that Hollywood phenomenon where a new, plus-sized actress breaks out as a star, is praised for challenging body image prejudices, and then subsequently feels the pressure to lose a bunch of weight

I feel like this happens every few years and it's always depressing

Camryn Manheim
Melissa McCarthy

I'm sure there's lots more

Jennifer Hudson

Rebel Wilson

Seth rogen

haha was talking actresses but if you wanna bring the bromancers into it then academy award nominee Jonah Hill (from Moneyball) is a better example than Rogen. I mean:

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/24500000/Grandma-s-Boy-jonah-hill-24570608-853-480.jpg

Rikki Lake

http://www.auditionsfree.com/content/user/2015/03/jonah-hill-movie2.jpg

wait, nevermind...

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/ad_167517382.jpg

ah Rikki Lake for sure yes!

trying to think what the earliest instance of this is (Mae West? did she drop a bunch of weight at some point?)

I don't think so. Mae West was zaftig, still an acceptable body type for performers in those days.

Sara Rue (TV star)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/9e/70/02/9e70022e9d49fc9d06a32318a43da352.jpg

50 pounds later.

http://img2-1.timeinc.net/people/i/2011/news/110418/sara-rue-2-300.jpg

I don't think so. Mae West was zaftig, still an acceptable body type for performers in those days.

were larger ladies just relegated entirely to bit parts/secondary roles from the 30s-60s? I'm struggling to think of exceptions. Granted Americans back then weren't on the whole as fat as they are now.

Actresses back then weren't on the whole as emaciated as they are now.

so is this just a thing that happened from the 80s onward?

After the early 1960s, when Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield types were still the archetypal beauties, Twiggy seems to have started the ball rolling toward emaciation, even though she was a model rather than an actress.

yeah the phenomenon I'm talking about kinda requires the emaciated ideal to be in place, that has to be the baseline standard, which was not really the case prior to the 60s

"emaciated," really? i'd say the desired body type now is "slim," maybe a bit athletic. the ideal is far from "emaciated."

Twiggy in her heyday definitely deserved the description "emaciated":
http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/7000000/Twiggy-the-model-the-60s-7053122-273-403.jpg

right but to describe the current crop of starlets as "emaciated" is wrong and not a little bit cruel