gender studies

Trope Deep Dive: Fat Men Wooing Thin Women: Hitch (2005, dir. Andy Tennant), The Tao of Steve (2000, dir. Jenniphr Goodman)

I like to present myself as a savvy, even cynical, consumer of media, so it’s a little embarrassing for me to admit my predilection for romantic movies. After participating in the recent #fav7films on Twitter, 3 of my 7 turned out to focus on romantic relationships (4 of 10, if I include my extended list). Look at this current series of articles! A big part of this has to do with the escapist aspect of entertainment, which romantic movies have in spades by their nature. They focus on the segments of relationships where people are acting their best, hormones at their strongest. Even more grounded romantic films like Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy involves relatively privileged people in idyllic settings; Before Sunset, the second installment (and my favorite), takes place in Paris, in real time, during the magic hour. Of course, the characters who fall in love with each other are also idealized: they’re usually affluent (if one is poor, the other is wealthy), occupied with interesting jobs or aspirations, barely concealing beautiful inner lives just waiting to be shared, good-hearted, charming, and physically attractive. Even an average Joe who finds themself as the romantic lead will usually have an iconic speech in their back pocket. And, as I hope I’ve managed to convey in earlier posts, fat characters are almost always positioned as a detracting trait, counter to a happily-ever-after image. There’s usually some form of compensation, some element that seems to say, “Okay, I know what you’re thinking, but this fat person deserves a chance.” This can be Albert and Eva’s extraordinary chemistry (which, to be fair, is a solid example of a romantic film lacking idealization if you want to argue against my thesis), Jack’s and Marty’s pure-heartedness, Angus’ exceptional integrity/athleticism/intellect, or even Danny’s near-supernatural ability to call in a favor (erotic cronyism: only in Chicago). Before this series we even have Louis in True Stories, who finds a bride through a love spell. However, we also have narratives like Hitch and The Tao of Steve, which don’t make exceptions for their fat characters through exceptional character traits, and rather focus on the implementation of romantic strategies to explain why a fat/unattractive man could successfully woo a thin/attractive woman.

The narratives of these films are based on some assumptions that are misguided at best. First, we have the homogenization of attraction: it’s not possible that a fat character would be seen as attractive because there are objective, universal standards that are embedded deep in the hearts and minds of the other characters, and of course, the audience. One of the reasons I started writing CPBS was, in addition to being fat myself, I’m attracted to other fat people, so I get very lost during scenes where it’s supposed to be hilariously icky that Jack Black is naked. (On top of, you know, the alienation when reminded that the entertainment industry uses bodies like mine as visual shorthand for garbage.) Second, both Hitch and The Tao of Steve rely on the regressive heteronormative positioning of man as active pursuer of passive trophy woman, who has the “real” power of being able to veto the relationship. It needs to be said that the overlap of these assumptions function to completely cut fat women out of the picture. The Tao of Steve goes so far as to have protagonist Dex (Donal Logue) declare that he doesn’t fuck fat women. “I am a fat-ist, I admit it. I’m the worst kind of fat-ist, I’m a fat fat-ist.” What a delightful character I resigned myself to spend another hour watching! Considering how this statement occurs early in the film, I suppose it’s supposed to communicate the immaturity that Dex grows out of to win the love of Syd (Greer Goodman), who is coincidentally thin. Yet, since no fat women exist in the film, there’s nobody on the receiving end of this statement, just the abstract phantom of an unfuckable fat woman. Hitch doesn’t even acknowledge that fat women exist. We often think of fat women existing in rom coms as the Less Attractive Best Friend; Casey (Julie Ann Emery) is thin and pretty, her apparent outsider status is due to being Southern (Hitch being of the subgenre of rom coms that take place in Manhattan). Wealthy, beautiful Allegra (Amber Valletta), the object of Albert’s (Kevin James) affections, turns out to be clumsy and awkward, but these traits are only highlighted at the end of the film when she talks about them while sitting on her gigantic yacht. Her transgressions from physical idealization are manifest on her body during the end credits wedding dance party sequence, once the “chase” is over. The object of longing is characterized by physical restraint– thinness, gracefulness, aloofness– which is as true for the mandatorily thin women characters as it is for the fat male characters pursuing them. As Dex says in The Tao of Steve: “we pursue that which retreats from us.” For Dex and Albert, restraint is the foundation of their respective strategies for getting women interested in them. Of course, both learn the art of seduction from thin, traditionally attractive men.

In Hitch, stereotypical accountant Albert hires Hitch (Will Smith), the “date doctor,” to teach him how to get his heiress client Allegra to notice him. Hitch’s philosophy of falling in love comes from a painful experience he had in college of his first girlfriend (Robinne Lee) leaving him because he came on too strong, a heartbreak that was apparently potent enough to transform Charmingly Dorky Will Smith into Charmingly Suave Will Smith. His philosophy does not include outright lying– he tells us in the opening narration that women want to see “the real you”– but he does say that “with no guile and no game, there’s no girl.” He isn’t above manipulating situations, creating meetcutes for his clients. Hitch teaches Albert how to dress and groom himself, but more importantly, how to rein in his dorkiness, which largely manifests as flailing physical comedy bits. Albert is confident that his flamboyant dance moves will impress Allegra, but Hitch orders him to keep it to a dull two-step. Albert can’t maintain control during their date, however, and busts out his ridiculous moves when Allegra isn’t looking at him, his physical tendency towards excess irresistable, even leading him to cheat on his regimen of increased regulation. Hitch too ends up having to deal with his own body betraying him in appropriate ways when on dates with Sara, as he ends up accidentally knocking her into the Hudson River and having an allergic reaction that causes his face to swell up. While mirroring his fat client’s awkwardness, Hitch also mirrors his emotional sincerity, as he struggles with wanting to get more involved with Sara than is his usual comfort level.

“Don’t ever do that again:” Hitch (Will Smith) offers Albert (Kevin James) constructive criticism on his dance moves

If the audience wasn’t already socially conditioned to view fat people as unworthy of love or desire, the opening sequence of The Tao of Steve makes this explicit, as three women Dex went to college with view his body with amused disgust and confess to each other that they all had sex with him back in the day. Albert may be above average in optimism thinking he can win the heart of a millionaire, but Dex is damn near a curiosity. Step up ladies and gents, marvel at the fat man who gets laid on a regular basis! How does he do it? Witty, intellectual Dex has hewn his seduction strategy from observing “the prototypical cool American male” in pop culture, specifically Steve McGarrett, Steve Austin, and Steve McQueen. “He never, ever tries to impress women but he always gets the girl.” The Tao of Steve is Dex’s name for his three-part strategy for getting women to have sex with him: “eliminate your desire… be excellent in her presence.., retreat.” While Dex’s strategy appears to be based on respecting boundaries (wow), sharing interests (amazing), and socializing with women without any expectations of sex (gold star), his reasoning is pretty damn misogynist. Dex says that, based on his looks, “technically [he] shouldn’t be getting laid” and thus women are confused and intrigued by his apparent lack of sexual interest in them, which causes them to assume that sleeping with him is a major achievement on their part, wherein reality he describes himself as being willing to have sex with any woman who has low enough standards (as long as she isn’t fat). He justifies the Tao not working on Syd because she’s smarter than the women he usually is able to seduce. However, the sex that he has is also largely meaningless as he doesn’t desire a connection beyond temporary pleasure with his sexual partners.

Although initially acting under the belief that behaving in a stereotypically masculine way will attract the women they’re in love with, both Albert and Dex have to abandon this facade and be more sensitive and vulnerable to actually win Allegra’s and Syd’s hearts. These traits are often associated with fat men as a way of showing their lack of masculinity, but here we have two very straight rom-coms where romancing a woman is successfully done by letting go of machismo. In Hitch, Albert is contrasted with the thin male characters as the genuinely nice guy. Hitch isn’t bad person, but he’s a player, emotionally distant and commitment-phobic. Allegra’s ex-boyfriend, the prince of Sweden or something like that, is referred to in negative terms. We’re also introduced to Vance (Jeffrey “Burn Notice” Donovan), a potential client who wants Hitch to teach him seduction skills in order to dump a woman after a one night stand. Hitch thinks Albert is a lost cause and is only persuaded to take on his case when Albert reveals the selfless nature of his love: “You know what it’s like getting up every day, feeling hopeless? Feeling like the love of your life is waking up with the wrong man, but at the same time hoping that she finds happiness, even if it’s never gonna be with you?” And sure, Hitch helps Albert gain confidence and talk to Allegra in the first place, but his genuine attributes win out in the end. As mentioned before, Allegra reveals that she is attracted to Albert’s awkward, dorky ways because she sees those traits in herself and he makes her feel comfortable.

