Michael Elliot is working on a new project, called “Project Plus-Size Movie Star.”
The award-winning writer known for penning romantic comedies like Just Wright and Brown Sugar announced in a new crowdfunding campaign that he was looking to break out of Hollywood’s stereotypes for casting women and to find a plus-size star for the role of romantic interest in his next film.
“The media, especially television and film, significantly affects how and what we think,” said Elliot. “By rarely ever seeing plus-size women as love interests in films, Hollywood is perpetuating a view that plus-size women aren’t desirable, sexy, or beautiful, and that they are unimportant. This is a message that needs to change, and this film – and hopefully the films that could be made as a direct result of it – will play a significant role in changing this message.”
He went on to say that he wanted to combat the idea that only the skinny women in movies deserved to “get the guy.”
“I believe that if this campaign reaches and exceeds its funding goal, it will send a message to Hollywood that there is tremendous support for films that feature plus-size women in starring roles,” he explained. “And should this film do well at the box office or in television ratings, Hollywood studios and networks will see the economic viability of films starring plus-size actresses, and fund more of them. More positive images of plus-size women in film will not only affect how women, including my own daughters, view themselves and how others – both men and women – view other women, but begin to destroy the longstanding Hollywood ideal of beauty that is neither realistic nor accurate.”