Nicola Coughlan says it is robust having good breasts.

The actress who performs Penelope Featherington in Season 3 of Netflix’s hit collection Bridgerton admitted as a lot throughout a Q&A in Dublin final week. A male member of the viewers had simply advised Coughlan he thought she was “very courageous for this function.”

Within the second half of the season, which comes out Thursday, Coughlan, like different feminine leads, will seem in compromising intercourse scenes. However not like the leads in Seasons 1 and a couple of of the racy drama set in Regency-era London, Coughlan has been the goal of comments and criticisms about her curvier physique.

And the viewers member’s remark was only one instance in an business the place ladies’s our bodies are nonetheless freely mentioned, criticized and shamed. 

“You realize, it’s onerous, as a result of I believe ladies with my physique sort — ladies with good breasts — we do not get to see ourselves on display screen sufficient,” Coughlan stated because the viewers cheered.

“I am very proud as a member of the right breasts neighborhood,” she added. “I hope you take pleasure in seeing them.”

There’s been lots of buzz in regards to the third season of Netflix’s steamy interval piece as fan-favourite character Penelope gets promoted from introverted observer to feminine lead. That transfer has been applauded by fans and critics alike for its body positivity, not simply by way of illustration of bigger physique varieties, however for exhibiting Penelope as romantic, fascinating and horny.

In a media panorama the place celebrities and characters are nonetheless usually fat-shamed, and bigger feminine characters are ceaselessly used for comic relief, many individuals online have stated they discover Coughlan’s portrayal in Bridgerton validating.

In a TikTok video with 6.6 million views, Ishioma Odinjor jokes about “feeling seen” after watching a scorching carriage scene. In one other video with seven million views, a TikTok consumer with the deal with Girl Kendra Bee thanks the show for portraying bigger characters gracefully and respectfully.

Diversifying the best way a feminine lead can look is a robust type of illustration for individuals who do not appear like a Hollywood starlet, which is most individuals, stated Shauna Pomerantz, a professor of kid and youth research at Brock College in St. Catharines, Ont., who research media, youth and popular culture.

“Penelope Featherington reveals that each one ladies will be horny and deserving of affection, but additionally that each one ladies will be sexual,” Pomerantz advised CBC Information.

There’s been a super of thinness portrayed within the media since in regards to the Sixties that ladies have felt they should attain, and never simply to be lovely, however to be valued, stated Amanda Ravary, an assistant professor of psychology at Bishop’s College in Sherbrooke, Que., who studies weight stigma.

“To really see anyone who does not match this very restrictive and unattainable skinny superb physique being really portrayed in a optimistic mild is simply extremely refreshing.”

The ‘humorous fats lady’ trope

However Pomerantz additionally says she would not see a wider, linear shift within the media panorama — not when most lead actresses nonetheless look a sure method, and when there’s a lot backlash when somebody who seems to be totally different is solid in a significant function.

“Despite efforts to cut back ‘fats shaming’ and diversify Hollywood … the trope across the horny, skinny feminine lead who deserves — and will get — love stays pretty constant.”

The best physique sort in Hollywood continues to be overwhelmingly one that’s skinny, in response to a 2022 report by The Representation Project, a U.S. advocacy group that seeks to finish stereotypes within the media. That report discovered solely 6.7 per cent of characters up to now decade’s hottest movies have been fats, and none of them have been in lead roles. (The report’s authors be aware that they use the phrase fats “as a result of it isn’t an insult.”) 

The numbers have been related in tv, the place solely 6.6 per cent of feminine leads have been fats, and, as in movie, have been extra prone to be portrayed as humorous or “silly.”

“Fats ladies characters are hardly ever portrayed as romantic pursuits and are ceaselessly handled as ‘sexually unappealing.’ They’re usually depicted as ‘sidekicks,’ and are used as ‘props towards which thinner ladies are in contrast, judged and valued,'” the report famous.