As for Dex, being an unattached lothario comes much more naturally to him, but he’s only able to win Syd’s affections once he stops verbally sparring with her and allows himself to be vulnerable. Casual sex with many different partners is Dex’s MO, but he feels genuine remorse when Syd reveals that he seduced her in college and is hurt that he doesn’t remember her. He directly uses his fat body as evidence that he won’t hurt her again: “Now I’m a fat fucking pig, and the guy that did that to you was a skinny, arrogant prick. Just give me one more chance.” The logic behind this statement isn’t teased out, but it suggests that becoming fat has taught Dex something about humility. From his actions over the course of the film, it seems more like he looks for temporary solace from the insecurity he feels over the changes in his body by seeking casual sex and hasn’t actually changed, especially considering that he lies to his date in order to blow her off and have this conversation with Syd. She doesn’t buy it; however, he does keep making attempts to be a better person in order to win her affections. As a means of apologizing, he repairs a motorcycle for her. Where he was initially depending on Syd to drive him to and from work, his gift frees her from her obligation to him. (Dex is constantly referencing philosophers and religious thinkers throughout the film. When Syd shows up at his home to thank him for the motorcycle, he’s reading The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels, a book that serves as the modern world’s reintroduction to Gnosticism, an early sect of Christianity that contradicted the patriarchal structures of Roman Catholicism by having gender-equitable roles within their organization and recognizing the feminine personhood of God. Filmmaking!) His striving to change himself continues as he goes camping with Syd and some friends despite his lack of outdoorsmanship, makes an attempt at dieting, and breaks up with the married woman he’d been sleeping with (Ayelet Kaznelson). Getting punched out by his former lover’s husband (John Hines) is enough, and he and Syd have their second first kiss. Even during sex with her, he drops the playboy facade and shows vulnerability and tenderness. Unfortunately, that takes the form of being insecure about his body, as he requests that they turn the lights off.

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Dex (Donal Logue) and Syd (Greer Goodman) in The Tao of Steve: Maybe you can’t stand him now, but just wait until the third act…

Both Hitch and The Tao of Steve find romance in a man changing himself to prove himself worthy of a woman: Albert sheds his timidity, Dex his aloofness. Their respective strategies even work at first: Syd warms up to Dex when she sees him “be excellent” with his kindergarten students, Albert gets Allegra to notice him when he stands up to his patronizing boss on her behalf. But the real connections don’t form until they rid themselves of the structured restrain they had been relying on as seduction methods; one might say that they let themselves go. And even though Dex and Albert embody fat stereotypes (slovenly nerd and slovenly stoner, respectively) that are usually positioned as worthy of ridicule, the films want us to root for and empathize with them. They are posited as diamonds in the rough, willing to polish themselves for the women they love, suggesting that they would do anything to make Syd and Allegra happy. The idea that Albert and Dex as fat men can be seen as viable partners is initially explained by their employing of seduction strategies, “tricking” their respective partners into finding them attractive. The romance doesn’t come from them being conventionally attractive as much as it does them being improved by the grace of loving these women who passively wait to be seduced. As with the dynamic we see in Superbad and Knocked Up, the female characters serve as inspiration for the male characters to grow as people. The escapist element is the idea of a partner who will facilitate your self-improvement (if you’re a dude), or who will change themselves to impress you (if you’re a lady). It’s the internal version of a makeover or training montage done for the sake of impressing a partner, not the basis for a healthy relationship. I said in a previous article that I want to see fat characters involved in escapist, whirlwind romances, but not if there isn’t a happy medium between the fantasy of a budding romance and tropes that aren’t bad ideas in the real world.

Trope Deep Dive: Fat Boys and Thin Girls: Angus (1995, dir. Patrick Read Johnson), The Motel (2005, dir. Michael Kang), Terri (2011, dir. Azazel Jacobs)

My intention with this series of posts about romantic storylines featuring fat men and thin women was to choose films using a specific parameter: fat men and thin women who start a relationship during the course of the film and are still together when it ends. This time around, that ended up being more of a hindrance than help. I wanted to focus on adolescent characters, so I watched three films with fat male protagonists and plot summaries that suggested romance– Angus, The Motel* and Terri. None of the three ended with the hero happily coupled with the object of his affections; The Motel and Terri end in explicit rejection. This surprised me. Certainly not all coming of age films focus on romance, or even use beginning a relationship to signify maturation. Neither film I watched last summer with fat boy protagonists, Chubby and Heavyweights, had romantic storylines for their protagonists, though I suspect that’s more to do with the protagonists being closer to childhood than young adulthood. I wanted stories of fat characters learning to believe in themselves to include at least some subversion of the assumption that they wouldn’t be able to find willing romantic partners. But as I have a prolific once-per-month posting average to maintain, plus these films have some interesting similarities and center fat characters more than most, I figure they’re worth talking about.

As is required by the genre, all three young protagonists need to learn important life lessons in order to confront or transcend the difficult situations they find themselves in at the beginnings of their respective stories. All three are outsiders. Terri (Jacob Wysocki) and Angus(Charlie Talbert) are bullied and unpopular explicitly because they are fat. This isn’t as much the case for The Motel’s Ernest (Jeffrey Chyau), although he is not shown at his school nearly as much as the other two boys. He is nonetheless othered due to his ethnicity and class status, as part of a Chinese-American family who eke out a living running a cheap motel. It’s worth noting that all three have nontraditional family structures. In addition to the dynamic of the family business and having a home culture that’s markedly different from that of the society around him, Ernest’s father abandoned their family. Angus’ father died soon after Angus was born; his family consists of his tough-as-nails trucker mom (Kathy Bates) and his tough-as-nails grandfather (George C. Scott). (Worth noting: in the short story that Angus is based on, “A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune,” his mother and father are both gay and remarried to stepparents of the same gender. Moviegoing America apparently wasn’t ready for that particular configuration of loving but alternatively-structured family in the mid 90s.) Both of Terri’s parents are MIA; his only family member is an uncle (Creed Bratton) who has an unnamed illness. As part of their atypical families, the boys all must take on atypical roles for teenage boys. Terri and Angus act as caretakers for their elder male relatives, while Ernest works housekeeping duty at the motel. Not only are these roles feminized and serve to detract from any hope they have of conforming to romantic male lead standards as much as being fat does, but also detract from the amount of time they have to spend with their peers (and therefore mean fewer opportunities to meet and interact with girls).

Melissa (Ariana Richards) and Angus (Charlie Talbert), the Winter Ball Court/Unwilling Spectacle

Angus also features an interesting story beat around othering and feminization in terms of clothing. Fat bodies in movies (and also in, you know, society) vacillate between invisible/excluded and hypervisible/spectacle. When Angus is elected king of the Winter Ball as a prank, he is suddenly recategorized, going from having his achievements on the football field ignored to facing having to dance with his long-time crush in front of the whole school. The intent/expectation that he will suffer humiliation is compounded when he has to rent a tuxedo, but despite protests that he wants a “socially acceptable” black tuxedo, his only option is purple. But what seems like a cruel parody of the role he is supposed to embody becomes a symbol of his defiance, a dare for people to accept him instead of an invitation to mock him. Terri and Ernest both have specific clothing, but it reinforces their invisibility. Terri wears pajamas 24/7 (which I took as a symptom of depression), but nobody notices or asks except when his assistant principal makes him a special project. Ernest tends to wear t-shirts that are garish, especially when compared to his mild personality; without saying anything, it’s obvious that they were purchased from a thrift store.

The combination of social isolation and difficult personal life also make the protagonists’ relationship with an older male figure important to their maturation. Terri has a tenuous relationship with Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), the assistant principal who can act thoughtlessly at times, but also models the self-confidence and tenacity that Terri lacks, opening up to the depressed student before he himself is willing to open up. Angus has Grandpa, whose motto is “screw ‘em.” He is marrying a woman thirty years younger than him; his stubborn refusal to let others’ judgments sway his decisions and his ability to woo a beautiful woman despite being old and fat both inspire Angus and foreshadow his success with the girl he has a crush on. Ernest’s grandfather (Stephen Chen) takes a very hands-off approach to parenting (but does pick on his weight). Luckily for Ernest, he is the main character in an indie dramedy and is therefore destined to cross paths with an eccentric loose cannon who brings some fun and freedom into his seemingly hopeless life, Sam (Sung Kang). Sam tries to be a surrogate father figure, teaching him how to drive and trying to convince him to stand up for himself. However, Sam is also more toxic than Grandpa or Mr. Fitzgerald, as a self-destructive divorcee who manipulates Ernest into letting him stay at the motel without paying.

In addition to older male characters who teach the protagonists how to navigate being an outsider, the love interest characters are also outsiders in their own rights. Despite being a popular cheerleader, Melissa (Ariana Richards) is as much a victim of bullying as Angus, as her boyfriend Rick (James Van Der Beek) uses her as a pawn to try and humiliate our hero. During the climactic scene at the school Winter Ball dance, she admits to Angus that not only is she as nervous as he is about being publicly humiliated, but she is also bulimic, something she had never told anyone else. “Do you ever get tired of who you are?” she asks him. “Do you know who you’re talking to?” he responds. Terri has a crush on Heather (Olivia Crocicchia), who becomes a social outcast when a classmate fingers her in class. This is partly Terri’s fault: his outsider status allows him moments of quiet observation where he sees the otherwise surreptitious sex act, his other classmates then see what he’s looking at and make a scene. He does, however, attempt to make things right by defending her to Mr. Fitzgerald, who wants to expel her, and detracting unwanted attention from her in subsequent classes. His support builds their friendship and gives him a shot with her when she suggests they hang out together after school. Despite being conventionally attractive, in contrast to the protagonists, Heather and Melissa both have bodies that require regulation, Heather through slut-shaming and Melissa through an eating disorder. In this way, they find empathy and companionship through the boys who are social pariahs for their own unruly bodies. In The Motel, however, similarity is a problem. Christine (Samantha Futerman), like Ernest, is part of a Chinese immigrant family and has an atypical childhood for an American kid, working at her family’s business. Unlike the other two films, their similar outsider status may be what prevents any potential romance. When giving Ernest advice on romance, Sam tells him that Christine won’t want him because he reminds her of her upbringing, and she wants a boyfriend who will offer her escape.

