In the Pics section, film critic Floortje Smit casts her eye on contemporary visual culture.
As actor Brendan Fraser his almost 140 kilos fat suit had turned off, after a shooting day before The Whalehe invariably became dizzy. “That feeling you also have when you get off the boat in Venice,” he said at a press conference during the film festival in the same city. That was because as the obese character Charlie (275 kilos), he had to “relearn how to move” and “used muscles he didn’t know he had.” ‘It gave me appreciation for people who have a similar stature, because I learned that you have to be very strong physically and mentally to live with and in such a body.’
He received a standing ovation in Venice, the word ‘Oscar nomination’ was dropped. But not everyone turned out to be enthusiastic about Fraser’s transformation – without the critics having seen the film, by the way. Because a lot body positivityactivists already opposed in principle fat suits to be. Their criticism, in short: the standard in Hollywood is thin; fat actors hardly get a chance. Which means that for expensive productions about fat people, thin famous actors in fat suits be hoisted. And in those films created by thin people, heavier people are usually portrayed as unattractive, unhappy and immoderate. With which Hollywood continues to reinforce all the negative stereotypes about thickness for a large audience. That being said, there is indeed something uncomfortable about it.
And yet: sometimes as a director you can’t escape a fat suit. For example, with truth-based stories. Sarah Paulson has been criticized for playing Linda Tripp in Impeachment wearing fat clothing. She herself decided afterwards never again fat suit to carry: ‘fat phobia consists’, suggested them in the Los Angeles Timesand she doesn’t want to contribute to that.
But of course the question is to what extent ‘fat phobia’, the disgust of a fatter body, is stimulated by such a film. How is the viewer invited to look at such a body? How should he or she feel about it? Reviewers saw at The Whale in any case ‘a mass of Jabba the Hutt meat’ or ‘a mountain of a man’: especially the unappetizing of the fat body was emphasized. Is that the view of fat-phobic reviewers, or does director Darren Aronofsky let them look that way? And what does he want with that?
Interestingly, Brendan Fraser herself has suffered from “body shaming.” His career had stalled, he got divorced, became depressed, gained weight and was mocked online for his weight gain. The Whale is his big comeback. ‘Brenaissance’, people call it.
So by The Whale he was back on the red carpet. Thicker than the average actor and totally hot. You can say a lot about that, but that is a step forward.