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‘Empire’s’ Gabourey Sidibe Fat Shamed Over Sex Scene

By Niki Cruz
Published on: 06:31 PST, Nov 6, 2015

This past episode of Empire showed Gabourey Sidibe’s character Becky having a hot and heavy moment with MC J Poppa (Mo McRae). It was nice to see Sidibe’s character involved in her own storyline instead of on the outskirts of a major character’s own story.

That said, some fans of Empire were bothered to see a full figured woman getting it on with MC J Poppa, which resorted to all kinds of fat shaming of Gabourey Sidibe via social media.

On Twitter Becky’s suggestive love scene with MC J Poppa was the main talking point of the episode, but, unfortunately, many of the messages were negative, taking on the tone of fat shaming the actress and the character.

These tweets take on the meaning that a full-figured woman like Sidibe doesn’t deserve love over someone who is considered “normal” in society (aka a size two or a four). The phrase “can’t even get a text back” more than implies that it’s unfathomable for some people to imagine a woman like Becky getting love if they can’t even get love themselves. Especially when the man in question giving love to Becky is someone as good looking at J Poppa.

This is why we rarely see people like Sidibe portrayed on prime-time television as sexual beings. Instead, they are the people who are there for comedic relief, the side characters that linger in the background, whose stories are never told. This is why Empire’s episode was received loud and clear.

Sidibe has spoken out about fat shaming in the past, but it’s actress Viola Davis who touched on how dark-skinned woman are usually portrayed on television. The How to Get Away with Murder actress emphasized that playing her character was appealing because it sexualized a woman of her hue, which is a role that would usually go to the Kerry Washingtons or Halle Berrys of the black community. Showing someone like Sidibe’s Becky own her sexuality is another positive step in how African-American women are portrayed on television.

Actress Gabourey Sidibe is no stranger to feeling ashamed for her full figure. In fact, she has defended herself time and time again. Most recently, she took issue with video queen Nicole Arbour’s YouTube video that fat shamed people and blamed obesity on laziness.

This time around, she took a different approach, boasting that her busy work schedule, now that she’s been bumped to series regular on the show, is the reason that she’s not checking Twitter for haters.

Getting ahead of the hate, the actress blogged about her experience filming the love scene on Empire. In a feature on Entertainment Weekly, the actress wrote, “Also, yes. I, a plus sized, dark-skinned woman, had a love scene on primetime television. I had the most fun ever filming that scene even though I was nervous. But I felt sexy and beautiful and I felt like I was doing a good job. I’m very proud of the work we all did to make that scene a great opening for the episode. I keep hearing that people are “hating” on it. I’m not sure how anyone could hate on love but that’s okay. You may have your memes. Honestly, I’m at work too busy to check Twitter anyway. #Booked. Hope you enjoy next week’s show!”

What do you think about the fat shaming that’s currently going on?

[Image via FOX]

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