Ernest (Jeffrey Chyau) and Christine (Samatha Futerman), finding relief from their jobs together

Perhaps because of empathy gained from being an outsider, or because of the feminized roles they play in their family lives, the protagonists treat the girls with more respect than do their male peers. (Given that there is no culmination in romance, especially for Ernest and Terri, The Motel and Terri risk a “nice guy” dynamic.) While Terri protects Heather and respects her boundaries, his friend Chad plans to get her drunk and have sex with her because he thinks she’s an easy target due to her reputation. As mentioned above, Rick uses Melissa in a plan to humiliate Angus without her consent, then gets mad at her when she teaches Angus how to dance instead of allowing him to fail. Ernest stands by while three classmates of Christine’s trespass on her family’s property to skate and try to get her to give them free food. She hesitantly agrees, uncomfortable with the idea but longing for their approval. Even outside a romantic context, there is a tacit trust and intimacy between each pair that the female characters lack in other interactions with male peers.

Angus is the only film of the three that ends with ambiguous potential for romance. Notably, Angus is also the most idealized protagonist. He makes a lot of self-deprecating comments about being fat, but he is on the football team, being considered for a prestigious magnet school, and is able to stand up for himself. He is able to physically overpower Rick, but can’t because he faces suspension. His character growth is about replacing his fists with words, naturally culminating in a speech that is the best moment in the film. The last scene of the film is Melissa giving him a kiss on the cheek after he walks her home. What’s to come of this we don’t know, but in all fairness, she did just get royally screwed over by her jerk boyfriend. Some time to herself would be healthy. Both Heather and Christine also deal with external circumstances that affect any desire for romance with Terri or Ernest, fatness not ever being an explicit factor. Heather’s classmates have ostracized her due to being sexually active. Terri has a chance to have sex with her (he doesn’t) because she is drunk. She leaves a note for Terri asking that he not talk about the incident at school and emphasizing that she is his friend. And in The Motel, as previously noted, Christine’s lack of attraction for Ernest may be due to associating romance with escape from her family life.

Terri (Jacob Wysocki), concerned for Heather’s (Olivia Crocicchia) wellbeing

Although none of the films end happily with romance, they do end on hopeful notes as we see signs of maturation in the protagonists. Ultimately, the resolution has more to do with their relationships with their older male role models than their female love interests. Angus, as previously noted, learns to solve his problems with dramatic speeches instead of violence and discovers that idealized Melissa is a vulnerable human being, because he takes Grandpa’s advice to “screw ‘em” (repeated to him by Melissa) and does what he wants despite potentially being judged by others. “I’d had my moment,” he tells the audience in the ending narration, “and then I heard my grandfather’s voice say to me, ‘Go have another.’” After being rejected by Heather, Terri spends a day with Mr. Fitzgerald, not only for his own benefit but also to give the older man company, as he is separating from his wife and sleeping in his car on school grounds. “She’s embarrassed,” he tells Mr. Fitzgerald. “I’m not going to say anything if that’s what she’s worried about… I don’t think I’m read for all that stuff yet, anyway.” “Who is, you know?” Mr. Fitzgerald responds. The last shot is of Terri walking through the woods by himself, looking content. The Motel’s climax sees Ernest confronting Sam, refusing to be manipulated and telling Sam that he has to leave the motel if he isn’t going to pay for his room. Instead of having to passively accept that his father left him, he is able to actively reject a dad-analogue figure for not treating him with respect. The boys all learn to value themselves despite the fatphobic (and in Ernest’s case, racist) rhetoric thrown at them; even if the expectation that a fat boy would fail at a romantic endeavor isn’t necessarily subverted, the expectation that a fat boy would fail to love himself is unquestionably skewered by all three films.

*If discussion about The Motel seems less detailed than the other two films, it’s because it was the first of the three I watched, and I lost my notes. It’s definitely worth watching, though.

Trope Deep Dive: Fat Men and Thin Women after Marty: Only the Lonely (1991, dir. Chris Columbus); I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2007, dir. Jeff Garlin)

The impulse to revisit old stories is a strong one that long pre-dates the advent of film, but it’s not hugely controversial to say that many movie remakes and adaptations usually pale in comparison to the original. Sometimes a change in setting and/or time can be a welcome take– A Fistful of Dollars is considered a classic right along with Yojimbo, for instance– but often, the remake speaks to the continued relevance of the original, whether intentionally or not. Both Only the Lonely and I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With are heavily inspired by Marty, focusing on the emotional lives of fat bachelors in their thirties who live with their mothers. Marty is widely regarded as, to use the words of I Want Someone…’s protagonist James, “a perfect movie,” so it’s not surprising that these films that pay homage to it don’t reach its artistic heights. However, both are interesting when seen in conversation with Marty, as they respectively take their inspirational concepts to more romanticized and more cynical places.

I was looking forward to, and then disappointed by, Only the Lonely. Its character motivations and development are simplistic, especially relative to the scale of the action. Marty may seem overly modest with its timeline of one weekend in which two people meet and decide whether or not to see each other again, but the tight focus on the characters’ inner lives is a much more potent draw than Danny (John Candy) and Theresa’s (Ally Sheedy) courtship where their second date is on Halloween and their wedding scheduled for Christmastime. Only the Lonely is also less equitable in sympathy for its characters, focusing more on getting the audience to root for Danny than build any potential complexity into the situation. Marty’s mother experiences anxiety triggered by her niece and nephew wanting her widowed sister to move out of their home to make way for a new baby. Motivated by fear of abandonment, she criticizes Marty for wanting to date Clara, but in prior scenes, she is portrayed as a kind woman who wants her son to be happy. Compare this to Rose Muldoon (Maureen O’Hara) in Only the Lonely, who is similarly afraid of abandonment, but is depicted more as an obstacle to Danny’s happiness than a grounded, relatable person. Rose has a long history of not only “telling it like it is” (i.e. making insensitive remarks to whomever she pleases, including critical remarks about people’s ethnicities), but uses guilt to manipulate Danny to the point where the audience sees his vivid, anxious imaginings of her dying horribly because he wasn’t there to protect her. Her fear of abandonment is not without grounds, as Danny’s brother Patrick (Kevin Dunn) is unwilling to let her move into his home in the suburbs, but she also has the potential for companionship from her neighbor Nick (Anthony Quinn), who is in love with her (and whom she initially rejects for being Greek). Instead of Rose being frightened by the plight of another widow, Danny is spurred into seizing the day by an elderly bachelor friend (Milo O’Shea) who implores him not to end up the same way.

Danny and Theresa on their first date, a picnic at Comiskey Park. Even though the filming location for Danny and Rose’s house is a 5 minute walk to Wrigley Field. Pick a damn side, executive producer John Hughes.

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With also has a wider scope than its predecessor, in that the focus is on James’ (Jeff Garlin) career troubles as well as his desire for love. Marty tells Clara about his dream of buying the butcher shop where he works, but we don’t see it plague him to the extent that frustration with acting does James. Acting shares a significant similarity with relationships: both pursuits require making oneself vulnerable to judgment and rejection, as both require the approval of other people to happen. James finds that his fatness explicitly affects his success at both. He books a job on a mean-spirited candid camera-style show; when he expresses doubts about the show’s ethics, the director (Paul Mazursky) encourages him by saying that he’s “got the whole fat guy thing wrapped up.” Later, James is shocked to discover that not only is a remake of Marty being cast, but that he was passed over to audition for the title role, which he’s confident he would be great for. His bewilderment is only exacerbated as seemingly nobody he talks is familiar with Marty, which he describes as “a perfect movie.” He storms the auditions, where a group of conventionally beautiful women are waiting to read for the role of Clara, and discovers that the titular role has been given to Aaron Carter, and Gina Gershon will be playing Marty’s mother. “Marty’s mom is hot?” James asks in disbelief. “She is now,” the casting director (Roger Bart) replies. James’ skill or lack thereof is a moot point, as he is disqualified from substantial roles due to his age and appearance. Although James’ story includes more comedy than Marty’s, it’s fairly obvious that Garlin is also creating this film from a very personal perspective.

As with Marty, Only the Lonely and I Want Someone… feature protagonists who live with their mothers. Both films also suggest that their protagonist are fat and reluctant to move on to a more independent lifestyle at least partly due to these overly close relationships with mothers who provide food. James’ mother (Mina Kolb) cooks food that he can’t seem to resist, including a scene where he tries to leave the dinner table due to frustration with her nagging, yet doesn’t because he’s still hungry. James admits that he lives with his mother because it’s “comfortable,” but also because he worries for her safety. His mom, however, isn’t as stagnating a force in his life as she appears at first glance: she encourages him to crash the audition for Marty, and when he tells her that he wants to move out, she expresses relief. In the denouement sequence where James is getting his shit together, he mentions that not only is he living alone now, but he sees his mother infrequently, suggesting that they are both happier with independent lives. As mentioned above, in Only the Lonely, Rose smothers Danny to a hyperbolic degree. In the opening scene, she picks on him for eating yogurt for breakfast instead of his usual Danish, saying he’s “anorexic” and that yogurt is “sissy” when he tells her that he’s “trying to cut back.” Paradoxically, by encouraging him to maintain a masculinized attitude towards food (ie. prioritizing taste over health concerns), she emasculates him by passively controlling his choices. His later inability to cook dinner for Theresa shows that he relies on Rose to cook for him.

