A Love Letter To Fat People
Except without the "love" part. The description of this movie on Yahoo is that “A meek guy is pressed into marrying a monstrous woman.” Why is she monstrous, you ask? Does she lie, cheat, steal, pull the whiskers off of kittens? Why no—it’s even worse—she’s fat! As if that weren’t off-putting enough, I have six words for you: Eddie Murphy in a fat suit.
I loved Eddie Murphy right up until watching this trailer. His performance in Bowfinger is one of my all-time favorite film performances, or at least it was, until watching this trailer. “Offensive” does not even begin to cover it. I’m willing to concede that in Shallow Hal, they were at least interested in making the fat girl a real person with real feelings, in spite of the fat suit and all the fat jokes. This movie is just an excuse to fat bash, and because it’s not a “real” fat woman, it makes it all okay.
Watching this trailer just left a horrible taste in my mouth. I can’t imagine that there is anything redeeming about it whatsoever, and I can’t believe Eddie Murphy is stooping so low, or that anyone would stoop so low as to go see it. Go rent Last Holiday instead. Now there’s a movie!
I loved Eddie Murphy right up until watching this trailer. His performance in Bowfinger is one of my all-time favorite film performances, or at least it was, until watching this trailer. “Offensive” does not even begin to cover it. I’m willing to concede that in Shallow Hal, they were at least interested in making the fat girl a real person with real feelings, in spite of the fat suit and all the fat jokes. This movie is just an excuse to fat bash, and because it’s not a “real” fat woman, it makes it all okay.
Watching this trailer just left a horrible taste in my mouth. I can’t imagine that there is anything redeeming about it whatsoever, and I can’t believe Eddie Murphy is stooping so low, or that anyone would stoop so low as to go see it. Go rent Last Holiday instead. Now there’s a movie!
posted by mo pie at 11:52 AM
13 Comments:
If you send links to NAAFA and BFB with a note, I'll bet they'd organize a boycott.
Or, since it looks like the film has no plot whatsoever, you could roll the dice and take the chance it'll flop on its own. I don't remember "Daddy Day Care" being anywhere near any of the awards ceremonies.
You are right--that trailer is cringeworthy, and I am sure they chose the name to emphasize the planetary size of the 'woman.' My question for you is, why is this so much more heinous than The Nutty Professor (one and two)? Because it is a fat woman rather than a man? He was completely belittled, solely for being fat in the Nutty Professor...and as usual, thought the way to be happy was to be thin. I think that Eddie Murphy has been doing these characters for a while now--and do not forget Martin Lawrence and Big Momma.
I honestly found Shallow Hal to be worse. I think that was mainly because of Gwyneth Paltrow's devastatingly sad day wearing the fat suit in public. Whatever, granola wench--I have no sympathy, because you can take the fat suit off.
Rather than do what the previous poster suggested--a boycott or whatever--I suggest you take the opposite approach: Let the movie die a quick death at the theaters, as you know it will, without giving it more credence than it deserves with your attention.
Thanks for making me think today--I have done very little of that this fine Saturday!! :)
Actually, Shayna, I did suggest that - in the 2nd paragraph of the comment.
On a lighter note, "Last Holiday" is quite cute - and LL Cool J is just as amazing looking in person (if anyone was wondering). Whoo!
Well, in addition to being fat she has a few other characteristics that would qualify as monstrous. Take a second look at the trailer. She's violent, bossy, manipulative, paranoid, and gossipy.
And she's not just a little fat in a healthy, fat-but-fit, "low risk for cornory events pudgy" sort of way. She has a substantial belly apron. She looks maybe BMI 40.
BMI 40??? Please, that woman's BMI is like 60.
Someone else beat me to it - no way would that woman have a BMI of 40.
But yes, Norbitt looks very unfunny and recycled, as well as being offensive. As littlem suggested, I don't think it's worth the effort of boycotting. I'm sure it will die at the box office without any help.
I think both anons missed the point - it doesn't matter how high the character's BMI is, it's the fact that they're specifically chosing to make the character obese, give her those nasty characteristics, AND make fun of her being obese.
