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Plus-size actress Siyasanga Papu has shared the challenges that women like her must face to be taken seriously in the industry, but she is glad that things are slowly changing.
The actress plays the lead role of Pretty in Mzansi Magic Gomorrah.
Speaking to TshisaLIVE recently, Siya said that older girls are usually given the comedy roles, “she’s only here for the laughs” and she was glad that Gomorrah she looked beyond her size to cast her in a role that suited her acting skills.
“That aspect of my career has been a much more difficult element to tackle in this industry. People go into castings maybe with a certain appearance in mind, and you (as the plus-size actress) have the added work of making them wonder, ‘Are we really looking for a skinny person or a person who really brings this to the role and tell the story?’.”
“It has taken us a while to get to a place where a full-figure woman like me can be part of the main cast of a great soap opera. Just a couple of years ago, that was unheard of. “
Siya said productions that overlooked actresses because “we didn’t imagine her that size” needed to rethink their approach to casting. She explained that the mindset often resulted in an unrelated narrative for the audience.
“It’s really unfortunate, because we see stories that sound familiar to us but never seem familiar to us. These women who fill our screens, we often don’t even relate to them because we don’t see ourselves on them.
“My argument has always been: in South Africa we have a lot of full-figure women, if we don’t have predominantly full-figure women, why should my story as a full-figure woman be told by a woman who is smaller? size than me because apparently it looks better? ” she asked.
