12 Classic Movies That Got Away With Problematic Scenes

12. The Fat-Shaming - Love, Actually

Starting off with one that’s a little tame compared to some others here, but it still treats one of its most popular characters unnecessarily harshly.

Natalie, the sweet new employee of the Prime Minister is frequently fat shamed during the opening act. It would be unpleasant regardless of her size, but the fact actress Martine McCutcheon is just a regular sized woman makes it very strange too.

It’s like the script was written for her to be chubby, but they instead cast a woman with a pretty normal body shape but kept the mean jokes in there.

Except it wasn’t, because McCutcheon confirmed the role was written specifically for her. She added that the idea was supposed to be that she saw herself as flawed, but David sees her as perfect. It’s a cliched message anyway and doesn’t really land.

Mark’s obsession with Juliet (Andrew Lincoln and Kiera Knightley) could qualify here too, except that the movie didn’t really get away with it. The creepy, stalkerish tendencies of Mark and his insecure fake apathy towards Juliet are frequently brought up as being very weird. The film wants us to think it’s sweet, but it just plainly isn’t.