Why does Hollywood keep using Fat Suits?

Slender Courteney Cox portraying a plump teenage Monica Geller on “Friends” started the gag in ’90s Hollywood. Gwyneth Paltrow’s role in “Shallow Hal” kept the joke going. And this year, the bit exploded, as heavy-hitting actors donned fat suits to take on heavy-bodied roles. All along, real plus-sized people remain invisible.

Actress Emma Thompson, who has spoken out about Hollywood’s unrealistic body standards for women, took social media heat this summer after a photo went viral of her apparently in a fat suit, an image from the coming film adaptation of the stage musical version of “Matilda.” In July, audiences watched the muscular Chris Hemsworth work off his dad bod in “Thor: Love and Thunder.” And now a resurgent Brendan Fraser is making the rounds of the fall film festivals promoting “The Whale,” wherein he portrays a struggling 600-pound disabled gay man from under layers of prosthetics.

Other stars we’ve seen adding the padding, either real or manufactured, for a role include Sarah Paulson (“American Crime Story: Impeachment”), Colin Farrell (“The Batman”), Christian Bale (“Vice”) and Tyler Perry as Madea in numerous films.

When Hollywood productions tack on effects for actors to play plus-sized characters, the burning question lingers: Why doesn’t Hollywood simply hire big actors to play big characters?

The first answer that comes to mind is money: Movies need to turn a profit, and the surest way to generate ticket sales is to pump up the star power. So it’s no surprise that producers want bankable names to lead movies and shows.

But thanks to the entertainment industry’s history of avoiding plus-sized talent in leading (or most any) roles, very, very few have achieved that level of bankability. Yet if Hollywood took a chance on actors of bigger sizes, isn’t it possible enough of them could be elevated into an army of top-notch talent to choose from?

J. Kevin Thompson, a retired professor of psychology from the University of South Florida, has spent decades studying the images and perceptions of fat people in the media. While the early days of the fat suit in film may have served a practical (read: financial) purpose, he said in an email, more recent uses of it can prove psychologically damaging to both viewers and the actors themselves — and women, both onscreen and in the audience, can bear the brunt of the pain.

For men, the opportunity to pile on the pounds slowly is a distinct privilege. “You can’t shut a production down while your A-list actor eats his way through Italy for three months or so unless you are De Niro,” Thompson said via email, referring to the actor’s Oscar-winning turn in “Raging Bull” (1980). “Afterward, it became a badge to go all-out Method to gain the weight without the fat suit unless you were female.”

He added, “I’ve looked far and wide and can find maybe 10% of women who were allowed to actually gain the weight for films.” He pointed to Renée Zellweger, who gained at least 20 pounds for “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” or Charlize Theron, who said she put on 50 extra pounds for “Tully.”

Unlike male actors, Thompson added, women seemed destined for fat suits, made to add quick pounds in a matter of hours without regard for the impact on their psyche. He theorized that for actresses, becoming suddenly large could feel like a nightmare come to life.

While that theory relies on general psychology tenets surrounding things people fear, rather than formal research, Thompson said, “seeing oneself embodied as a fat person would likely cause intense anxiety (especially for actors, particularly female, who have spent much of their life managing appearance and weight as a job requirement).”

As for viewers, Thompson said, “I think it’s more likely girls and women who will see many triggers in women in media who are transformed via fat suits.”

As with “Friends,” fat suits too often are solely used as a gag — unrealistic looking (see Eddie Murphy in “The Nutty Professor”) to such a laughable degree that even in a drama, they induce giggles. For example, Tom Hanks has gotten some snickers for his obese Col. Tom Parker in “Elvis.” This only adds to the perception of fat people as something to laugh at.

In 2007, Thompson co-wrote an analysis of fat stigmatization in movies and television that affirmed that perception.

“These roles were most often associated with ‘humor,’ which, of course, might not be so funny if one were the butt of the joke,” he said of the study’s findings.

As the use of fat suits became more prominent this year, the public debate has grown more heated: Last month, HBO talk show host Bill Maher skewered the idea that only large-sized actors could play large-sized characters, supporting instead casting that doesn’t take race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or size into consideration.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.