Vogue is slammed after writer demands fatter characters in best-selling novel
Vogue is being criticized for demanding more representation of fat characters in Sally Rooneys novels - with many calling the notion hypocritical for the fashion publication.
Vogue is being criticized for demanding more representation of fat characters in Sally Rooneys novels - with many calling the notion hypocritical for the fashion publication.
The Irish author has been making literary strides worldwide for her popular novels, including Conversations With Friends, Normal People and her latest piece of work Intermezzo which is an Amazon best seller.
A Vogue opinion piece by Emma Specter published on Tuesday criticized Rooneys story-telling - specifically questioning the beloved characters she creates and their body shape.
Under the headline Why are all the characters in Sally Rooneys novels so thin? she wrote: There is something about the emphatic physicality of Rooney’s characters that makes you wonder whether a fat Rooney heroine could ever exist.
A recent Vogue article slammed famous Irish author Sally Rooney (pictured) for only writing skinny characters
Rooneys latest piece of work Intermezzo was released on September 24 and is an Amazon best seller
Specter discussed the narrative that Rooney puts out with her work, questioning why her three novels each described the sought-after character as one of bones of all kinds.
She cites that Normal People character Marianne is written as a girl wearing a dress cut low at the front, showing her pale collarbones like two white hyphens, the Vogue article states.
In the novel Conversations With Friends, Frances is introduced as a character who looks in the mirror and notes how her bones still jutted out unattractively on either side of my pelvis.
Rooneys female protagonists mope wanly, swoon with hunger and tremble during sex, while the men respond almost fetishistically to their slight forms and perceived weakness, Specter said.
Just what is Rooney communicating with her recurring descriptions of a certain kind of body?
Emma Specter (pictured) is a writer for Vogue. She penned the opinion piece Why are all the characters in Sally Rooneys novels so thin?
Readers were quick to snap back - noting that an article centered around the idea that there are too many thin people was highly hypocritical - especially for Vogue.
Consider a reversal: If a magazine populated its pages with a similar number of fat models, that stylistic choice would be interrogated in a way that Vogue is not, one person said.
Not interested in Rooney or her novels, but sorry, this is VOGUE, of all publications, complaining about an excessive number of thin women, another said.
Others noted that an author has the freedom to write about whatever they please.
Normal People character Frances - played by Alison Oliver in the TV show - is written to have a jutting pelvis
Vogue writer Emma Specter cited that Normal People character Marianne - played by Daisy Edgar-Jones in the TV adaptation - is described as having detruding collarbones
Why should an author be obliged to represent any particular social demographic in his or her novels? Its the authors prerogative to invent whichever characters he or she chooses, one person said.
I think part of it as a thin woman herself, maybe it is difficult for her to write for others and therefore writes from her own perspective, but hey, we cant tell it to them, another said.
Its an annoying element of this "validate me" culture. "Why are all her female leads the same upper middle class waifish women? Does this suggest fat people arent capable of the same depth of feeling?" Like... no? Thats just what she is and what interests her, said a third person.
