Lori Falce: Why can't Hollywood find real fat people?

Feb. 17—I love Brendan Fraser.

Throughout the 1990s, I loved him in good movies like "School Ties" and "Gods and Monsters." I loved him in bad movies like "Encino Man" and "Dudley Do-Right." I flat out adored him in "The Mummy."

And so I was thrilled with the resurgence of his career over the last couple of years, and I would love to see him win an Oscar.

I might get to see that. He was nominated this year for Best Actor and already picked up a Golden Globe. But it will be bittersweet.

Because if he wins, he will win for something Hollywood loves to do — stick a famous person in a fat suit.

This isn't like when Gwyneth Paltrow donned one for "Shallow Hal" or when Eddie Murphy padded up to play most of the characters in "The Nutty Professor." It isn't mockery. Fraser is being honored for his portrayal of an actual obese person with a relevant storyline in "The Whale."

It's a movie about a man struggling with the relationships in his life — with his daughter, his friend, his students — and the way his weight sometimes complicates them and sometimes cuts them off completely. It is an emotional story and the character's size is integral to it.

That's the kind of visualization people like, isn't it? Bodies of all shapes and sizes and colors should be seen on our screens, shouldn't they? And stories that encompass those bodies are important. That's representation, right?

It would be — if it weren't for the fat suit.

A fat suit is exactly what it sounds like. It is a costume that an actor slips into to portray a character. It allows one to physically inhabit the body rather than simply crawling into the personality. More than that, it is an outward descriptor to the audience. They don't have to assume who this character is because they know. This is the fat character.

Fraser is just the latest of a line of actors I respect who have worn my identity as a fat person to great acclaim. Tom Hanks slipped into it to play Col. Tom Parker in "Elvis." Emma Thompson did the same for "Matilda the Musical." Renee Zellweger put it on for "The Thing About Pam." And those are just in the last year.

They are frequently part of the joke. They are how we make beautiful people unattractive. They are the easy way to make Tyler Perry or Martin Lawrence into not just a woman but a ridiculous woman — by making her fat.

But fat can be awards bait, whether it's asking a size 0 actress to gain enough weight to hide her ribs and thus suggest she is "plus size" or take a chiseled actor and stuff him in layers of latex and foam. It's the one time movie or television studios seem interested in acknowledging overweight people exist as something other than punchlines or villains.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. population is predominantly overweight with 41.9% categorized as obese. Fat actors are out there. Hollywood has just ignored them for so long, it can't seem to find them on the rare occasion it needs one. It would much rather treat fat people like monsters to be manufactured with makeup.

Fraser has struggled with weight in the wake of health problems in recent years. That puts him in a slightly different position than most fat pretenders. He isn't borrowing an identity, just augmenting it. That may make it easier to swallow if Fraser receives the trophy for putting on fatface.

That is what I'll cling to, much as I hate the more-than-skin-deep insult of a fat suit.

Because I really do love Brendan Fraser.

Lori Falce is a Tribune-Review community engagement editor. You can contact Lori at lfalce@triblive.com.