Call me Ahab
In the fall of 2022, I started to hear chatter about a new film coming out: Actor Brendan Fraser was returning to the big screen. The film he was appearing in apparently received a six-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival in September of 2022. I was curious. I love going to the movies. What kind of movie would get such acclaim?
Then I learned about the film. The film was titled “The Whale”. The film was about a very fat man (600+ lb) named Charlie, who was trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter. At first I thought, “Well, that’s odd. To my knowledge, Brendan Fraser does not weight 600 lb or anything near 600 lb. Why would he be playing that role? Why couldn’t they find a fat actor to play the role?” Then I started reading about the film. Lots of positive reviews were coming out. Lots of film critics were saying this role was Brendan Fraser’s “role of a lifetime!” Critics were saying that Brendan Fraser was “magnificent!” Some critics actually cited Brendan Fraser as “brave” for donning the fat suit he needed to play the role. I wondered, “Why would you think someone was ‘brave' for wearing a fat suit?” Then I read even more reviews.
There were other reviewers saying less positive things about the film. Others besides myself recognized that a fat actor was not chosen to play the role of a fat character. Darren Aronofsky, the directory of the film, said he felt choosing a 600 lb actor would be unwise for health and safety reasons. Brendan Fraser was asked to wear a 300 lb fat suit for this role. How safe is it to sit in an extra 300 lb for hours? In interviews, Brendan Fraser talked about how he studied how fat people moved and how they struggled through life. Honestly, I appreciated hearing about his curiosity. Still, he carried his own fat biases. He kept referring to fat people as obese folks with illnesses and addictions. If you’ve read my past blogs, you know that these words fire me up. If not, here’s quick primer.
Obesity is word related to the Body Mass Index or BMI. BMI is an arbitrary set of numbers based on the calculations of a Belgian statistician from the 1800s. Our diet industry got ahold of the numbers, convinced the medical and insurance industries to use them, and now we’re stuck with them. They’re arbitrary and fat-shaming. Losing weight is a losing battle. Within 5 years, 95% of weight that is lost will be gained back if not more! I’ve written a number of pieces that address these facts, including I’m Pissed and A Picture. Having a larger body is not an illness or an addiction. If you’d like to go on a diet, go ahead! I won’t stop you. Just don’t tell me or anyone else they are addicted to food and they need a diet.
But what about the movie?
I read a number of reviews of the film that talked about the fat tropes that were present in the film. While Brendan Fraser may have explored the world of fat people and wanted to understand their challenges, his character still portrayed what our fat-shaming culture wants us to see. From the reviews I’ve read and listened to, I’ve learned that Charlie is depicted as slovenly, gorging himself on food. His face and clothing show stains from either food or sweat. He can barely move his body and seems to have chosen to give up on himself. As I read reviews in The NY Times, Yahoo, and Salon, I could see the anti-fat bias that was evident in the film. Commentary started showing up on podcasts I listen to as well. Pretty quickly, I made the decision: I love going to the movies, but I was not going to see the movie The Whale. I didn’t care how many standing ovations it got or how long the audience stood.
In January 2023, a group of friends and I decided to sign up for a local continuing education class. The class is a “movie club”. We get to visit a local independent theater with the rest of the people who signed up. There, we discuss current film news and see an acclaimed film. Generally, the films are not the top box office hits (Top Gun, Avatar, and Black Panther won’t hit these screens). When we registered for the class, a syllabus was sent with the movies we would see. Films would be shown every Monday afternoon.
The first Monday morning, a new syllabus was released. Some of the movies had changed. The second movie was now The Whale. I was in shock. Here it was; the movie I had decided had no place in my viewing was now on our list of films. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I quickly called my friend in the class and told her about my concerns. She said, “Oh, we can just pick a different movie. Just email the program leader and tell her you’ve seen that movie and you want to see something else.”
I am a fat activist. I live with my ear to the ground, looking to put a chink in the armor of diet culture. Diet culture is a $73 billion industry and pretty much all I can do is create chinks. Doing nothing–that’s not my style. So I had to do something. I decided to write the program leader back and share my feelings about the film. I let her know that I was aware not everyone likes the same kinds of films. Not everyone will be satisfied with her choices. But this film–it was fat shaming, and I didn’t think we should see a fat shaming film. I cited two reviews that eloquently voiced my concerns. I stated that if the film was going to be shown, I would not be in attendance.
I was surprised to get a response before we met for the first film that afternoon. I was more surprised that she sent the reply to the entire class, not just to me. It wasn’t a literal reply. She sent a BCC message to everyone, talking about my concerns with the movie explaining that someone in the class was concerned about the anti-fat bias of the film. She shared the links to the reviews I sent. Then she stated, “I am obese, and I thought Brendan Fraser’s performance was extraordinary and it resonated with me.” Wow. Okay. So, because this woman identified as fat and she liked the movie, that meant the movie was not distressing? Plus, there was that word again: obese. I’m not going to tell people how to self-identify, but do they recognize when the word they are using is arbitrary and fat shaming?
