Recently I saw a commercial for a new movie entitled “The Duff”, which, apparently, stands for “designated ugly fat friend”. Without even seeing the movie, this bothered me on so many levels. First off, they casted Mae Whitman to play the “duff”. But here’s on problem: May Whitman is neither ugly nor fat (both of which are subjective, primarily the former, followed only as it relates to health reasons regarding the latter).

So from the get go, the standards this movie is setting are ridiculous. To claim that she is the designated ugly, fat friend, implies explicitly that she is both. So as women, when we go to compare ourselves to other women, and now are being shown that the standard of fat is Mae Whitman, who is about as fat as a sloth is active, and furthermore we are reminded how absolutely disgustingly obese we must be if we are bigger than Mae (I’d venture to guess—knowing that the average size for an American woman is a size 14—that Mae is a size 4).

My understanding is that Mae Whitman was bullied in high school and the movie draws from her own experiences. While I respect her for taking on that role and starring in a movie that fights back against bullying (supposedly—again, I haven’t seen the film), I still feel that casting an attractive, thin actress to play an ugly, overweight individual is it’s own kind of bullying: It perpetuates the unattainable beauty standards that terrorize far too many women and girls (and in fairness, men and boys, too) in our country. It reiterates over and over again that those over a size four must be even uglier and thus less valuable than their size-four-and-below peers.

To Mae’s credit, in an interview by People Magazine, Mae reported that many have responded to her playing this role with comments like “you’re not ugly enough or fat enough to play that role”. And her response? “Who is?”. I like that Mae is thinking along the same lines as me on this…how can we and who in the world are we to tell an actress “Oh, hey you! Over there! You’re ugly and fat, come play this role!”.

While I respect Mae for giving voice to those who stand out and are being bullied, I wish there was another way to do it. A way that wasn’t so sensitive, so unfair, so in-your-face outright ridiculous. But this issue is bigger than Mae, it’s bigger than high school bullying and it’s certainly bigger than me. These are societal issues that seem to get more extreme as time goes by.

I have no intentions on rushing out to see “The Duff”, but what I do intend to do is to continue to do my part to help break down the impossible standards by lifting up those I’m lucky enough to work with every day. Those who have been bullied, been called “ugly” and “fat”, and help them help others not by becoming the opposite of what they’ve been called, but by helping them change how the see, not how they look.