For a minute there it looked like the culture was on track to be done with fat-shaming forever. Then came the Ozempic wave, and it’s looking like we’re headed for a horrible renaissance of body-shaming, fatphobic takes, and general regression to the cultural landscape of 2004.
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If you haven’t been online lately and somehow needed more proof, look no further than Omar Apollo‘s comments in an Interview magazine feature about being shamed into shedding 20 pounds ahead of his film debut in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer.
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“I saw a tweet that called me ‘fat skinny’ or some sh*t,” Apollo said, noting that in the script, his character was written as having a “flat brown stomach.”
Which begs the question…why are we still including character descriptions about the size of peoples’ stomachs in scripts?
The Ozempification wave certainly started after filming on Queer wrapped, but it still says a lot that after a brief moment of body positivity, we’re already back to body-shaming people for being anything but stick-thin.
It should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: there’s no reason for anyone to be commenting on anyone else’s body in this way, and the fact that we’re still comfortable judging people publicly for weight gain (while praising others for weight loss) speaks volumes about the dark age we’re headed into.
Omar Apollo is beautiful at any weight, and it’s sad that he felt shamed into crash-dieting for a role. It’s nothing new, and it’s something that will keep happening, but the least we can do is point out how messed up it is.
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