A re We Still Not Ready For A Mixed-Weight Romance On Screen?” This headline, referring to season three of the Netflix sensation Bridgerton , triggered a wave of fury and disbelief across the internet. “‘Mixed-weight relationships’ I hate it here,” tweeted one observer. “Can you please stick ‘mixed-weight romance’, as a concept, up your arse,” said another.
The Forbes piece was discussing the love story between Penelope Featherington (played by Nicola Coughlan ) and Colin Bridgerton (played by Luke Newton ), highlighting that some commenters online had branded the romance “unrealistic” – because Colin is thin, while Penelope is not. There’s been a bizarre fixation on the latter’s body type in general, ranging from a Guardian article calling her “a little bit fat and a lot hot” to a downright poisonous Spectator article that stated, as if it were fact, that Coughlan “is not hot” and that the idea of a “fat girl who wins the prince” wasn’t “remotely plausible”. First off, the inherent arrogance of presuming that any individual’s narrow idea of “hotness” should somehow be the benchmark beggars belief.
But what really irritates me about this tired viewpoint, aside from the staggering idea that anyone who doesn’t meet conventional Hollywood beauty standards couldn’t possibly be considered attractive enough to play a leading lady, is the double standard. While the Forbes article itself was in fact nuanced – it argued that th.
