An Intelligent, Insightful Documentary
And the Film That Fills Me With Rage (see also: The Unmentionable Film) is rolling on, racking up the dollars of the stupid, even as the reviews come rolling in.
Happily, they say the things you'd imagine should be said about the movie; This review not only says them, but says them brilliantly.
Happily, they say the things you'd imagine should be said about the movie; This review not only says them, but says them brilliantly.
Labels: film
posted by anne at 11:29 AM
10 Comments:
I am loving that....
Rasputia comes to life as our worst nightmare: an overweight person who believes she deserves to be happy with her husband.
Awesome!
I took myself to see a movie yesterday (Because I Said So, whcih was not NEARLY as good as I wanted it to be, although the clothing was fantastic), and was sort of saddened to see a very large group of very overweight black women flocking to see this movie.
I guess I'd like to think that women of ALL colors would be protesting it, but especially black women, as it specifically does not portray them in a good light, and specifically mocks those women of color who are overweight.
First time on your blog. LOVE your whole point about societal hipocrasy and prejudice against overweight people. How true. You go, girl.
That review is awesome! It takes something of the sting out of seeing posters from That Unmentionable Movie everywhere I look.
Even before I read Jessiferseabs eye-witness testimony, I was thinking about the box-office numbers, and the usual statistics that get bandied around about the large percentage of overweight women in this country. I'm not good at math, so I just ended up with "A lot of fat women probly went to see That Movie." Which is pretty awful too- Is it self-hatred? or the sickening feeling of "at least I'm not as fat/nasty as she is!"?
Maybe someday there will be a funny movie about a fat person that isn't about how fat (and therefore awful) they are (Hello, Dawn French, are you out there?)
That was an absolutely brilliant review, thanks so much for sharing it (it really made my day)!
Thank you for the link!
Yeah, Divine was a rocking fat chick even if she was a he! And the shock value in Female Trouble comes from so many other elements in the movies, it is never so insultingly simple as "Fat people are gross and awful," which as the review points out is the the thesis of TUM.
I love Hairspray as a feel-good movie. It's not the comedy I was fantasizing about earlier, but it is candy-fluff-empowering. These days it looks pretty radical to depict a fat girl dancing. on TV! with her cute boyfriend! and people like her!
Yes, I too remember cheering along with Ricki Lake as Traci Turnblad -- her character being the coolest, hippest person in the whole movies, whose soul shines so brightly that she lands the cute boyfriend, queen of the auto show, and the love of Baltimore!
And as campy as it was, the concept that Traci was wonderful and popular was completely plausible.
Oh, and one more thing: I remember seeing Ricki Lake on her show, after she'd lost her weight. There was some segment on dancing, feeling sexy while dancing, and Ricki was somewhat shy about dancing on her show. Some larger women stood up and said "Don't give us that! We saw you shaking that groove thang in Hairspray! You got it goin' down girl!" Lake just turned 30 shades of red. Its like she sort of lost something -- a level of moxie -- when she lost all that weight, like permission to be outrageously sensual or something. I hope that doesn't happen to me.
Although, I don't think it will.
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