As much as living with his mother at 38 suggests that Danny retains a childlike dependence on Rose, any immaturity is tempered by virtue. He fails at making dinner for Theresa and is a low-ranking police officer, but later in the film he talks about becoming a cop and living with his mother as choices he made in the wake of his father’s death to take care of his family, re-casting a seemingly pathetic life as the result of selflessness. His size becomes a symbol of his ability to protect Theresa, as shown in a scene where he helps her sneak out of the house by using his larger body to hide her from Rose’s view. It’s played for laughs, but speaks to the way in which Only the Lonely gives Candy’s fat body romantic potential. Protection is what Theresa wants from a romantic partner: someone who “will always stand up for [her], who will never let [her] down.” Their size disparity is also gendered, as his largeness also calls attention to how petite she is, how appropriate her physique is for a female love interest. When Rose meets Theresa, she criticizes her for being too thin (the Hollywood screenplay equivalent of saying that perfectionism is your biggest flaw during a job interview). Even his seemingly humble job has perks, as he has connections all over the city that allow him to, among other things: picnic on the field at Comiskey Park, commandeer a fire truck on short notice in the middle of the night, and get an Amtrak train to make an unscheduled stop. His ability to be a provider proves nothing short of magical in his quest to win Theresa’s heart.

James’ meetcute with Beth, in which she gives him a free ice cream sundae.

In I Want Someone…, James’ fatness is suggested to influence every change in his love life over the course of the narrative. A woman he is dating breaks up with him at the beginning of the film, in part because he’s “in terrible shape,” although she then denies that it has anything to do with him being fat. Later, he goes on a date with Beth (Sarah Silverman), a manic pixie dream girl who works at an ice cream parlor. He can’t quite believe he’s on a date with her, as he explains, because she’s a “hottie” and he’s “Baron von Fat.” She responds by assuring him he’s not fat. A more thoughtful response from her might have been to reassure him of her interest– James is told a few times throughout the movie that he isn’t fat, which comes across as obvious bullshit given the influence his size has on the narrative. After they sleep together, she reveals that she had never been with a fat man before and she wanted to experiment, before telling him that she doesn’t want to see him again. James’ fatness is something that his potential romantic partners must treat as an exception, whether positively or negatively, usually the latter. The positive interaction is with Stella (Bonnie Hunt), who he meets in the jazz section of a record store. He feels confident flirting with her after her coworker (Amy Sedaris– this cast, right?) lets it slip that she’s a “chubby chaser.” Although flustered and full of denial when he asks her about it, the James-getting-his-shit-together sequence includes her at a performance of his, watching him with admiration. Their romantic potential is ambiguous, but their rapport is undeniable, having mutual interests and easily joking around with each other. Compare this to Danny: he hasn’t dated in a while before Theresa, but his fatness is never explicitly mentioned as an influencing factor. Even after he proposes to Theresa, his brother suggests that he could do better than someone as “plain” as her; Danny must convince his family (regarding his brother, by “convince” I mean “punch so hard he flies halfway across the room”) that she is worthy of his love. As with Marty, there is pressure to not commit to a “dog,” but if Danny has had any similar experiences to Marty or James striking out with a woman because of their appearance, it’s glossed over by the film. Theresa’s “baggage” is shown in a charming light. She is extremely introverted, which both makes her seem like someone in need of a big protector, and also feels like an echo of Sheedy’s most famous role as Allison in The Breakfast Club. (Consider that at this point in her career, Sheedy was a few years post-Brat Pack; compare to Betsy Blair, who had been blacklisted by HUAC during the production of Marty). Her job at her father’s funeral home is talked about as being a turn-off (Rose calls her a “ghoul”), but she is able to express her quirky, artistic side by doing the deceased’s makeup to make them resemble old movie stars, which is totally appropriate for a ritualized expression of grief.

There’s a fine balancing act that goes into portraying marginalized characters, as far as how to show them dealing with with social obstacles and how those experiences affect their internal worlds. On one hand, we have James, who can only find some form of acceptance professionally or romantically when put into a box based on his fatness. Women are interested in him as a novelty or a fetish, and he is relegated to specific roles by his size and then denied them in preference of a younger, thinner actor. On the other hand, we have Danny: his fatness is not ignored by the film, but just as far as it makes him a cuddly teddy-bear. His extended bachelorhood is squarely blamed on his family dynamic, which feels like an unrealistic oversimplification. Even unapologetic, confident fat people have to deal with haters, and that has an impact on how anyone navigates their professional and love lives. On the other hand, lots of fat people are in happy relationships and/or have successful careers (including Garlin himself, who was making Curb Your Enthusiasm by the time he was the same age as James). But even in real lives that are more complicated and nuanced; one take or the other can feel more resonant. Sometimes we want the soft edges of a Hollywood rom-com, other times the gruffer indie comedy feels more appropriate. So while I didn’t necessarily feel that these films are equal in terms of the amount of thought put into their creation (I mean Theresa tells Danny she’s trying to learn how to assert herself then she asserts herself when Rose insults her and then immediately BREAKS UP WITH DANNY BECAUSE SHE WAS ABLE TO DO THE THING SHE DIDN’T THINK SHE COULD DO AND HE DIDN’T DO IT FOR HER COME ON WHAT IS THAT okay I’m done now I promise), on a macro level, we need to have access to both points of view. Although dialing back the mom-hate just a notch would be nice.

Fat men and thin women and a few thoughts about The Lobster (2016, dir, Yorgos Lanthimos)

I’ve been looking forward to The Lobster for quite some time. I haven’t seen Lanthimos’ breakthrough Dogtooth (I know, I know), but I am a sucker for an unusual premise, and “a hotel where people are transformed into animals if they don’t fall in love” is just that. The initial buzz has been good, but what caught my eye was AV Club’s review* that lingered on the description of Colin Farrell’s “doughy” body.

The Lobster takes place in an absurd distopia that is childlike in its rigidity, directness, and simplistic logic. A law that requires adults to be in a romantic relationship drives the entire film, as newly-dumped David (Farrell) finds himself at a hotel where he has 45 days to make a love connection lest he be turned into an animal, or choose to live in the wilderness with the hermitic Loners. It’s a darkly funny critique of the idealization of romantic relationships, the belief that everyone is capable and desiring of a lifelong, monogamous relationship free of complicating factors. This is a world where bisexuality has been phased out, where the basis of a “good match” means sharing a common characteristic like frequent nosebleeds. The film criticizes conventional wisdom about falling in love, and casting an actor known for roles in action films and his good looks as a middle-aged milquetoast with a potbelly– and including ample scenes of him in states of undress– is made part of the film’s subversive tone as much as the sterile mise en scene and alienating dialogue. Weight is added to Farrell’s body with the intention of depriving the audience of a (conventionally) handsome romantic hero. His friends at the hotel are similarly characterized by physical traits that are meant to detract from them being ideal mates: a man with a lisp (John C. Reilly) and a man with a limp (Ben Whishaw).

colin farrell lobster

If having Farrell gain weight to play David is intended to suggest that the search for romance is bound to end eventually in disappointingly ordinariness, the visual language does not extend in the same way to his female costars. Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, Angeliki Papoulia and Jessica Barden all play characters whose words and actions embody the awkward absurdity of the film’s world, but visually, they retain more of the physical idealized qualities. And as members of the Loner group, Weisz and Seydoux spend most of their screen time swathed in plastic ponchos with “no” makeup and messy hair, but all of these women are conventionally attractive and thin, as compared to not only a heavier Farrell, but also actors like Reilly and Michael Smiley who, unlike Weisz and Seydoux, probably aren’t landing any modelling gigs.

Overall, The Lobster is great. It strikes a marvelous balance between being accessible and surreal, entertaining and thought-provoking. I’d much rather see a film of its caliber that doesn’t use the cultural baggage attached to fat bodies (and bodies with disabilities) as easy visual language to convey its thesis, but then again, it would be foolish of me to come out of seeing The Lobster with the expectation of having my dreams come true.

*I’ve used AV Club before for examples of how fat characters and actors are talked about in pop culture discourse, and just for the record, I don’t mean to pick on AV Club. They just happen to be a website that I frequent for film reviews, news, etc.,they do a fine job on the whole, and I don’t find them to be particularly toxic.

Trope Deep Dive: Fat Men and Thin Women in Judd Apatow Productions (Superbad, 2007, dir. Greg Mottola; Knocked Up, 2007, dir. Judd Apatow)

(CN: rape culture) As Superbad and Knocked Up are both Judd Apatow productions, they share many key elements: not only cast and crew, among them Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Bill Hader, but also a focus on young men who are reluctant to move on to the next phase of their lives, and how this reluctance affects both existing relationships and the ability to forge new ones. Both films find our fat protagonists in situations demanding maturity, whether or not they are ready; both try to prepare through performing heterosexuality. In Superbad, Seth (Jonah Hill) and his attached-at-the-hip best friend Evan (Michael Cera) are graduating high school and going to different colleges. Instead of facing his feelings of loss, Seth focuses on getting Jules (Emma Stone) to date him for the summer so that he can practice having sex and start college as “the Iron Chef of pounding vag.” In Knocked Up, Ben (Seth Rogen) has a one night stand with Alison (Katherine Heigl) that results in an unintended pregnancy; he tries to do the “right thing” by rushing into a relationship with her. And it comes as no surprise that both women are portrayed as out of the protagonists’ “league.” Thinness is a major indicator of this quality that Jules and Alison both possess, that could be seen as “having it together:” they display self-control, competence, intelligence, and maturity, whereas Ben and Seth are characterized in a contrasting manner.

