Emma Thompson has been cast as Miss Trunchbull in Netflix’s No Time to Die's Lashana Lynch as Miss Honey, and Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, alongside Thompson in the much-discussed part of Miss Trunchbull.
Matilda tells the story of Matilda Wormwood, a smart young girl who discovers she has telekinetic powers. Neglected by her family, she connects with her school teacher, Miss Honey, who is also her one refuge in a school run by the evil Miss Trunchbull. Emma Thompson’s principal character is an ex-hammer-thrower, strict rule abider, and big child-hater. Throughout the story, Miss Trunchbull punishes the children in extreme ways, including locking them in a dark closet called "The Chokey," forcing them to eat a large chocolate cake, and twirling them around by their hair on the playground.
Matilda’s family is ignorant of her gifts and do neglect her, but Miss Trunchbull is the real villain of the story. Miss Trunchbull — who was originally meant to be played by Voldemort actor Ralph Fiennes — is a villainous character who contrasts sharply with the beloved Miss Honey in her demeanor and her appearance. An ex-Olympian, Miss Trunchbull has an exaggerated physique, with a larger build and masculine features (the character is usually played by a male on stage, in line with British pantomime style). Miss Honey, on the other hand, is often portrayed by a slim, more feminine actor.
Why Emma Thompson's Trunchbull Is Controversial
Emma Thompson’s casting in Matilda has sparked controversy because of the use of a bodysuit to give her an athletic but cartoonish figure as Miss Trunchbull. Images and trailer footage of Thompson also show her to be in heavy prosthetics for her transformation into the character. The use of a bodysuit, in particular, has brought in a lot of criticism online for various ways such items affect both audiences and other actors, as with the case of Linda Tripp's fat suit in American Crime Story.
Fat suits encourage workplace discrimination, as a lot of plus-size performers lose out on acting roles due to slimmer actors using bodysuits. In the 1996 film version of Matilda, Miss Trunchbull actor Pam Ferris also wore a fat suit; however, Ferris was naturally overweight and the suit was meant to accentuate her features as opposed to completely changing how she looked. Still, that first film adaptation received the same criticism of fatphobia that Thompson is receiving now. The issue is that actors put in fat suits are typically playing characters who are evil or the butt of the joke. Friends' "fat Monica" portrayal is problematic now because the character was constantly made fun of for being overweight as a child, and Courtney Cox often donned a fat suit to visually encourage these jokes.
Trunchbull Isn't Fatphobic — It's A Misunderstanding
Matilda's Miss Trunchbull isn’t fatphobic, though, and the character is never described as fat. She’s an Olympian who specialized in the hammer throw, the javelin, and the shot put, all sports requiring a strong physique. The Trunchbull character is terrifying and imposing, and her Olympic history helps create this image by making her a scary force of power, imposing over the children to intimidate them. Plus, Emma Thompson’s controversial suit for Matilda isn’t a fat suit so much as a body suit with padding in areas to add to the muscular physique. Although the bodysuit alters her appearance, it is not to make her appear fat, and reducing her to a “fat-ist” stereotype misunderstands the text — unlike the Fat Thor mistake Thor: Love and Thunder avoids.
Miss Trunchbull and Miss Honey differ in appearance not because one is fat and one is slim. Miss Honey is supposed to appear small and weak compared to Miss Trunchbull’s strong, powerful appearance. Thompson’s bodysuit only amplifies her figure to make her look stronger and bigger compared to Miss Honey and the children in a cartoonish way, not to make her scary because she is overweight.
Roald Dahl's Texts Cause Matilda's Trunchbull Problems
The controversy surrounding Emma Thompson's Matilda casting is understandable, however, because of the text from which it is derived. Roald Dahl is famous for his beloved children's books, and many of them have been turned into movies, such as Steven Spielberg's disappointing The BFG. A lot of controversy surrounds the author, though, because of his habit of describing his villains as ugly, “abnormal," or fat and how these traits are directly related to them being evil. Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, for example, features Aunt Sponge, who is described as “enormously fat” and Aunt Spiker, who is “tall and bony," and they are both described as “ghastly hags.”
Dahl always links his evil characters to their appearance, and this has informed readings of Miss Trunchbull as her being a fat woman. But Miss Trunchbull is described as a “gigantic holy terror," never as fat or overweight. Although this is still a major problem with Dahl’s books and shouldn’t translate to the films, the controversy regarding Miss Trunchbull’s appearance takes away from the strong, powerful character Emma Thompson is playing in Sony and Netflix's musical movie adaptation of Matilda.
