Hey Avengers 2- Are you worried your girl extras will be mistaken for The Hulk?

At some point, I’m guessing we’ve all wanted to be a film-star. We spend our childhoods in the dressing up box, pretending to be Disney Princesses or pirates, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- and most of the time, we’re not discriminated against. I was a chubby little kid but no-one ever told me I couldn’t be Esmerelda from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. (No one ever told my little brother either, he used to wear my gypsy dress even more than I did. Sorry, Will.)

As we grow up, real life sort of takes over, and, with the exception of our pals in Drama, by university most of us had replaced the film-star dream with more realistic aspirations such as teaching, shelf-stacking or long-term unemployment. Sometimes we might wistfully wonder ‘what if…’, and in my case, I spent my year as Chief-Editor of this very site swanning around campus pretending to be Miranda Priestley from The Devil Wears Prada.

Me. Definitely.

So when a real life film company came to UEA, to seek out extras for a new ‘family adventure’ film (pretty much accepted to be The Avengers Two: Age of Ultron), for many it seemed an opportunity to live the dream. Extra work, by most accounts, is gruelling, boring and widely unrecognised but who cares? You get to be on the silver screen, if just for a millisecond. We all get our 15 minutes of fame, and this could be yours.

Except, for a huge proportion of us women, we were told we weren’t suitable before we even made it into the swanky audition room (read: the LCR). Not because of our lack of acting ability, but because our bodies aren’t the right shape for the roles. Okay, that’s a bit of a euphemism. The audition posters asked for girls only of a size 10 or below. Which is basically, in my book, saying that anyone who is above a size 10 isn’t fit to be in a Hollywood picture as an extra, let alone a leading lady. And that’s pretty damn depressing.

The offending poster

There are people who will argue that it all comes down to budget- that the costumes have already been made, and they just need to find people to fit them. To which I say, what does that say about society- that pre-made, seemingly innocuous costumers will only fit those who are size 10 or under? That anyone bigger than that is abnormal? It’s worth pointing out also that there were no size restrictions for men, only height. Yes, they were told that they had to be physically fit- but who said that being a size 10 guarantees fitness prowess but being a size 14 would not? We’ve all got that one friend who is tiny but eats nothing but chips- who is to say she could run further than someone two stone heavier?

We are, finally, seeing the tiniest shift in Hollywood with regards to size. Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCartney are both excellent, hilarious role-models who prove that size should not be a barrier to success. Even women like Jennifer Lawrence and Lena Dunham, whom you would probably think of as average-sized if you passed them in the street, have spoken of the difficulties they have faced in the film industry, and how they refuse to let the fact that they are not size 8 deter them from their ambition. They are, quite rightly, defined not by their size but by their inner strength.

These lovely people are making us feel better about our bodies.

This strength has been personified this year on campus by the body-image activists of Operation Beautiful UEA, who have performed stunts both physically and on social media to make us all challenge concepts of what is beautiful (hint: it doesn’t always have to mean ‘skinny’). They have been roundly supported by our Union which has also made distinctly feminist steps this year in boycotting The Sun and implementing a Zero Tolerance to Sexual Harassment policy. So where were they yesterday, when they let a bunch of sizeist casting agents into the LCR? Surely holding an event which discriminates against thousands of its members just by virtue of their size goes against its values of equality?

A Union spokesperson told me ‘On reflection, we should be using our influence to challenge Hollywood’s assumptions on body image rather than allowing them to be reinforced. We fully support the work of movements such as Operation Beautiful and need to continue to celebrate the range of students across the campus for being who they are.’ So maybe they just didn’t read over the posters specifying the size of auditionees before the event.

So, if the Union isn’t going to challenge them, I guess I am. As a woman whose dress size has rocketed at university from a size 10/12 to a size 6/8 to a size 14 and back to a size 10/12 again… why does it matter? Judge me on my acting talent, or lack of it. Judge me not on my ability to pout and look perfect, but my ability to deliver a line.

Hollywood has its own standards. They’re changing, but not quickly enough. And the last place we want to see them is in our very own LCR at UEA. Because if we can’t look like messes in there… well, where can we?