[Something to bear in mind if you haven’t seen Superbad and your interest has been piqued: this is a movie that is very much located within rape culture. Its theme and story subvert expectations of teen sex comedies, but there is no getting around that for a lot of the film, the protagonists are planning to have sex with women who are too drunk to consent. Even though their plan is hatched from ignorant naivete rather than, say, a pickup artist handbook, it does expose a sense of entitlement to women’s bodies that can be uncomfortable to watch. Although rape culture isn’t the topic of this article, I feel that I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the film’s problematic aspects.]

Superbad is set in a high school community, thus character dynamics and situations are exposed largely through high school students gossiping and talking shit. We get an idea of what the object of Seth’s affection is like before we even see her through Evan’s needling: “Jules got incredibly hot over last summer and obviously doesn’t realize it because she’s still talking with you and flirting with you.” Seth responds by running through a list of her former boyfriends who are more worthy than him, constructing her “league” of guys who are exceedingly athletic, handsome, and “the sweetest guy ever.” We also see where our protagonists rank socially by a scene of Seth performing poorly in gym class and the number of times he is called a “pussy.” Seth is both unpopular and disorderly, willfully ignoring school rules and bubbling over with sexual impulse. The guys have an innate sense that these traits need to be suppressed in order to be attractive. An early scene finds Evan giving a heavily doctored account of his weekend exploits with Seth and Fogel (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to Becca (Martha MacIsaac), the girl he likes. As he speaks with forced maturity and nonchalance, the scene is cross-cut with flashbacks to the guys watching porn, drunkenly crashing his parents’ party, and puking in an alley after getting denied entrance to a strip club. Jules, in contrast to Seth, is portrayed as more “together.” She projects cool in every scene she’s in, through a balance of ease and self-control: she’s a girl who laughs at dick jokes and can successfully throw a large party on short notice, generously providing alcohol for her guests even though she herself does not drink.

Seth and Jules have chemistry. Actually, they have home ec! Just making a little joke. I like to keep it light in the captions.

Although Seth has a history of awkwardly flirtatious encounters with Jules, he is convinced that the only way he can have sex with her is if her judgment is impaired through alcohol. Seth convinces Evan that he too can score with Becca if she’s drunk. “You know when you hear girls saying, ‘I was so shitfaced last night, I shouldn’t have fucked that guy”? We can be that mistake!” Seth believes that if he (and, by extension, Evan) is going to have sex with someone, it’s due to poor decision-making rather than desire. This mindset motivates their extraordinary attempts to buy alcohol and get to Jules’ party. Seth even discourages Evan from telling Becca how he feels about her instead of plying her affections with alcohol.

Seth’s plan is incredibly unethical, though the film portrays it as a misbegotten product of his insecurity and selfishness. The turning point for Seth is when he is forced to drop his scheming and finally allows himself to be vulnerable, allowing his unruliness to dissolve his prickly defensiveness instead of being used to transgress order to get what he wants. We see him starting to let go at Jules’ party, telling the embarrassing stories of his adventures thus far to a group of peers, as Jules watches him from afar, smiling. They go off alone, and he discovers that his plan is subverted by her “togetherness:” not only does she not drink, she sets appropriate boundaries by saying she doesn’t want to make out with him when he is drunk. He walks off, unable to handle his frustration and embarrassment. Later, Jules finds him crying. He tells her how disappointed he is that he blew his last chance “to make [her his] girlfriend for the summer,” and that he had been banking on her being drunk. “You’d never get with me if you were sober. Look at you! Look at me!”

In her essay “Roscoe Arbuckle and the Scandal of Fatness,” Neda Ulaby makes the following observation about why Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle had so many ardent female fans at the height of his celebrity: “[he] projected a desire to be viewed with longing, illustrating that the capacity to attract and hold such a look is as frequently a gender-neutral source of power as a gendered target of male exploitation” (Braziel and LaBesco 160). I must admit a personal bias– I think Jonah Hill is a cutiepie– but no matter how much I try to stay mindful of Seth’s creepy attitude towards making Jules his conquest earlier in the movie, the sincerity and vulnerability of his sense of loss melts my heart every time I watch this scene. It’s also effective on Jules, apparently, as the film ends with her inviting him to hang out at the mall the next day.

Knocked Up begins in a similar vein, with unruly man-child Ben and “together,” out of his “league” Alison hooking up after a night of drinking at a club. The opening scenes illustrate who the characters are and how much their lives differ, with Ben and his friends goofing off and smoking pot in their mess of a house, while Alison wakes up early, takes her nieces to school, and holds it down at her glamorous job. They are physically dissimilar as well; Alison works for the image-obsessed E! Network, and isn’t told to lose weight when she gets a promotion to be on-camera (they legally can’t do that), but is strongly encouraged to “tighten.” Ben, on the other hand, is comfortably unkempt and chubby. They cross paths at a nightclub when Alison is celebrating her promotion and Ben gets her a drink; “I rarely look this cool,” he admits. Although there is nothing to suggest that either is planning to get the other drunk in order to get laid, their encounter is characterized by poor judgment, namely a miscommunication about a condom that results in pregnancy. The next morning finds Alison looking with disgust at a naked Ben asleep in her bed; he is the “mistake” that Seth and Evan aspire to be in Superbad.

This is probably a good opportunity to bring up a challenge that I face writing about the topic of fat characters in romantic/sexual situations: I’m attracted to other fat people. I don’t come at these movies from the assumed point of view that the fat characters are unpleasant to look at. I can parse from Katherine Heigl’s acting, the camera angles, timing, etc. that naked Seth Rogen in one’s bed is unappealing and therefore funny, but that’s not a point of view to which I can relate to at all. Knocked Up can be rightly criticized for being a story about an idealized woman and an underachieving guy falling in love, when the gender-swapped version of that story would never see the light of day, but this argument can be convincingly made based on the characters actions and lives. From what I remember of publicized versions of this argument when Knocked Up came out, it often boiled down to their physical characteristics, which assumes that attraction is universal and objective, alienating not only fat people from this discourse, but people who desire fat people. This idea even appears in discussions of size diversity: the AV Club published an article yesterday about body shaming in Hollywood, where one of the writers mentions “Seth Rogen and basically all of his romantic interests” as an example of “men paired with female co-stars who are objectively more attractive.”

“Hooray! Oh, wait, I mean… Gross? … um…?”

I hadn’t seen Knocked Up in several years; everything I remembered about its main conflict arose from Ben’s immaturity and lack of responsibility (e.g. not reading the baby books). However, the second watch revealed a more nuanced relationship than Manchild Loves Overachiever. Alison herself is emotionally mature and willing to give Ben a chance, but her emotionally stunted, thin family doesn’t contribute to that at all. Alison’s polished mother (Joanna Kerns) frostily pressures her to get an abortion, threatening that her daughter’s job won’t like when pregnancy makes her fat. The next scene shows Ben’s stoner dad calming his son’s fears with amused patience. (These scenes are imbalanced, in my opinion, and it’s all Harold Ramis’ fault. He is in the movie for maybe 4 minutes total, and he knocks it out of the park. I think I got more choked up over his loss watching this scene than when I heard the news of his death.) Moreover, Alison’s unhappily married sister and brother-in-law, Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd), are a symbol of impending doom. Pete is so checked out of his life that he appears to be an animatronic Paul Rudd puppet, while Debbie is shallow and controlling, a near-constant voice of doubt in Alison’s ear. “He’s overweight,” she tells her sister, “when does that end? …imagine how much bigger he’s gonna get. That means he has bad genes. Your kid is gonna be overweight.” “Shit,” Alison whispers. Alison’s “mistake” puts her in proximity to fatness, both through the weight that she gains over the course of her pregnancy, and her decision to give a relationship with Ben an actual chance, despite walking out of breakfast with him the morning after their hookup.

Like Seth in Superbad, Ben is characterized by his lack of traditionally masculine charms (big muscles and/or a big paycheck), but becomes lovable by being vulnerable and emotionally open. His ultimate proving ground when Alison goes into labor. He proves that he is open to change and has taken on some of Alison’s “togetherness,” but unlike the rest of her family, prioritizes her feelings and wants. He takes care of Alison through the knowledge he’s acquired about the birthing process and taking care of her emotional needs by setting boundaries with her ruthless obstetrician (Ken Jeong) and Debbie, who is also won over by Ben telling her to stay in the waiting room. Proving that he can be mature and nurturing, Alison realizes how much she loves him, and the film ends with a montage of the happy family.

Seth-in-Knocked-Up-seth-rogen-14600967-853-480

Look at ‘im go, defying traditional standards of masculinity.

Ulaby’s observation about Fatty Arbuckle also applies to Ben, as he moves beyond the goofy guy who was lucky enough to have a one-night stand with a beautiful woman and becomes someone who is willing to be vulnerable and open to change out of longing for her to love him. Both films end with the protagonists facing their scary, uncertain futures– Seth and Evan separate from each other, Ben becomes a father– motivated by the reciprocated love of women who are out of their “league.” The fat protagonists of these films show a different masculinity than is often seen in film, men who are desirable to women through their longing and vulnerability. Regarding the kind of women who are desirable to men, though: if the audience wants a depiction of women that doesn’t reside on top of the traditional pedestal of togetherness, we must look elsewhere.

