Naked and Sweaty, but not in a good way.
I was watching this movie Gamer (2009) the other day. It wasn’t the best thing I’d every seen but I was idly enjoying the first ten minutes of it…until the scene with a sweaty, naked, fat gamer dipping a waffle in sticky syrup and then eating it.
Almost every negative aspect of the fat person stereotype captured on film.
I think there may have been two fat gamer characters. And I think one of them was male and the other female. But it was hard to tell becasue they were shot and lit like horror movie monsters.
As someone watching the movie, I was meant to feel disgust towards the fat gamer character. Any, yes, I felt a little ill. Not becasue the actor was fat. Instead becasue sweaty skin lit up under a florescent green glow doesn’t exactly settle my stomach.
My immediate urge was to turn off the movie. But, like an idiot, I kept watching becasue I paid good money for the rental. Also, I was already playing around with the idea of writing this post, so any other ugliness could be used as fodder.Here’s how IMDB described Gamer (2009) : “Set in a future-world where humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments.” Like Second Life or Sims but with real people as the avatars.
In that first scene with the fat gamer character, they show some in-world sex. I know I’m supposed to feel repulsed at how sexually perverse the fat gamer is but that doesn’t really bother me. Anyone who thinks sexual perversion is restricted to fat people is just being dense.
It’s later in the movie, in a scene where a henchman of the bad guy character in the movie goes on a killing rampage, where I was - once again - riled up.
How does the fat gamer character react to the killing? Completely immortally. Not only does the fat gamer KNOW that real people are getting kill, the character eggs on the killing from a voyeuristic position.
So, once again, I started to write this angry post in my head.
If the message in this movie was ONLY that fat people don’t know anything about air conditioning or clothing, I might have gotten away feeling like the writer relied on stereotypes instead of trying to give us full blown characters.
It was the whole “fat people are not only disgusting but also immoral” that made me feel like the movie was making a statement about how fat people are ruining the world.
This is the kind of crap that those of us in FA are fighting against. The suggestion that fat people are somehow MORE immoral than everyone else. That our fat is a sign of our immorality.
I know that Gamer is an action movie. And there is only so much I can expect from it. But I really feel like the movie took a moral stance. It was aiming for a message about society and technology and part of that message included that fat people are part of the problem.
The good news is that Gamer only got a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I’m fairly certain that it’ll be a blip on the movie landscape. Maybe that’s a sign that other people thought the message of the movie was crap…or they just thought the movie itself was crap.
Either way, I’m giving it a “hated it” on my Netflix cue. Because, separate from the movie just being really bad, as someone lobbying for Fat Rights I really do have some fierce hate aimed at a movie that treats us like monsters of the modern world.
I think that if we weren’t completely ensconced in this War on Obesity, I’d say you’re reading into it too much. I would say the same thing about a Muslim who complains that Muslims are portrayed negatively in the media were it not for the War on Terrorism.
But context is everything.
Fat people are rarely used to add diversity to a cast or simply to explore the depth of character of a fat person (I would say the mom in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” is a great exception). Fat characters almost always serve some ulterior purpose (typically to be the sidekick or comic relief) and their fat serves to bear all sorts of assumptions.
“Fat people are fat because they play video games all day” is a simple, effective stereotype, and the fact that he’s sweaty shows that he’s so lazy that gaming is practically exercise to him. Also, (I haven’t seen the movie, but I would assume) the fat character is probably home-bound too… rarely leaving the house (most likely due to his laziness).
As far as the morality goes, I would say you’re right, except maybe the morality message in this is more about how desensitized a gamer can become to violence. I think the fat character definitely layers that immorality over his obesity, but if I had to guess, I’d say that the theme of the movie would be that video games make violence less offensive. But again, haven’t seen it, wouldn’t know.
Great post.
Peace,
Shannon
atchka -
I am reading a lot into it. If not for my anger, this movie is really just fodder for a sociological reflection on the fat stereotype.
Weather or not the movie maker intended it, I do think “fat is bad” somehow got wrapped up in the message about “technology is evil.”
But, your right, it probably wasn’t intentional. Maybe that should have been more the point at the end of my post. Intentional or not, the message was there.
I PERSONALLY WISH the message was more balanced. I wish is wasn’t so easy or accepted for movie makers to fall back on a fat stereotype.
I think this brings us to a kind of Disney’s “Song of the South” argument.
Does everything in the movies have to have a balanced portrayal? Or, does portraying everything as balanced dilute the reality of our culture, because biased perspectives are a part of life?
Is there something HONEST or REAL about a movie maker using a fat stereotype?
That is, certainly, an interesting question.
I think you could have a movie where the main character has all the fat stereotypes (lazy, gluttonous, unhygienic, nonsexual, etc.) but in order for it not to be just an exercise in cruelty, the filmmaker would have to explore WHY that character is lazy, gluttonous, unhygienic, nonsexual, etc. and not just rely on the fat to be the backstory. Because there are some fat people who fit the fat stereotypes, just as there are some black people who fit the black stereotypes, some asian people who fit asian stereotypes, etc. But just because you find that one person who fits your preconceived notions doesn’t justify applying those preconceived notions to EVERY fat person, black person, asian person you see.
Peace,
Shannon
this is one thing that drives me crazy… when fat is used as comic relief. You may be wondering right now how I’m not in an asylum since fat people are used as comic relief so often. I rarely watch comedies. The same way that I hate when stereotypes on fat people are used to be a butt of the joke, I hate when black stereotypes are used to be the butt of a joke… it’s why I never could be a fan of dave chapelle when he popped on the scene.
