Muriel’s Wedding- Toni Collette not fat

[Choppychop]

Im just watching the Aussie 90’s film Muriel’s Wedding and the character Muriel is constantly referred to as being fat. Throughout the movie. Fat fat fat. It’s a 90’s movie so I know times were different, and similar to Renee in Bridget Jones where we are supposed to see these ladies as fat. But (and I’m a slim woman) I just think she looks lovely and healthy and not fat in the slightest? Did people really think this character was fat at the time? It’s only 20 odd years ago. Great film by the way, if you haven’t seen it.

I don’t think thread is healthy for you. You are clearly overly obsessed with weight and the perception of fat. You seem to think fat means ugly too.

I’m not so sure about that. I remember there was a lot of obesity chat back then too

Brilliant film.

You're terrible Muriel was a catch phrase for a long time with friends...

Female friendship celebrated for once!

No not at all. I think Toni’s character is really pretty. I love this film and I’m on an Aussie film watch- the castle is fabulous! Australian movies are fantastic and under rated. Strictly ballroom and Priscilla queen of the desert are more brilliant Aussie movies.

Firstly, it's a film. No need to get all "big is beautiful" about it. Secondly, you're judging her based on today's weight standards - it was a different time back in the 90s and we didn't have an overweight population because people didn't condone or defend it. She wasn't morbidly obese, no, but she was overweight. The slippery slope we're on these days is all this condoning it and which in turn then allows people to get fatter with no shame or criticism. People never tell their friends that they've actually got bigger than they were because we don't want to offend them or they've let their guard down and sometimes, people might genuinely not realise that weight is gradually piling on, so you need friends to tell you the truth, not lie to you. Because it could be that you care and you are worried that a weight gain could affect their health as to being more worried you don't make them cry. Don't forget, clothes sizes have changed over the years to make fat people feel less shame about being fat so what was a size 8 back then is probably a size 4 now. I guarantee if she was skinny and they all called her skinny and stick-thin, you'd all agree that she'd ought to put some weight on and it wasn't a healthy weight - it only works one way. It's like there's defending being fat, but not being skinny. Notice how, back in the day, when people actually got shamed for being overweight, they'd nip it in the bud and slim down before it got out of hand? Now, we tiptoe around it and say "big is beautiful" and "you're not fat" (when some people really are and need to be told as such) and we've got an obesity epidemic. Clearly body-shaming wasn't a bad thing - it kept people in check of their own gluttonous ways and made them think about what they ate and how much they exercised. People now don't just magically have weight conditions that didn't exist back then yet thats always the defence, but all you hear is "oh they could have a medical condition". Could they? What, every single fat person? They've all got PCOS or an underactive thyroid? Every single one of them? It's a cop out. People just took more pride in their appearance. That's all.

This was a lot to read with very little punctuation

She is 5’8” so I doubt she is 48kg - that would be very underweight. She seems like unremarkable to me, healthy.

She’s quite tall so putting on about 3 stone on a slim frame in a short period of time would make her look unhealthily overweight.

Is this actually an "everyone-is-so-fat-these-days" thread in disguise?

One of my favourite films! Not fat at all

People aren’t staying fat because they don’t realise they are fat. Of course we don’t tell our friends.. You’ve put on weight ect because there’s no need, they are aware, to point it out is just cruel. If someone wants to lose weight most of us know how, shaming people achieves nothing.

Bridget isn’t meant to be fat. The joke is that she thinks she’s fat, but isn’t. The “joke” poking fun at 90s diet culture when Kate Moss heroin chic was the desirable figure. In the book she writes in her diary that she weighs 9 stone 7lbs, and she wants to lose 20lbs! Obviously it didn’t help matters that the actress they got to play her had to gain weight to reach that, further perpetuating the feeling that it was overweight.

She always struck me as sturdy rather than fat. It was hard to be strongly built back then. The other female lead is more traditionally dainty.

It was all about fine bones- slender, tall, willowy. Strong wasn’t an aspiration. She looks like she could wrangle livestock when necessary. That’s more accepted now.

She was quite fat. Especially by mid 1990s standards. When you look how small/thin the women were in Friends, you can't possibly say 'Muriel' wasn't quite fat.

As has been said, she did get slimmer towards the end of the film.

OP - from what you’ve said you are thin yourself and have body issues. Are you worried if you get to Toni’s weight in that film people will think you are fat?

Society has changed. Back then it was “thin or fat”, there’s much more understanding of healthy weights being a bit larger now.

Please don’t worry. No one looks at women the size of the actors in Muriel’s wedding or Bridget Jones and sees a fat woman now. And a big part of both films was poking fun at the attitudes to body shape then and were part of moving society on from those unhealthy times.

She does have excess fat in the movie. Bigger than Bridget Jones.

i just rewatched it too. I loved how everyone still had their own teeth. She apparently put on 25kg’s to play Muriel and, I remember thinking she looked big in the 90’s but watching now, no she looks delightful, so pretty and natural

The point is that she's not stick thin or rich & thinks that's what makes you worthwhile & 'fat' is all people see.

its on tv here regularly (in Australia) and it always makes me cry to see her finding her confidence & telling the bitches to F off.

I've been every size. Tiny (4-6 for a while, normal /healthy (8-10) and the large (14 ) thanks to steroids

I think we had very skewed thinking in the late 90s /early 2000s, with anything larger than anorexic being seen as fat

But we also seem to have skewed thinking now where we all have to pretend that large /chubby people aren't fat , even though objectively they are.

It's not a value judgement, just a fact.

She's definitely overweight in Muriel's Wedding

She put on weight for the part.

I think this is a linguistic issue as much as anything else. OP is taking fat to mean obese. I don’t think it does, even now. In the 80s-90s people used fat to mean ‘a bit chubby / podgy / gained a few pounds’.

Men with a little belly on a slim body would be teased as ‘getting fat’ as would women with a visible tummy. Obesity was rare in the UK in the 90s.

Fat was a more factual, less sensitive term, in everyday usage anyway. ‘You have a bit of visible fat on you’.

Of course it was also value-laden and the idealisation of excessive slenderness led to the present-day backlash whereby calling someone fat would be a cruel and terrible insult, so the word is only uttered in relation to really obese people.

She was what we used to call ‘on the plump side’. So certainly not slim.
I loved that film!

Alot more people smoked back then. Smoking is an appetite suppressent which is possibly a reason why more people could maintain a slimmer figure. Certainly not more healthy.

I have body dysmorphia so I guess I’m getting a skewed sense of things.

Yes your thoughts are skewed OP by your replies! You come across as obsessed by fat and that every overweight person must be ugly! I hope you are getting some mental health support for this?

Yes, she's definitely fat. I can say that as someone who was a similar size at the time and kind of identified with her.
I think sometimes we've lost sight of what being a normal, healthy size actually is now.