Director: Yeah, 'Chubby' Jokes in My Rom-Coms Weren't Cool

Richard Curtis, who wrote such well-known romantic comedies and dramas as Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, and Love, Actually, is talking about the problematic aspects of some of those films. The British screenwriter and director sat down for an interview with his daughter, Scarlett, an activist and writer, at the Cheltenham literature festival, the Guardian reports. "I remember how shocked I was five years ago when Scarlett said to me: 'You can never use the word "fat" again.' Wow, you were right," he said. "In my generation, calling someone chubby [was funny]—in Love, Actually there were jokes about that. Those jokes aren't any longer funny." There are also, of course, similar jokes in the Bridget Jones films.

As the Independent reports, Curtis has previously said he felt "uncomfortable and a bit stupid" now regarding the lack of diversity in Love, Actually, and lack of diversity was also addressed at the festival sit-down. Considering London's Notting Hill "was quite literally one of the birthplaces of the British Black civil rights movement," as his daughter said, it's strange there are no Black characters in Notting Hill. "I wish I'd been ahead of the curve," Curtis said. "Because I came from a very undiverse school and bunch of university friends, I think that I've hung on, on the diversity issue, to the feeling that I wouldn't know how to write those parts. I think I was just sort of stupid and wrong about that." (More Richard Curtis stories.)