The Iconic Sweep Her Off Her Feet Scene
& Other Not-So-Subtle Workings of White Heteropatriarchal Supremacy.
Written by Jolie Brownell
The last couple weeks I’ve seen this post make its way around Instagram that states “It’s okay to be bigger than your partner,” with an image of what I am assuming to be a heterosexual couple with a thicker/curvier woman and skinner man. This post comments on the ridiculous, yet pervasive, impacts of fatphobia, sexism, patriarchy, on society and our understanding of relational makeups.
Seeing this post immediately reminded me of the iconic movie scenes of a man swooping up a woman into his arms, sweeping her off her feet. These scenes are almost always followed by the iconic “Happy Ever After” narrations which if we’re being honest, has messed up all of our expectations of everlasting love. Anyway, what struck me about the parallels between this specific recurring movie scene and this Instagram post, is how much problematic shit is packed into one and unpacked in the other. How did we learn that a couple should consist of a man and a woman? How did we learn that the “ideal” is for the man to be taller/bigger than the woman (but not too much bigger)? How did women learn to aspire to be small/thin/light enough to be carried by a man? How do these very questions point back to fatphobia, sexism, heteropatriarchy, and other systems of oppression? Let’s discuss.
Disney Done Fucked Us All Up
First off, if any of your relationship ideals or expectations have come from any Disney movies, please head over to a therapist ASAP! Because these fiction-based expectations aren’t healthy for anybody...
From a very young age, most of us with access to movies/TV have been fed with the same repeating cartoon images of white/light skin, petite/thin, princesses and characters with painfully similar storylines. Yes, with an exception of Princess and the Frog (a Black girl who is mostly portrayed as a frog the whole movie), Mulan, Aladdin, and Pocahontas (cringe). Yet, even these princesses of color still conform to a very white-centric beauty standard: thin/petite/long hair/European features, etc. Moreover, even outside the cartoon world, live-action movies and shows have done little to nothing to diversify or steer away from these same character traits and relational demographics.
This is a problem because what is repeated is perpetuated, and when these images become the only representation we see, we begin to internalize these images and what they mean, subconsciously. They then morph and change our expectations for ourselves and our understandings of each other. In other words, when no other visual alternatives are given, this one image becomes the standard. We know this. We have seen this. This is how stereotypes are formed (Check out Chimamanda’s “Single Story”), this is how beauty standards are passed down, this is how systems of oppression seep into the very intimate dimensions of our lives.
Disney, of course, isn’t the only one to blame. Most forms of Media (e.i., magazines, music, videos, ads, etc.), reinforce standards of perfection and expectations that perpetuate oppressive systems.
‘Phobias and ‘Isms Go Hand-In-Hand
Disney has its share of the classic scene of “sweeping a girl off her feet,” many relationship movies do. And while I know this saying of “sweeping a girl off her feet” has become more of a metaphor in some circles, I want to talk about the physical visual of this scene. These scenes only “work” with a taller/bigger man and smaller and petite woman. I put quotations around “work,” because what that actually means is that our eyes have been culturally conditioned to perceive and understand this visual as acceptable and normal.
This iconic scene wouldn’t “work” if the guy were too short/weak, the girl too big/fat or tall, or if they were reversed (girl sweeping man off his feet). Visualize this. It would look awkward, no? …Or to be even more egregious, picture a same-sex couple doing this: a guy sweeping another guy off his feet or a woman sweeping another woman off her feet. How does that look? Next, put a multiracial couple in that scene and now you’ve pissed off the KKK. What about a man in a wheelchair or a couple with differabilities (different abilities)? Will it still “work”? Will it still look normal? Acceptable? Probably not.
This is why I find this iconic scene to be so problematic because it encapsulates all of our sexist, fatphobic, racist, and ableist stereotypes all into one. It has created a representation that is not only so incredibly exclusive, but has also made these scenes and these relationship makeups/demographics into an ideal that is white-thin-heterosexual-able-body-centric. As a result, those who form relationships outside of this ideal become othered and pushed to the margins. This, of course, is then legalized and condoned by our systems of oppression.
Diversify Your Relationship Ideals
Now, place this iconic movie scene next to the Instagram post from above and I hope you see how this post is doing the work of undoing the problematic narrative of the other. Because YES, of course, it should be okay for women or femmes to be bigger/fatter/taller than her their partner/s. It should be okay for relationships to look absolutely nothing like these white-thin-heterosexual-able-body-centric movie scene relationships and still be celebrated, uplifted, and freaking legal.
Yet, unfortunately for many, there is still a lot of anxiety (I mean racism, sexism, ableism, fatphobia, etc.) around dating and relationships in an attempt to recreate these ideal standards. So much so, that people have decided that they will not date an ENTIRE demographic of people just because it wouldn’t “work” or be visually or socially acceptable. So the real work then, is to disinvest from these white-thin-heterosexual-able-body-centric ideals and diversify our understandings of ourselves and our relations to each other. Check yourself. Check your ‘phobias and ‘ism, and decolonize other “ideals” and other problematic iconic movie scenes you may be trying to recreate in your own life.