The creator of ‘Love Really’ says the ‘fats’ jokes within the movie ‘are no longer humorous’
2 min read
Richard Curtis, director and screenwriter of breakout movies like ‘Love Really,’ ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary,’ and ‘Notting Hill,’ lately defined why he regrets utilizing “fats” jokes in his motion pictures – “These jokes are no longer humorous.”
UK of us and film watchers world wide are acquainted of Richard Curtis’ work, whether or not they realize it or not – he is the genius behind rom-com classics like Love Really, Bridget Jones’ Diary, and Notting Hill. So mainly, any film wherein Hugh Grant seems to be extraordinarily dreamy. We digress.
Not too long ago, Richard attended the Instances and Sunday Instances Cheltenham Literature Competition, which ran from 5 October to fifteen October, along with his daughter, Scarlett Curtis, who’s an activist and author.
In an interview that the father-daughter duo did collectively, Scarlett didn’t shrink back from the powerful questions, prompting her father to reply for a number of the selections he made in his movies concerning the therapy of girls, individuals of color, and physique picture points.
(Picture credit score: United Archives GmbH / Alamy Inventory Photograph)
“I feel as a result of I got here from a really un-diverse faculty and a bunch of college associates,” he stated in an audio recording obtained by TODAY. “(With) ‘Notting Hill,’ I feel that I held on to the range problem, to the sensation that I wouldn’t know the right way to write these elements.” Notting Hill, a 1999 movie, options an all-white solid, and is about in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood, which traditionally drew in Caribbean Immigrants till it was gentrified, in keeping with Historical past Workshop Journal.
“I feel I used to be simply kind of silly and fallacious about that,” he stated of selecting the placement for that movie.
As one additionally could recall, in Love Really and Bridget Jones’ Diary, two of the feminine leads in these movies (Natalie performed by Martine McCutcheon and Bridget performed by Renee Zellweger, respectively), are the topic of office discrimination primarily based on physique picture.
“I bear in mind how shocked I used to be like 5 years in the past when Scarlett stated to me, ‘You may by no means use the phrase fats once more,’” he stated, recalling an older dialog along with his daughter. “And wow, you had been proper.”
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
For instance, in Love Really, Natalie is chastised for her “tree trunk thighs” – and Renee Zellweger famously purposefully placed on weight to play Bridget Jones, though when she weighs herself within the film, she is 130 lb. (9.2 stone), which in fact is just not obese by any stretch of the creativeness.
“I feel I used to be behind, you already know, behind the curve, and people jokes aren’t any longer humorous, so I don’t really feel I used to be malicious on the time, however I feel I used to be unobservant and never as, you already know, as intelligent as I ought to have been,” he concluded.