The “humorous fats lady” trope is used usually in common films and reveals, the place actors like Melissa McCarthy and Insurgent Wilson have been usually the goal of jokes. “Fats Monica” on the enduring Nineteen Nineties present Buddies is one other memorable instance, the place slender actor Courtney Cox would don a fats go well with for laughs.

Bigger characters will also be saddled with plotlines that centre round their dimension, like Chrissy Metz’s wrestle along with her weight on That is Us. Or they lose wright after which change into fascinating, one other common trope used, for instance, within the 2018 collection Insatiable. 

Spoilers for Half 1 of Season 3 beneath:

That is one trope London-based tradition and movie critic Leila Latif stated she’s grateful Bridgerton did not fall again on, regardless that, within the books that inspired the series, the Penelope character loses “two stone,” or about 28 kilos, earlier than Colin Bridgerton notices her.

Within the Netflix collection, though she does get a makeover that entails form-fitting clothes, together with sleeker hairstyles and make-up, Penelope’s dimension stays the identical.

“It is about her confidence, it is about the truth that she really believes, over the course of the collection, really discovers that being herself is a really compelling particular person,” Latif advised CBC Commotion in Might.

WATCH | CBC Commotion discusses Bridgerton: 

Feedback ‘disappointing and reductive’

Whereas there was extra of a shift not too long ago with curvier lead characters, there’s additionally been viewer backlash. Actress Reneé Rapp was criticized for her body within the latest remaking of Imply Women, Amy Schumer was accused of getting a “puffy face” whereas selling Season 2 of Life and Beth.

Final month, Irish singer and songwriter CMAT posted on X that “the BBC needed to flip feedback off a video of me acting at large weekend as a result of so many individuals have been calling me fats within the feedback.”

Coughlan, who shot to world fame taking part in Clare within the collection Derry Women, has beforehand requested individuals not to comment on her body, and to deal with her acting. 

However when the primary a part of Bridgerton Season 3 was launched, Coughlan was criticized on each social media (the place it was additionally debated whether or not she’s actually plus-sized) and conventional media, the place it acquired ugly in at the least one notable instance.

A columnist for the U.Ok.’s The Spectator wrote on Might 24 that “a zest for equality and variety (and on this case good performing) simply is not sufficient to make a fats lady who wins the prince remotely believable.”

“She’s not shapely — which may work as horny even in Hollywood; she’s fats.”

That article was widely lambasted, however the feedback about her physique have continued. Coughlan has referred to as the discourse “disappointing and reductive.” 

“It is insulting as a result of I labored onerous on this present; a yr of fittings and dance classes and capturing, I barely noticed my household, I gave it my absolute all. After which I begin doing press and all individuals need to discuss is my physique?” she advised Stylist.

‘Amazingly empowering’

The second half of Season 3, like earlier seasons, guarantees to be steamy.

Coughlan herself ensured it, in response to Stylist journal, as she pushed to look nude.

“There’s one scene the place I am very bare on digital camera, and that was my thought, my alternative,” she advised the journal.

“It was amazingly empowering.”

Lena Dunham, who wrote and starred in HBO’s Women (2012-2017), had the same response to the scathing criticisms about showcasing her bare physique within the collection, Pomerantz famous — she would simply seem bare extra usually.

This sort of superstar clap-back to weight-shaming messages has a optimistic impact on implicit weight bias in ladies, Ravary stated. And Coughlan’s remark about her “good breasts” in response to being referred to as courageous suits completely into that class, she added.

What Pomerantz stated she’d prefer to see is extra of a center floor, the place a curvy feminine lead is not hyper-sexualized by, say, having bigger breasts, however is “bigger, sexual, normalized, and in addition taken critically.” 

Nonetheless, she stated, “Penelope Featherington comes fairly near checking these bins.” 

WATCH | Why fat-shaming is counterproductive: 

Fats shaming is counterproductive

Attempting to get individuals to shed kilos by shaming them about their weight will not be efficient, and would possibly even do extra hurt