I actually saw the trailer for this a couple of weeks ago on VH1, and since a lot of the blogs I follow hadn't said anything about it, I decided to look around on my own. The 'plot' of the movie is that the main character tries to find a way to be with the "woman of his dreams," who of course has a shining personality and lives off of a diet of lettuce and water, yadda yadda...
Really nice.
No, I get the point completely, but if we're going to be all honest about weight and fat awareness / acceptance, then let's be accurate as well, huh? Saying that the woman in that film had a BMI of 40 just plays into the true unawareness most people have for the weight-to-visual-size reality.
(By this I mean -- my boyfriend will look at a woman who probably weighs a good solid 160 lbs and think she weighs 120. He proably thinks that at my heaviest -- 250 -- I weighed what i weigh now, which is around 185-190). Incidentally, when I now tell my friends and family that at my heaviest, I was about 250 lbs, they gasp with shock, just as I did when I learned that technically I was morbidly obese -- becaue i didn't LOOK like what most people assume and the media portrays a morbidly obese / BMI-of-40+ person looks like.
I hate the assumption that "obese" is not just a fact but a judgment call -- it's scientific term based on a mathmatical formula and people really have no idea what the visual represtation of those weights looks like.
Jessifer is dead right about this IMO
"it's scientific term based on a mathmatical formula and people really have no idea what the visual represtation of those weights looks like".
Something quite similar to this
"my boyfriend will look at a woman who probably weighs a good solid 160 lbs and think she weighs 120"
happened to me again just last weekend.
In the fatphobic world we live in, I'm not sure as women we should stop *ahem* shading the truth about it though. When the deck is stacked that high against you, take your advantages where they are.
"Incidentally, when I now tell my friends and family that at my heaviest, I was about 250 lbs, they gasp with shock, just as I did when I learned that technically I was morbidly obese -- becaue i didn't LOOK like what most people assume and the media portrays a morbidly obese / BMI-of-40+ person looks like."
I could have written those words. People throw around the term "morbidly obese" without realising that, comparatively speaking, it's not that heavy.
I think we need new terms to describe someone with a BMI of 50+ and 60+.
It always shocks me how some men have no idea what size is represented by what number. My best guy friend was meeting a girl he met on the web and had her height/weight numbers. It was years ago and I still remember him saying 'she is 140 and 5'8, that is pretty big, right'? And he wasn't trying to be a jerk, just trying to figure out what she looked like. I told him that I was 145 and 5'3 at the time. He was stunned. Because he didn't see me as big, and was shocked by how thin that would make her.
I think about that whenever people talk about whether they should tell guys they meet on the internet (fatty mcblog) what they weigh. You don't want anyone to lie about it, but maybe a picture would be better - actually give a visual representation that is accurate rather than the grossly overestimated thought of what numbers equal what body shape.
And then, even more babbling, I think about an article I saw in a woman's magazine once of 5 pictues of women who were 'average' which I think was 5'3 and 150 at the time. They were shockingly different even with exactly the same weight and height based on bone structure, muscle mass etc.
Somehow the idea of "just over 100lb" being a good slender weight for a woman is still pervasive in our culture, the problem is that number is from the 1920s, when women were around 5'. My grandmother is 5'2", she's petite by today's standards, but for her generation she's "average". I'm sure that's partly where the skew comes from when guys hear the number 150 and think "big". Nobody factors in height and build when they focus on the weight number.
I think that for internet dating type situations it would be much more useful to give dress size if you feel the need to give a number, I think most guys still won't know what that really means, but they'll be more likely to remember that an old girlfriend wore size 14 (or whatever) so a size 16 is one up from that. I think an honest but flattering photo would be far better though. I met my husband through match.com, and I would not have told him my weight or size if he'd asked, I had "few extra pounds" checked on my profile, and realistic photos, though the photos didn't show much of my body shape. It's ok though, he checked that he had a college degree and he didn't. ;->
I'm another person that didn't look 250 when I was 250, I don't look over 200 and I am! Also, I've gained 10-15lb from my lowest weight, but I'm still wearing the same pants, they're barely any tighter, when I weighed this much before, I was a size and half bigger.
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