“Straighten, Tighten:” Intersections of Fatness and Queerness in The Birdcage (1996, dir. Mike Nichols)

When I woke up on a Friday morning a few weeks ago to Twitter blowing up about SCOTUS declaring same sex marriage legal in all 50 states, I was happy that my home country was finally moving away from a gender-discriminatory policy. Not deliriously happy, mind you. I feel some kinda way about the political energy and focus poured into marriage equality. But I do have a sentimental side, and I see how much joy getting married has brought to the people in my life who decided to take the plunge. (This post isn’t more timely because I traveled halfway across the country to attend the wedding of one of my oldest friends.) I had a solo mini-celebration for marriage equality that evening with The Birdcage, which I was fond of in high school and had been meaning to revisit. I remembered the excellent comic performances; it’s enjoyable enough to take the film at face value. What surprised me was how deeply I empathized with the character at the epicenter of the film’s tumultuous humor, Albert (Nathan Lane).

The opening scene in which Armand (Robin Williams) and their houseman Agador (Hank Azaria) cajole a hysterical Albert into rallying herself* for a drag performance ushers the audience into a first impression of her that is intertwined with her self-image. She describes herself as “fat and hideous”– a declaration Armand, her director and significant other, knows so well that he mouths the words along with her– and says that she’s “gained and lost over 100 pounds in the past year” in an effort to be thin and beautiful enough to maintain her star status and his love. Although not an extremely large person, she does have a stocky body, where the other performers at the Birdcage (and many of the thong-clad extras in scenes of the public milieu of South Beach) are slender and muscular.

Albert’s sensitivity and flamboyant nature are frequent sources of humor. Armand and his son Val (Dan Futterman) react to Albert’s outbursts with a certain level of weariness that suggests a routine scenario for their family. But even though she is an outlandish character in a farce, her anxieties come from a very real place. The nonplussed reactions she receives from strangers, plus Val’s unwillingness to introduce her to his conservative future in-laws speak to her outsider status in the vast majority of the world. Despite being a headliner who plays to sold-out houses and is more than willing to self-advocate, she lacks necessary social capital to navigate on her own outside her South Beach bubble. In a subplot, she wants Armand to sign a palimony agreement so that she will be provided for in case their relationship ends. Although talented, there is no denying that she is older and fatter than the other performers; who’s to say what her career would look like without Armand and the Birdcage?

The Goldmans’ underlying family tensions are exacerbated when Val declares his intention to marry Barbara (Callista Flockheart), the daughter of staunch conservative Senator Kevin Keely (Gene Hackman) and his wife Louise (Dianne Wiest), who is Barbara Bush by way of Lady Macbeth. Hit with scandal when Kevin’s “common redneck” colleague dies in bed with an underage black prostitute, Louise suggests using the wedding as a distraction technique to symbolize a return to family values. Convinced that the Keelys will never connect themselves to a gay, Jewish** family, Val asks Armand to pretend he’s the father of the heterosexual “Coleman” family. Val initially asks that Albert not be present for the Keelys’ dinner, but Armand insists they compromise and pretend that his companion is heterosexual Uncle Al. Although the Goldmans want their son to be happy, there is ultimately no sugarcoating that Armand is willing to side with Val and pretend Albert isn’t part of their family unit so that Val can access a social institution the two of them can’t by ingratiating himself to a politician who thinks they’re destroying America. Her reactions, oversized in most situations, are appropriate in this case. When she refers to herself as “the monster, the freak,” neither Armand nor Val deny that she is characterized thus by their plans to hide her.

For the Goldmans, achieving normalcy is largely about restraining (“straighten, tighten”). Not only is Val the beneficiary of the charade, he is the main orchestrator, the ambassador of straightness in a queer enclave. He is a man of few words, forever tolerantly waiting for the exuberance around him to die down. “Don’t add, just subtract,” he repeatedly advises the Birdcage staff, who help transform the Goldmans’ colorful home into a “monastery.” The subtraction includes wanting to present Katherine (Christine Baranski), Val’s biological mother, as Armand’s wife. Albert can barely hide her discomfort around reserved, athletic Katherine, who owns and operates a successful gym.

Although Armand is more masculine and paternal than Albert, Val asks him to tone down his stereotypically gay mannerisms (eg. how he walks, talks, and gestures). Armand, in turn, coaches Albert to restrain herself, emotionally and physically, in order to play is straight. “Look at your pinky! Look at your posture!” He tells her to hold her unruly body more firmly and tone down her emotional responses. Dismissing small setbacks (e.g. breaking a piece of toast) seems like a revelation to her: “Of course! There’s no need to get hysterical. All I have to remember is I can always get more toast.” But the couples’ desire to help their child achieve the life he wants comes at the expense of their own. Right before the Keelys’ arrival, the family gathers in the master bedroom, their vivacity stripped away in the pursuit of heteronormativity. Armand remarks that he looks like his grandfather, who “killed himself when he was 30.” Their clothing and demeanors suggest a funeral, Albert the most uncomfortable of all.

The performance of straightness that the Goldmans put on is a wickedly funny inversion of the colorful, campy drag show that is their profession. Agador calls himself “Spartacus” and lowers his voice by an octave or two, Armand is so stiff that Val feels the need to fabricate a football injury for his father, and Albert presents herself as an old-fashioned housewife from Smalltown, USA whose ludicrously conservative political views terrify her family, but manage to charm Kevin. Appropriately, the Keelys themselves are practically drag versions of straight conservatives, wearing clothing so drab as to practically be Orwellian and barely hiding their elitist, repressive viewpoints under jes’ folks rhetoric. One of my favorite moments in the film is after the two families first meet, when Kevin responds to a polite question about his trip to South Beach with a soporific monologue that spins out into a patriotic travelogue gone wrong. Of course, they too look at the dinner party as a path to social legitimacy (or, as Louise puts it, “salvation”) that will hide their own connection to deviance. The Keelys too have a fat skeleton in their closet, as Lousie tries to prevent Kevin from stress-bingeing on candy, and they are stalked by a tabloid journalist (Tom McGowan) who’s “put on so much weight since the Simpson trial.”

As a fat, gender nonconforming person, I deeply felt Albert’s need to be loved and, when people do express love for her, the fragility of her trust. It’s rough living in an environment where people like you are constantly positioned as inherently unworthy of respect. Even in the safety of home, family, and community, it is impossible to completely forget the hostility of the outside world, or how easy it is for that hostility to be present in a loved one. As Albert says, fed up with the emotional burden of being a source of shame for Val, “…everyone laughs at me. I’m quite aware of how ridiculous I am.” She says this as she is leaving for the cemetery, dramatically communicating that she feels she is dead to her family. The scene is not completely serious, as her tone and gestures mimic a diva in a classic melodrama, but it does reflect the real emotional fallout that many LGBTQ people have experienced due to being rejected by their families, including suicide in some instances.

This isn’t the first film I’ve seen with parallels between fatness and queerness, even if fatness is a less explicit factor in The Birdcage than In & Out. They are barriers to achieving a goal (in both cases, a wedding that will provide social legitimacy). Albert’s size doesn’t threaten Val and Barbara’s engagement, but she does worry that Armand isn’t attracted to her any longer and doesn’t want to make their partnership legally binding. Albert’s body, specifically her emotions and mannerisms, is seen as excessive to the point of threatening the family’s social legitimacy. Her queerness is irrepressible, and the men of the family take it upon themselves to orchestrate a solution. However, once her influence is removed from the family, Val and Armand alone are not enough to win Kevin and Louise’s trust. It is only through relying on her “threatening” inclinations to be feminine and maternal (Armand describes her as “practically a breast”), and her skill as a drag queen, that Albert can pass as Mother Coleman. Once seen as a heterosexual, female mother, she becomes a legitimate (and favored) member of the family in the eyes of Kevin, who is the apex of power in the film, both in terms of social capital and allowing Val to marry Barbara. The facade of normativity cannot be maintained for long, but the temporary diversion from her outcast status is enough for Albert to sustain the dinner party longer than Val or Armand could on their own. Her drag skills come in handy again to prevent the Keelys from being spotted by the press, ending the film with a power reversal where the heterosexual elite are sheepishly reliant on the queers for a different kind of salvation than Louise originally anticipated.

Albert and Armand’s happy ending isn’t just because they get to be themselves, but because they triumph due to how their lives have been shaped by being marginalized. It’s not an explicit score for the fat kids, like Hairspray, but it does find power in qualities that get combined with fatness: femininity, sensitivity, and excess.

*Albert identifies as a gay man and is referred to with both masculine and feminine pronouns. There are several points in the movie where Albert shows a preference for feminine pronouns, thus my use of she/her/hers in this article. Apologies if this is confusing.

** Sander Gilman’s Fat Boys: a Slim Book includes an interesting history of the conflation of Jews and fatness in the historical Gentile imagination. Suffice it to say that there are stereotypical characteristics common to Jewishness, fatness, and effeminacy, such as a lack of athleticism and a penchant for heavy foods (“When the schnecken beckons!”).

The Blind (Drunk) Leading the Blind (Drunk): Shaun of the Dead; Hot Fuzz; The World’s End (2004, 2007, 2013; dir. Edgar Wright)

My article The Blind (Drunk) Leading the Blind (Drunk): Masculinities and Friendship in Edgar Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy is up on BitchFlicks as part of their theme week on masculinity. The Cornetto Trilogy are three of my favorite films, and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost) in The World’s End is one of my favorite fat characters, a topic I hope to explore more in depth on here in the future. I had a lot of fun writing it. Please check it out, as well as the other articles about masculinities in film and television.

The DUFF, or: What Makes a Character Fat?

