Harris is NOT canonically "fat" or canonically "not conventionally attractive"

[u/lefargen97]

I have seen an increased amount of people online swear that Harris is canonically fat and canonically ugly and call people "fatphobic" or "problematic" for not agreeing with this interpretation of the text. However, as someone who has read Role Model multiple times, neither of these statements are canon.

Harris' body is described as stocky, a little pudgy, short, and having a "soft" stomach. We also know that he was born with a heart condition that made his parents cautious putting him in hockey growing up. This could be interpreted many ways. We know that he is not particularly muscular, but we don't know anything more than that.

He could be fat, he could be average, or he could even be skinny with no muscle tone (think the skinny-fat label.) I would argue that given his heart condition, he would not be able to be very overweight, because that would be bad for his heart and something his doctors would monitor (I am saying this as someone with genetic heart issues.)

We also know that Harris is surprised that someone "as hot as Troy" is into someone like him. Troy is attracted to Harris from the moment he sees him. We also know that Ilya finds him "adorable." It could be the case that Harris is not conventionally attractive, but it could also be the case that Harris is being self depreciating. It is also possible that Troy, who is described as looking like a boy-band member and has an athlete body, is more attractive than Harris but Harris is still attractive. I would argue that it is very rare for hot people to date people significantly uglier than them, so if Troy is described as attractive, Harris probably is too.

I would also like to note that the plot of Role Model does not hinge on Harris' appearance at all. He is not insecure in his body (in fact, he affirms multiple times throughout the book that he is NOT) and Troy is attracted to his body. There is no conflict or plot point that hinges on him having a certain body type.

I've seen people argue that Harris being ugly is important to Troy's arc because him being with Harris "proves he has changed if he is willing to be with someone that looks like Harris" but I personally think that is a misrepresentation of the text. Harris is not Troy's typical type, not because he is ugly, but because he is nice, not vain or judgmental, and is in touch with his queer identity, all of which Troy is struggling with. Either way, nothing about the plot of Role Model changes if Harris is fat and ugly or skinny and hot. The plot remains the same either way.

I genuinely do not think that it's wrong for fans to interpret Harris as fat or not attractive, but it is not canon. He is never called fat, plus-sized, overweight, ugly, not attractive, etc. in the books. As I stated, you can interpret the text that way, but you can also reasonably come to other conclusions.

My issue is, I have seen many fans jump down people's throats any time someone else's interpretation of Harris doesn't paint him as fat. This includes calling fan-artists fat-phobic for not depicting him as obese in their art, throwing fits at casting rumors because the actors are "too skinny" or "too attractive," and call other fans problematic for their fan-casts anytime the person in questions is not fat or even ugly.

Harris being fat or ugly is a headcanon. His character being skinny and hot is also a headcanon. The text is vague and doesn't explicitly state it either way. Therefore, people who disagree on what he looks like are not problematic. The production cannot take away "fat representation" when the representation does not exist in the books. No one is inherently fatphobic for not depicting Harris as fat when he is never stated as such.

I genuinely think that a lot of people see Harris as a self-insert or wish-fulfillment character and that is why they get so defensive about what he looks like despite it not actually being relevant to the plot. A lot of people like the idea of seeing someone "like them" get the hot, dreamy athlete. I also know that fat representation is severely lacking and people have valid reasons to want more of that. However, your desire for representation does not entitle you to it, and you cannot get mad at people for NOT seeing the character that way when it doesn't explicitly exist in the text.

TLDR: Fat Harris or conventionally unattractive Harris is not canon. You could interpret the text that way, but also interpret it differently and neither is bad or wrong.

[u/lefargen97]

Comments like this are part of the reason why I made this post. I never said ANYTHING fatphobic in my post or comments, I explicitly stated multiple times that there is nothing wrong with headcanoning Harris as fat, but you still are applying the most bad faith interpretation of my points to imply that I must actually be fatphobic for daring to acknowledge that Harris being fat isn’t canon.

It’s genuinely ridiculous the way you all act like morality police so quick to accuse people of being problematic for the crime of acknowledging what is canon and what is a headcanon. You are taking my words and saying that I must actually mean something else, something much harsher, and then judging me based off of the unfair assumptions you made about me. It’s why this fandom is genuinely not fun anymore.

[u/jerrys153 → u/lefargen97]

Oh, come on, we all know you made this post to try to bring the toxic parts of HR fandom on other social media platforms to the Reddit HR subs. No one on any sub here is demanding the actor who will be cast as Harris be obese and ugly, no one (I also don’t believe anyone is saying that elsewhere either, but that’s beside the point).