The surprise didn’t end there. Off we went to the first film screening. At first, the program leader had a discussion about the upcoming Academy Awards. We talked about the nominees, our opinions, and her opinions. Right before the movie was about to start, she said, “We have a few minutes. I would like to talk about the email I sent out about the movie The Whale.” Now my commentary to her was part of the group discussion. Well, I’m a fat activist. Shouldn’t I feel proud? Anonymously famous? No, I wanted to slink under the auditorium seats. She again said she thought Brendan Fraser was great in the film even though she is in a larger body. She said she understood that some people might think it was wrong for Brendan Fraser to wear a fat suit onscreen (vs. a larger actor who might not need one), but she thought he did an excellent job. Someone in the audience said something about how fat people are such “heroes” for how hard their lives are. “Honestly,” I thought, “why can’t we just treat fat people as regular humans, as we all want to be treated?”
After watching the movie that week, I felt frustrated and angry. I felt that the program leader was able to have a platform for her thoughts, but I was not. She did not share my concerns or present all of the biases I was seeing. I told one of my other friends about my anger. She asked if I would consider viewing The Whale the following week with an eye for the social injustices and then share them with the community. Honestly, I wasn’t comfortable doing that. I didn’t believe I would feel safe in the audience hearing all of the praise and unconscious biases about the film. I went home disappointed, knowing at least I spoke up and said what I wanted to say.
The next day, the program leader emailed me privately. She thanked me for sharing my distress and said that she hoped I felt that she had shared it with the club in a respectful and meaningful way. That opened a floodgate for me. I sat down and wrote an email response. In it, I shared my observations about her validating the film based on her own size. I shared my feelings after hearing her state the problem with the film being Brendan Fraser wearing a fat suit and not speaking to any of the fat tropes in the film. I wrote about her having a platform at the theater while I did not. I requested that, in the future, before sending out a message on behalf of a film patron, would she consider asking them for more details about their concerns? Then I hit “send”.
I wasn’t sure what kind of reply I would get. Would more of my words be shared with the entire group? Would she shut me down? I was nervous. She took a couple of days to craft a reply. What came back was surprising–in a good way. The message was kind and compassionate. She acknowledged sharing my message without my permission and not allowing me a space to respond. She shared that it was her intention to represent me and not to censor me. She asked if there was anything she could do that would help remedy the situation.
This email response was special. I felt heard. I felt her compassion and kindness. My eyes even teared up a little. What could she do to help remedy the situation? I wasn’t sure. I wrote her back and thanked her for her thoughtful response, and then I thought about my options. Could she not show the film? At this point, it was too late to change the syllabus.
After a day, I replied. I asked her to post 2 questions to the audience: “Do you think this film made you uncomfortable because you were uncomfortable with Charlie being so fat?” “Would you have found Charlie’s character less disturbing if he were in a straight body?”
To me, these questions provide an opportunity for folks to think about their own anti-fat bias. I believe to live in our society is to have anti-fat bias. We all have it; I have it, including my own internalized fatphobia. Diamond Wynn, a diversity, equality, and inclusion advocate, is quoted as saying, “I stopped associating the word fat and the ideas of fatness with being unattractive because I realized that not only had people been using it as a weapon against me, but I was using it as weapon against myself.” Recognizing fat shaming as one of my biases is half the battle. I believe I can help others recognize it as their bias as well. The morning of the showing of The Whale, the club leader acknowledged these questions as thought-provoking and relevant and offered to share them with the patrons.
How did that turn out? I really don’t know. Part of me wanted to be a fly on the wall, someone who would find out how the movie was received and if I made any strides in getting the viewers to see my point of view. Part of me didn’t want to go anywhere near the theater because, well, I thought the whole thing was just a fat-biased mess. Some parts of me felt like I might be overreacting. I mean, the man is up for an Academy Award for this movie. So? Does that mean I should gaslight my own feelings? I think not. In the end, I took a stand about what is important to me, and I fought the giant behemoth that is diet culture and anti-fat bias. I didn’t dismantle anything, but maybe I helped a few people to start questioning their thoughts and belief systems. To me, that is goodness.
Note: Before publishing this piece, I shared it with the club leader. I felt it was important to gain her consent since she was so much of the content. Here was her reply:
“I am most grateful that [rockymountainyogigirl] was open, vulnerable, honest, compassionate, and generous in her conversations with me. I am changed in a very positive way. I acknowledge that my actions and words were hurtful. I was inspired by what [rockymountainyogigirl] offered and wanted eagerly - but in an ultimately flawed way - to share it with others. Still, my words and actions are by no means defensible. It saddened me greatly that [rockymountainyogigirl] felt shut down rather than elevated. I'm glad for [rockymountainyogigirl] to have a platform to amplify her worthy voice. I need to hear her voice - we all do.”
Here are the 2 reviews of the film that I shared:
https://news.yahoo.com/whale-horror-film-taps-fear-174314733.html?guccounter=1
