Stranger Things and Riverdale's Shannon Purser has publicly condemned Hollywood for its lack of "fat actors."
The Emmy Award nominated actress went to Twitter this week to lay out her take on why there are so few plus-sized movie stars. "[Studios are] not hiring fat actors for iconic fat characters because they want a big name star," Purser wrote. "There are almost no fat big name stars because fat actors aren't allowed upward mobility. We aren't allowed upward mobility because the industry sees us as two-dimensional set pieces."
Purser's statement is a part of an ongoing discussion online about how the film and TV industries treat overweight characters. Netflix's upcoming adaptation of Matilda the Musical sees actress Emma Thompson wearing fat suit to portray the "hideous and evil" Miss Trunchbull, who is canonically fat in Roald Dahl's original book and its subsequent adaptations. The casting of Thompson has led to many people online expressing a desire to see plus-sized characters played by actual plus-sized actors as opposed to using prosthetics.
Following her breakout performance as Nancy Wheeler's mistreated best friend Barbara Holland in the first season of Stranger Things, Purser went on to appear in a recurring role as Ethel Muggs on Riverdale. It was recently announced that the Archie Comics adaptation's upcoming seventh season would be its last. While this new may have come as a surprise to fans of the show, Riverdale creator and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa recently revealed that he was not surprised by the series' cancelation. "It came out of conversations with the studio and The CW and [CEO] Mark Pedowitz," Aguirre-Sacasa said. "When we were renewed for Season 7, though we weren't told at the time it'd be our final season, I think we were all feeling that it might be. When Mark and I talked about it… it was bittersweet."
Although some fans felt Purser left Stranger Things too soon due to Barb's tragic death, teases for the remaining episodes of Season 4 of the series show that there some fates worse than death. "Having seen both those finale episodes, they are as emotional as they are cinematic," Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy recently teased. "Holy shit, they are definitely a treat for the eyes, but they punch you right in the heart."
Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 will be released on Netflix on July 1. Riverdale airs on The CW on Sundays at 8 p.m. (EST).
Source: Twitter