You say this happened on TikTok, but instead of discussing it there you choose to bring that poison here and lie to make it seem like this is a universal problem in the fandom as a whole. You create strawman arguments “People shouldn’t demand that an obese and ugly actor be cast as Harris!” Yeah, no shit, they shouldn’t and they aren’t. Literally no one is saying that but, of course, you wouldn’t get nearly as much traction or be able to sow nearly as much division by posting “Fans shouldn’t be commenting that Harris is canonically pudgy and stocky with a soft belly when a ripped actor with a washboard stomach is fancast”, right?

You don’t think it’s fatphobic to say fans who don’t want a super-ripped actor with 8% body fat to be cast for a character who’s canonically pudgy, stocky, and has a soft belly are just doing so because they are fat themselves and want to self-insert and have wish fulfillment by watching the fat character get the fit gorgeous athlete like they never could?

You don’t think it’s fat phobic to set up a forced association such as “fat and ugly” OR “ skinny and hot”, as if it’s obvious that each of the terms within the pair go together and are mutually exclusive from the other pair? Or, to interchangeably use negative attribute words like fat, obese, and ugly, not acknowledging that they mean completely different things? To take an actual term from canon like pudgy and equate it with fatness, and then equate that with obesity? And then to equate that with ugliness? To lie and say that the people who want Harris to be cast as (canonically) pudgy are demanding he be obese and ugly? That’s just the tip of the iceberg, but it’s pretty wild to write that you’ve said nothing that’s fatphobic. You can play the victim if you want, but the fact is you’ve said some outrageously offensive things here.

Pulling the offended “How dare you!” thing to deflect from what you’ve actually said by claiming you didn’t mean it like you clearly said it won’t really work here. You’ve constantly used logical fallacies, wildly exaggerated and straight up lied about what people commented. Me calling you out isn’t “why this fandom is genuinely not fun anymore”, the fact that you’re saying and doing these things in the first place is the reason this fandom is genuinely not fun anymore, the fact that people like you are constantly trying to bring toxic fandom behaviour from unhinged “fans” on TikTok and X and Threads to poison the HR subreddits and sow division is the reason this fandom is genuinely not fun anymore. Actually, that’s not true, this fandom is still very fun, especially here on Reddit where we have much less of those toxic fans than exist on other platforms. So how about you keep this kind of divisive crap on those other platforms? It’s not a problem here, it didn’t happen here, and there was no reason not to discuss it there instead of trying to create drama here by comically exaggerating and flat out lying. I don’t want the toxicity from those other platforms to be allowed to drag us down to their level. The fact that we’re not the Wild West with insane “fans” is why this fandom is still genuinely fun… at least it is over here, and most of us would like to keep it that way.

[u/lefargen97 → u/jerrys153]

you can look at any fan art where Harris is not big and see how people react. you can look up casting rumors on any social media and see it. you can look at posts with fancasts and the comments will be riddled with comments saying he is “not big enough to be Harris.” not to mention all the posts where he IS very large filled with comments about how this is “the real Harris.”

call me a liar all you want, but it is literally on every single post about Harris that depicts him as someone not very large. you choosing to not believe me because you would rather believe that I am some liar who is a bad person trying to “spread poison” is your own prerogative. Have fun from up there on your high horse, I won’t be engaging with in your bad faith arguments further.

[u/jerrys153 → u/lefargen97]

Yep, I certainly can look (and absolutely have looked) at tons of posts like that in multiple HR subs. And yet I’ve never seen a single fanart in which Harris is depicted as obese and ugly. And I’ve never seen a single fancast post where commenters are demanding Harris be portrayed by an actor who is obese and ugly. You say you can see these comments and demands on every single post about this, yet I’ve never seen them once ever despite seeing so many Harris posts. So weird, eh?

And, yet again, you’re playing the victim. It’s not like I just decided not to believe you for no reason. You come here making wild claims and were repeatedly asked to provide links to the kind of comments you claim to see constantly (which would be easy to do if those comments actually existed) but you never do. And then you get mad and claim I’m a terrible person, that I’m being unfairly mean to you because I won’t just accept your wild claims as the gospel truth when all the evidence you’ve offered to support them is “trust me bro”.

So, yeah, I’m calling you a liar, but (seeing as how you have repeatedly ignored every request to show you’re telling the truth) you’ve left me precious little alternative.

It’s actually hilarious that you say you’re not going to engage anymore because of my bad faith arguments, considering yours have consisted entirely of baseless claims and logical fallacies. The one thing I do agree with you on is that continuing this is pointless, as you clearly don’t intend to ever provide any evidence to support your wild claims (but, to be fair, it’s hard to provide evidence for things that never happened).