In my mind, every single female character I've written is plus-size.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
With 'America's Next Top Model,' I've always cast girls who the industry might call 'plus size' but I like to call 'fiercely real.' That was always important to me.
Plus-sized women shouldn't think of themselves as a size. They should think of themselves as women with rich goals in life. Size doesn't mean, really, anything. You can carry your size with pride and dress in a way that you like.
I write characters. Some of those characters are women.
As a writer, as much as I try, I can't stop writing female characters. They have so much more to offer; they have to wear so many different hats. There's so much wonderful gray matter in a female's life that it just makes for a stronger character.
At the end of the day, it just means 'curvy.' That's why I think the word 'plus-size' in the industry is very different from people's mind view of what 'plus-size' really should mean.
I like my male characters as much my female characters, but I always seem to have less for them to say.
People have this conception of plus size models as girls who aren't fit or don't work out or don't really take care of their bodies.
Male authors always take care to make their heroes at least one inch taller than they are, and considerably more muscular. Just as female authors give their heroines better hair and slimmer thighs.
I didn't even know I was considered plus-size until I was on the red carpet here in L.A. one day and a lady said, 'How do you feel about being a plus-sized girl in Hollywood?' I was like, 'What's she talking about?'
I don't want to use the term 'plus-size,' because, to me, what the hell is that? It just doesn't have a positive connotation to it. I tend to not use it.