgerton’s eye in that way. She’s not shapely – which can work as sexy even in Hollywood; she’s fat. There’s nothing wrong with fat – it’s hardly a moral shortcoming – but a zest for equality and diversity (and in this case good acting) just isn’t enough to make a fat girl who wins the prince remotely plausible. In the cruel visual semantics of the screen, poor plump Penelope may be set up to win her man, but will she win her audience? The jury, dear reader, is out.

[From The Spectator]

This is disgusting. I can’t imagine being so hateful and vile as to write any of this down and wanting it be published. Of course it’s a woman writing this sh-t as well – she’s probably terribly offended that anyone would “believe” that a thicc girl gets action, or that BBW is desirable and even DESIRED in any context, even in a fictional world. This a–hole would be shocked by how many men love curvier women, or love a short woman with a pretty face and a great rack. Getting back to me criticism of Bridgerton… Nicola is the one bringing all the heat this season. Luke has always played Colin as priggish and oblivious. When I see them together, I’m always like… no, Penelope could do so much better!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Avalon Red and Netflix.

Read Entire Article
  3. The Spectator published a despicable article bodyshaming Nicola Coughlan

Related

Garth Brooks sues and publicly names rape accuser

Garth Brooks sues and publicly names rape accuser

UPDATE: Chrisean Rock Reportedly Makes Legal Filing In Response To James Wright Chanel’s Lawsuit Accusing Her Of Assault

UPDATE: Chrisean Rock Reportedly Makes Legal Filing In Response To James Wright Chanel’s Lawsuit Accusing Her Of Assault

October Prime Day deals on Oprah’s ‘Favorite Things’ start as low as $15

October Prime Day deals on Oprah’s ‘Favorite Things’ start as low as $15

LEFT SIDEBAR AD

Hidden in mobile, Best for skyscrapers.