Could you list of the complete urls of your community sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook
page or twitter feed?

I’d forgotten that the book version of Myrtle is meant to be overweight/heavy-set; you’re quite right. Retaining it would have been a more faithful nod to the adaptation – but I’m not sure that ‘sole fat character in film is the one who ends up beaten by her husband and run over by ultra-thin wife of lover, body flying through the air, n.b. ultra-thin wife is the one who survives’ was, or would be a particularly great message, either. Plus, since the vast majority of cinema-goers worldwide will engage with the film in lieu of the book, or ahead of reading the book, or with only minimal knowledge of the book (I don’t think this matters; I’m just pointing out probabilities), I don’t think that image would have registered as an instance of textual fidelity so much as an image of the only visibly larger woman in the film ending up gorily dead whilst people rush to protect the thin little blonde girl, in a world where there will be no retribution.

This isn’t to say that I think it was a moral good of Luhrmann to change Myrtle’s weight in the casting, because I don’t. I just don’t see Fitzgerald’s depiction of [the mistress who gets brutalised, then killed] as fat as a morally good or fat-positive gesture in the first place. But you’ve reminded me of a detail I’d forgotten, and complicated my thinking, so – thanks.

I’d also contest that film!Myrtle is not an improvement on book!Myrtle, purely because Luhrmann erased the fact that she’s meant to be heavy-set. Way to keep on perpetuating society’s image of ‘attractive = thin”, Lurhmann.