Beauty Trends

Michelle Buteau Doesn’t Care If You Don’t Like Her Body | Interview

If you want the main character to be the true star of your romantic comedy, the worst thing you can do is cast Michelle Buteau as the sidekick best friend or any other background character. While the protagonist is caught up in their feelings, Buteau’s character is busy stealing the scene — something you already know if you’ve ever seen Isn’t It Romantic, Always Be My Maybe, and Work It, or any of her other hit rom-coms.

It’s downright difficult to deny the woman’s presence; it’s striking both comedically and physically. Her unapologetic combination of boisterousness and bluntness is the perfect match for her freckle-dusted skin, bountiful curls, and curvy frame that she often drapes in bold colors, patterns, and sequins.  

That’s something Buteau does entirely on purpose — steal your attention from the plot of the movies she’s in. Because, as she tells Allure, Hollywood just loves to place limits on big girls and Black girls, and it’s her mission to give the world a whopping taste of what it’s missing out on.

“That’s what I tell my friends that complain about having three lines in a TV show or movie: Make those three lines pop,” she says. “Make them so big that everybody will be talking about that scene for the rest of the week. Bring people into your happiness because you can’t wait.”

In doing that, she intentionally discredits everyone who’s denied her respect because of her gender or race or body type. “You have to be the best because people will be so quick to write you off and be like, ‘Women aren’t funny or this, that, and the other,’ or ‘they’re just not smart and they don’t add anything,'” she says. “So be sure that you add something. Don’t take any moment for granted.”

Hers is a mentality we all ought to apply to life when things don’t exactly go our way, and that’s just one of many life lessons Buteau delves out in her new and first-ever book, Survival of the Thickest, a collection of personal essays touching on every facet of her life including more than a few dating disasters, when she went through IVF to have a baby via a surrogate, and growing up big in a world that demands women be small.  

She’s never considered herself above the role of the background BFF, by the way, even though it is frequently used as a diversity Band-Aid, reserved for Black and/or plus-size folks who must offer unwavering support to the thin, white leads. Buteau just considers these roles as resumé builders that, undoubtedly, will eventually close the gap between her and the roles she really wants to fill. 

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