In wide release as of last week, The DUFF is about Bianca (Mae Whitman), a senior in high school who is told that she is a Designated Ugly Fat Friend, someone whose social value lies in making her friends look more attractive by comparison. This premise has not gone without critique. From Genevieve Koski’s review on the Dissolve:

The idea of a “DUFF”—a “designated ugly fat friend,” or the less-attractive person hot people keep around to make them seem more desirable and approachable—is hideous, offensive, and shallow. And to its credit, The DUFF treats it as such. The idea of Arrested Development’s Mae Whitman, a just barely unconventionally attractive, objectively not-fat actor being a DUFF is even more hideous, offensive, and shallow. And to its detriment, The DUFF doesn’t do enough to undermine that idea.

When an actress who is straight-sized (if not willowy) is cast as someone who is devalued because of the size of her body, does that representation highlight the unobtainable exclusivity of beauty standards, or uphold them by eclipsing the potential for featuring an actress whose body deviates even further from those standards? According to its defenders, The DUFF concludes that it’s best to embrace who you are, but is that necessarily synonymous with critiquing culturally established beauty standards? Frankly, I don’t want to schlep downtown in the cold and pay $11 to find out for myself, but the DUFF kerfuffle did bring to light something I’ve been wondering for a while: what establishes a character as fat?

Spot the ugly fat person, win a prize!

In our day-to-day lives, we have indicators from various institutions as to whether or not we are fat. The body mass index (BMI) is a commonly used, if flawed, tool in the medical field. Mass-produced goods like clothing give us indication about what bodies are supposed to look like. However, it’s unusual for a film to explicitly state a character’s height and weight, or their clothing size. Of the films that I’ve reviewed on this blog so far, the closest that we’ve come to information about a character’s height/weight or clothing size is In & Out, where Emily reveals that she used to be 75 pounds heavier.

“Fat” as a descriptor goes beyond quantifiable data. Mae Whitman obviously isn’t fat by clothing size or BMI standards, but she was cast as a “fat” character. Even if she can buy clothing in the same store as her peers and her doctor doesn’t tell her to lose weight, Whitman’s body is further than co-star Bella Thorne’s from the established Hollywood ideal. The measurement that The DUFF uses to consider someone beautiful and thin is objectionable, but it is hardly unprecedented, even in Whitman’s own career. Her previous roles include characters whose function in the story is to be undesirable in comparison to someone else. These roles include Mary Elizabeth in Perks of Being a Wallflower, who is less desirable as a girlfriend than Sam (Emma Watson); Roxy in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, where her relationship with Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is dismissed as a “bicurious” phase; and her arguably best-known role as as Ann Veal in Arrested Development. Ann has many qualities that make the Bluths question her suitability as a girlfriend for George Michael (Michael Cera), such as her far-right Christian beliefs and her predilection for mayoneggs, but her appearance is an undeniable factor. His father Michael’s (Jason Bateman) numerous Freudian slips when referring to her include “Ann-Hog,” and when George Michael points her out to Uncle Gob (Will Arnett), he puzzledly responds, “What, is she funny or something?” Ann is the butt of these jokes, but so are the Bluths themselves, as the series’ humor is often driven by characterizing them as shallow California elitists. So no, the common person on the street would probably not characterize Mae Whitman as fat or ugly, but that’s the point: the viewpoint that’s being presented is not the common person’s, it’s a viewpoint coming from the apex of cultural power and privilege.

Even if it’s positioned in different places based on the context, there exists a boundary that divides bodies with an acceptable amount of fat tissue and bodies with an excessive amount. Fat bodies. Marilyn Wann offers a thought-provoking meta-description of fat, saying that it “functions as a floating signifier, attaching to individuals based on a power relationship, not a physical measurement.” (“Forward,” The Fat Studies Reader)

One of the reasons that fat has become one of my main intellectual preoccupations is because of my own disorienting experiences being a fat character in other people’s lives. According to the BMI, I am obese. Most clothing lines don’t make clothes in my size. However, my body is usually accommodated in public spaces (e.g. I’ve not yet had to pay for a second seat on an airplane), and I don’t suffer a tenth of the harassment that some of my larger friends do. So while I’m fat, I occupy a weird in-between social space where thin(ner) people have no qualms about saying horrible things about Fat People to me, or express disgust at how fat they themselves are. At least once, the average-height adult making the latter observation weighed half as much as I did. I don’t think someone larger than me has ever complained to me about their weight in that way. “Ugh, I’m so fat, I’m so disgusting.” And what, I wonder, does that make me? Hearing virulent rants about Fat People is equally confusing for me. Am I the Ambassador of Fat, tasked with the diplomatic mission of returning to my people with the message to stop ruining society and being so gross?

I’ve never had the nerve to ask a thinner person to tease out the meaning behind their statement, or even why they felt it appropriate to say. There have been a handful of times when these comments have felt like a passive-aggressive attempt to shame or scold me, but I can extrapolate from 30 years of being around humans that the majority aren’t intentionally including me, even if they inherently are. People often describe themselves as “fat” as shorthand for feeling unattractive or unhealthy. Applying Wann’s quote, “fat” is used in this context to express how someone feels their own body devalued– disempowered– in comparison to the thin ideal. I’ve been on friendly terms with most of the people who have made disparaging comments to me about Fat People, the disempowered Other who should be ashamed of themselves for not being Us, without realising that I can’t/won’t detach myself from that Other.

But let’s return to the original question: what makes a film character fat? When choosing characters to discuss for CPBS, the most obvious guideline I use is whether the movie explicitly labels them as fat. Some characters conveniently describe their own bodies as fat, like Louis in True Stories or Pagliacci in Shock Corridor. Some are labeled fat through another character’s observation, like Bianca in The DUFF. But a fair number of characters aren’t explicitly assessed in these terms. Stereotypes can draw attention to a character’s fatness, like Sgt. Powell’s Twinkie habit in Die Hard, or Dale’s lack of confidence in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. But as I talked about with regards to Emma Levie’s role in Snowpiercer, it can be impossible to discern if a fat actor is in a role because they were the best person for the job regardless, or if their body is intended to symbolize a concept or visually reinforce a character trait or interpersonal dynamic (e.g. that timeless dramatic pairing, hottie/DUFF).

The former situation even raises further considerations about a character who is written as fat versus a character who is played by a fat person. Would The DUFF be given more credit for exploring its subject matter if Sharon Rooney had been cast as Bianca? No offense to Mae Whitman, but that would make me more willing to see it in theaters. It would be a more sincere approach to feature an actress who could realistically be the fattest person in the room outside of a casting call for a Hollywood-made teen movie. As with In & Out, if a film wants to make a point about fat people accepting their bodies, the actor in that role should be someone whose body actively challenges the audience’s expectations about what acceptable bodies look like. But of course, not every fat character in a film is intended to carry a message about self-acceptance. Individual films vary greatly in their agendas, cultural milieus, and viewpoints.

After 1400 words of thinkpiecing, I find myself no closer to universally applicable guidelines for who a fat character is, but I feel like ambiguity is the only thing that could accurately reflect the mutable nature of socially constructed power dynamics. Leaving that process of discernment (especially when looking for topics for this blog) should probably remain in the intuitive realm, because the one common thread that I have found in the characters that I’ve written about thus far is that I find myself able to compare and contrast them to my own real-life experiences of being a fat person. From my perspective, that’s enough to make them a member of the club.

Emotional Intelligence and Fatness: Secrets and Lies (1996; dir. Mike Leigh)

Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a middle-class black optometrist, seeks out and connects with her birth mother, Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), a white factory worker and general hot mess, inadvertently inheriting the rest of her biological family at the same time. Secrets and Lies received critical acclaim upon its release, including the Palm d’Or and several Oscar nominations, largely for its talented cast and nuanced characters. This includes Maurice, Cynthia’s financially better-off brother who is trying to keep his cooling marriage alive, played by Timothy Spall (or, as nerds might know him better, Peter “Wormtail” Pettigrew).

In Fat Boys: a Slim Book, Sander L. Gilman analyzes different ways fat male bodies are used in Western cultural narratives to signify values and beliefs about human nature. One of the archetypes he discusses is the fat detective, largely citing British characters such as Dr. Edward “Fitz” Fitzgerald on the BBC series Cracker, as portrayed by Robbie Coltrane (if this blog takes off, I’m apparently going to have to do at least one post about Harry Potter).

“His oversized body invokes… his mode of inquiry… Such an obese body seems more feminine, but certainly not female; it is expressive of the nature of the way the detective seems to ‘think.’ His thought processes strike us as intuitive and emotional rather than analytic and objective. In other words, the fat detective’s body is read as feminine.” (Gilman, 154, 155)

Maurice isn’t a detective, but like the fat detectives Gilman describes, he does rely on intuitive and emotional skills to navigate both his personal and professional lives. He often becomes a paternal figure in both of these spheres. However, instead of being cold or autocratic (or absent, like every biological father in the film) his approach to fatherly tasks is gentle and nurturing.

When we see him in his role as a portrait photographer, he is interacting in a warm manner with a diverse array of people in varying situations, from a nervous bride to a bitter plaintiff, trying to make a connection and get them to smile. While his detached offscreen voice and constant insistence on drawing his subjects’ attentions to his camera give him an air of authority, what comes across more strongly in these scenes is a sense that Maurice can see beauty and humanity in everyone in front of his lens. These traits also apply to his role as a businessman.

