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The Fat Modern Mammy is often paired with thin, attractive white actresses who are much younger than her. Make no mistake, the casting directors do this on purpose. Their intent is to elevate white womanhood at all costs.
Before you all accuse me of being fatphobic, I believe that fat Black women deserve media representation. But not next to thin white/non-Black women. It's too reminiscent of Gone With the Wind:
Obesity is killing Black women. That's a fact. My mother is obese and pre-diabetic and I worry about her every single day. This trope glorifies our community's epidemic for the sake of white supremacy.
Even "woke" shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a show I enjoy, fall into the trope of casting a thin biracial woman as a real person and a mono-racial fat Black woman as a mammy.
Sex Education does this too, despite being generally pretty "woke":
Actresses like Sherri Shepard and Octavia Spencer basically make a living off of this trope. They're usually cast as fat, sassy, angry Black women opposite white women who are thin, kind, and "just trying their best".
Of course, some shows actually understand that it's racist to cast a Fat Modern Mammy, like 13 Reasons Why and Riverdale. But note that the thin, beautiful "Black" women these shows DO cast are actually biracial, not Black.