My problem? There are too many ignorant people who are going to take your comic relief and use it as evidence that what they believe to be true is true: all fat people are lazy and overeat incessantly, that all black people speak broken English and have a propensity to crime.
I know, making fun of stereotypes are funny… and I’ve been known to laugh at a few but I guess one is more sensitive when the stereotypes are about her. So I hear you on this post.
Roxy -
Your reply made me think of something I’ve been pondering a lot lately. Almost as a rule I don’t like humiliation comedy. I get squirmy watching shows like the Office. I can’t stand it when the point of putting a character in a particular situation is just to be cruel.
But, I’ve been watching this show on BBC called The Inbetweeners. For the life of my, I can’t figure out how I can watch the show. It’s about four teenage boys and how humiliating their life is.
I’ve been wondering if maybe the reason I can watch The Inbetweeners is becasue there is a kind of fondness for the characters. It’s almost like I can tell the difference between something that’s written with a fondness for the characters as compared to something that’s written with disdain for the characters.
There’s this scene in the The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (movie) where Carmen, played by America Ferrera, says “You think a pair of jeans that fits all of you is gonna fit all of this” in reference to the fact that she’s a curvy girl.
It’s one of the rare instances where I heard a funny line about size that I didn’t think was cruel. So, yeah, I’m not against comedy about fat, I just wish more of it came from place of fondness instead of a place of disdain.
Having said all that, I also relate with the feeling of not wanting certain crap in my head. My husband loves war movies but he knows I wont’ watch them with him becasue I don’t want it in my head.
There’s a lot of stuff I don’t get to choose in life, but I get to decide what I’ll let myself be desensitized to. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that choice.
I haven’t seen the movie yet but I’ve seen the type of vulgar stereotypes you are talking about.
Gilbert Grape is such a great movie. Makes me cry every time.
dufmanno -
Much of a movie geek as I am, Gilbert Grape has never really done it for me. It may be a Leonardo DiCaprio thing, becasue Titanic doesn’t do it for me either.
the more i get into fat acceptance the more i am unwilling to put up with shows having sterotypical fat humor. i dont get letter writing angry but i sure am getting there. I wonder if there are fat acceptance steps like AA or something. First, i lurked. then i thought good for them but not for me…now im in the ANGRY phase….whats next?
I am not sure if this is an original idea of if I read it somewhere, but I think there are many common an distinctive steps to getting involved in Fat Acceptance. If anyone knows of any books out there that describe the different stages of Fat Acceptance please post them here.
I think this could be a very interesting thing to bang out.
The stages of Fat Acceptance… or would the Phases of Fat Acceptance be a better descriptor.
Cheers,
ivan
Maybe we need something akin to the Bechdel test for fat. Movies that don’t pass the Bechdel test leave me absolutely fuming, especially when they’re geared at children, and I feel the same way about movies that use fat as shorthand for greedy or lazy (Do NOT go to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs if you feel the same way about either). I now won’t watch a movie unless it’s listed as okay on the Bechdel site (or unless the lack of women is integral to the plot). But there’s no equivalent for fat.
My daughter thinks I am no fun at all for caring about this stuff, and I didn’t used to care. Maybe it’s a stage in fat acceptance, but I suspect I’m just getting more and more radicalized in general since the turn of the century, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the politicians get boughter and people who are different get more powerless and fight against each other for the tiny leftover slice of pie. The sexism and fatism and racism etc. is not just wrong in itself, it feels like a distraction.
Oh, sorry. Thought I was on Kos.
Man, if you’re gonna reference something like the Bechdel test, you gotta give us some background. I just spent a full minute searching for and reading about it myself. It’s hard!
Anyway, the Bechdel test for fat isn’t a bad idea and wouldn’t be hard to convert.
A movie:
1) Has to have at least two fat people in it
2) Who talk to each other
3) About something other than their weight
Done and done!
Peace,
Shannon
Shannon, you only didn’t know about the Bechdel test because you’re a guy. Read about it on some feminism 101 site somewhere. I shouldn’t have to explain the very basic stuff every time a man comes along and says … oh, wait, that was several fights back. I forgot.
http://bechdel.nullium.net/
I don’t think you can do a straight translation to fat people. Women actually make up half the population, so the Bechdel test represents a very, very, I mean VERY low standard of representation. Actually, as I type this, I’m remembering that technically over half the US population is fat, too, and Hollywood’s standards for actors is really abnormal in that way. I guess it can be the eventual goal, but if we adopt that standard now, we’ll get to see maybe a single movie a year, and it’s likely to star Eddie Murphy.
Trabb’s,
You’re not on the Fatosphere any more and our expectations are a little different. Yeah, I don’t have any idea what the Bechdel test was until I looked it up. But I’m guessing there are plenty of women who have no idea what it is either. I know it’s frustrating to explain something you take for granted, but for the benefit of our readers who are not feminists (and, again, that includes women), I’m just asking that you give us a little background. That’s all.
As far as the Bechdel test for fat, I think that right now, while we’re in the rudimentary stages of the FA message, I think something basic can be applied. Right now, if you see a fat person on the big screen, you can bet they were cast specifically for their fatness (whether for positive or negative reasons). This test seems to basically say, “Include us without making our diversity the central element in our character.” That may set the bar pretty low, but over time we can raise the bar and our expectations for representation.
Peace,
Shannon
Trabb’s Boy - Thanks for the link. Like Shannon, I didn’t know about “Bechdel test” but that’s probably becasue I have an uneven relationship with my feminism. My husband is actually a way better feminist than I am. Which I find endlessly endearing and amusing.
Humour fail. I was totally joking. Of course I should have explained it or posted a link!
Humour detection fail! Sorry! I should lighten up.
Peace,
Shannon