Stuart (Ron Cook), the former owner of his photography studio, pays an unexpected visit, drunk and on the verge of aggression. Maurice patiently listens to him rant about his string of bad luck, but also sets firm boundaries around Stuart’s claim to his business and the stay of his visit, while his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan) and his assistant Jane (Elizabeth Berrington) wait nervously in the next room, expecting a conflict to erupt.

Maurice is in a paternal position in his family, although given that his and Cynthia’s father is long dead and Cynthia won’t even disclose who sired her own daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook), this is his place by default. He is a provider for his sister, niece, and wife, whose reliance on him and volatile relationships with each other are reaching a breaking point. He describes his own situation best: “I’ve spent my entire life trying to make people happy, and the three people I love the most in the world hate each others’ guts, I’m in the middle, I can’t take it anymore!” When the film opens, he hasn’t seen Cynthia in two years; backstory that makes him seem cold at first is quickly understood by the audience during their reunion scene, where her neediness for his affection uncomfortably borders on incestuous. (She also jiggles his belly and makes a comment about how well-off he is, connecting his fatness to a bourgeois lifestyle that separates him from Cynthia and his working class roots). His interactions with his wife Monica are similarly nurturing but off-kilter, despite his good intentions. In an early scene in the movie, he comes home to find her frustrated over something she won’t talk about. He tries to take her mind off whatever it is by offering to pour her a glass of wine and make small talk; however, his indirect approach backfires and leads to her storming out of the house.

During the climactic birthday party scene, kicked into high gear by Cynthia’s ill-timed confession that Hortense is her daughter, Maurice becomes an active force for repairing communication and relationships in his family. “We’re all in pain,” he implores his loved ones, “Why can’t we share our pain?” He tells his family that Monica is infertile when she can’t bring herself to do so. When Hortense is nearly paralyzed by her discomfort and isolation, he praises her bravery for seeking the truth and welcomes her to the family. His ability to wrangle the mistruths and resentment that have built up for years with honesty and love are deeply moving to Jane: “Oh Maurice, I wish I’d had a dad like you. You’re lovely.” He reaches across the table to take her hand as she breaks down crying.

Gilman’s analysis of the fat detective archetype includes another trait besides emotional sagacity: feminization. Despite the masculine attributes discussed above, Maurice could not be described as a paragon of masculinity, especially the masculinity that is often celebrated in Western cinema. His photography relies on empathy, intuition, and patience, and often has him as witness to familial scenarios. His caretaker role in his own family is feminized as well, such as in scenes where he cares for Monica when she is bedridden (he would probably be described as “henpecked”). The responsibility for his and Monica’s childlessness is placed on her body, but the lack of children also detracts from his virility. Directly after the birthday party scene, we see Maurice and Monica spooning in bed together (a setting where previously we had only seen him taking care of her). His plea to his family for greater communication has brought them closer together, but the sexuality between man and wife is only suggested: his bare chest, her nightie, the intimacy of the closeup shot. Compare this to the more frankly sexual scene between Roxanne and her boyfriend. Maurice stands in even greater contrast to his sister, who is firmly ensconced in roles and character traits that are “appropriate” to her gender. Cynthia’s history and own sense of worth is strongly tied to her attractiveness to men (her “feminine charms”), her relationships to the people in her life, and her sexuality.

Fat bodies are degendered to a certain degree in Western culture, often detracting from the fat person being characterized fully within masculine power or feminine beauty. Even the rare image of androgyny (that isn’t played for laughs) is usually conveyed with a slender body, such as Tilda Swinton’s. In Maurice’s case, however, the softening of masculinity and embracing of traditionally feminine characteristics put him in a position to bring about family healing, and give the emotionally fraught story of Secrets and Lies a happy ending.

Teaching and Holding Back: Strictly Ballroom (1992, dir. Baz Luhrmann)

Strictly Ballroom is Luhrmann’s directorial debut, a romantic comedy about Scott, an impatient and talented competitive ballroom dancer who gains an unlikely partner in awkward amateur Fran mere weeks before the Big Competition he’s been working towards (and groomed for) his entire life. The story is well-trod territory: part underdog sports story, part Pygmalion, with some rage against the machine thrown in for good measure, but the film charms with its energy, sweetness, and colorful mise en scene. Plus I’m a sucker for films that are ensconced in insular subcultures, making characters’ goals simultaneously low stakes and very, very high stakes. I didn’t watch this movie with the intent of writing about it, but you find fat characters in the darndest places.

I would describe three of the characters in the movie as fat: Les, Barry, and Ya Ya (Fran’s grandmother). Their fatness isn’t explicitly part of how any of them are characterized; the movie doesn’t draw attention to the size of their bodies, nor are they coded as markedly different from the thinner characters. All three characters are of the previous generation, those who have raised the protagonists. Their influence is that of authority, albeit in different ways.

Barry, as the president of the ballroom association and competition judge, is the most direct authority figure. He has the power to designate who the champion is, and his rulings influence “the future of dancesport” itself. He also cleverly manipulates the politics of the Australian competitive ballroom world. Strictly Ballroom values veracity in artistic expression, and as self-styled puppet master of a world of sequined costumes and heavy eyeshadow, Barry is the master of the artificial. He’s even shown to be wearing a wig, the perfect accessory for a blustering, red-faced judge who is wrapped up in the antiquated status quo and his own self-importance.

Les, although still a member of the ballroom old guard, is more balanced than Barry. A self-described “experienced professional,” he is Scott’s teacher who encourages him to win by sticking to traditional ballroom dance moves and finding an acceptable partner for him to compete with. While still a part of the world of ballroom artifice, he ultimately prioritizes the integrity of the competition over Barry’s machinations.

At the other end of the spectrum from Barry, we have Ya Ya, Fran’s grandmother, who embodies the veracity of dance. She dresses plainly with no makeup or hair styling, and imparts the two central pieces of wisdom Strictly Ballroom has to offer, teaching Fran that “a life lived in fear is a life half lived” and teaching Scott that the rhythm is in his heart. (Seriously, Scott, you’ve been dancing since you were 6 and you’ve never had a mentor or a book or another movie about a dancer teach you that? At least it gave Ya Ya an excuse to touch his chest.) Her approach to dance is more soulful than that of Barry or Les, but she’s also reinforcing norms. She teaches the paso doble that has the veracity of tradition behind it, a dance that is more “real” than Scott’s ballroom version. She, along with Fran and Rico, rein in Scott’s headstrong individualism, helping him learn humility and cooperation as he corrals his flamboyantly athletic style into one (admittedly sweet) slide onto the dancefloor during the film’s climax.

So we have three fat characters who represent the authority of age and the different forms that can take. However, their positions as elders makes their fat somewhat more acceptable, and none of them are remarkable outliers in terms of size (Barry would probably be described as “paunchy”). If anything, the actors chosen to embody these characters are stout as part of showing their age, and perhaps as a visual counterbalance to thinner partners who represent the same point of view (Les and Shirley; Ya Ya and Rico; Barry and his blonde co-judge consort) and in contrast to the slim, young protagonists who receive their teachings.

In fact, there are plenty of movies that feature older people whose bodies are “stout” or “matronly” or “paunchy”; I’m sure that if I were to write about every one I saw, this blog would be full of those reviews, and likely say very similar things. Barry, Les, and Ya Ya are all elders, keepers of tradition. Their fatness is somewhat incidental, something that we recognize as a common marker of age and being past one’s prime. These three want to see the prime of their own youth repeated by their progeny and their slimmer, more relevant bodies, despite the different ways they have of achieving their goals.

II.

It took me until the day after viewing to think about the fat characters in Strictly Ballroom, because the first representation of fatness that caught my eye was a bit player. At the beginning of the movie, Fran is at the peak of her ugly duckingness (ducklingitude?). Not only is she insecure and unpolished (the standard trifecta of no makeup, frizzy hair, and glasses), she is a “beginner” dancer: not only beneath the serious attentions of Scott, Les, and Shirley, but– as she repeats a few times at the beginning of the film– without a partner.

This isn’t technically true, however: while Fran is awkwardly by herself for a few numbers during the opening scene at the dance studio, she is paired with another woman, specifically the only fat student there. In the third act, Scott is spurred into reconciling and reuniting with Fran in part by the pity-inducing sight of her dancing at the Pan Pacific Grand Prix in the beginner’s category, with the same fat partner. Fran is marginalized and diminished by the characters in power and the hierarchy of merit that they uphold, those who don’t recognize her as an able or appropriate dance partner for Scott. She is placed in categories in the dance world that are wrong for her given her place in the narrative: she is the beginner’s dance category, despite having authentic knowledge of dance that she is able to share with Scott, and she is made to dance the man’s role, despite fulfilling a very classically feminine role in a romantic story.

Her fat partner is a physical manifestation of this humiliation and ostracization. Even after her skin clears up and her frizzy hair turns into curls, even after her need for eyeglasses has faded into memory, the painful relapse into being a nobody beginner is the presence of the fat dancer. The fat dancer is a non-person, not even considered a partner by the person she’s dancing with. She is a competent dancer (at least, to my untrained eye), but because of her body size (as in the dance studio, she is the only fat person on the Pan Pacific dance floor), she is even less a part of the world of acceptability than Fran. Her presence is unwelcome, presenting a pathetic and humorous contrast to dreamy Scott. The fat dancer accessorizes and amplifies Fran’s humiliation. As we see here and in other movies– Justin Long’s cheerleader tryout scene in Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story springs to mind– slender characters are vulnerable to mocking and humiliation just through pairing with a fat person for an activity. Straight-sized readers: consider this your warning.

Consistent Panda Bear Shape

Fat People in Cinema