spoilers for The whale ahead.
Darren Aronofskys The whale was greeted with a standing ovation. It was heralded as a comeback for its star, Brendan Fraser. Heck, he already had Oscar rumors floating around and the movie wasn’t even released yet. Still, the film has been accused of anti-fat bias from the start – and with good reason.
According to A24, if you’re unfamiliar with the film’s premise, The whale is about “a reclusive English teacher living with severe obesity who is trying to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.” Said English teacher is Charlie, a 600-pound gay man – played by Brendan in the film.
It’s based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter, so let’s take a moment to examine what actually happens in the original production. Charlie is referred to as a “monster” by his daughter Ellie, who will be played by Sadie Sink in the upcoming adaptation. He should eat himself to death from grief. At one point, Charlie nearly dies from the effort of masturbating to gay porn (which is the film’s opening scene).
Subsequently, some feared that any adaptation of the play would fall into a string of anti-fat tropes seen in the media: that fat people are constantly on the brink of death, that their bodies are a disgusting spectacle and that their stories must involve some trauma.
The number of people calling this premise “humanizing” is so disheartening. If the only way to “humanize” a very fat person is to see them humiliated, scared, shamed, and killed in stereotypically stigmatizing ways, then it’s time to think seriously.
I don’t care what The Whale is about. They cast Brendan Fraser as the title character and put him in a fat suit. The title is “The Whale”. I promise you it’s fucking fatphobic.
Hey everyone, I know it sounds harsh, but I promise if you’re willing to put in a few minutes of your time, you’ll be able to get both Brendan Fraser Deserves the World and The Whale is uncompromisingly fatphobic and deserves to be criticized for” in your heart.
Then there’s Brendan’s casting. To play Charlie, Brendan had to don a bulky suit and various prosthetics. This practice has caused a lot of controversy in other media recently – Renée Zellweger and Sarah Paulson have both spoken out about backlash for their use of fat suits. Why? In addition to their ability to give fat bodies an eerie Valley look, they can be seen as harmful in a Hollywood ecosystem where the exclusion of larger bodies has been widely documented.
I see I’m getting stuck between how much I cheer for Brendan Fraser and how much I hate fat suits.
It’s important to emphasize that while questioning the role at the same time, one can be happy about Brendan’s return to acting.
Brendan himself addressed the controversy at the London Film Festival, saying: “I’m not a small man – and I don’t know what the metric is to qualify for the role. All I know is that I had to be honest, an achievement as I can.”
“I’m confident that we can change some hearts and minds, at least in how we think and feel about those living with obesity,” Brendan continued. “So often in our society these people are dismissed or made the object of scorn and ridicule and it is unfair to them. I think shaming people for this reason is almost the last area of prejudice that we overlook, and I think we can do better work to change that.”
Director Darren Aronofsky also alluded to the controversy in an interview with Variety, saying, “There was a chapter in the making of this film where we were trying to explore actors with obesity. Aside from not being able to find an actor who can pull off the emotion of the role, it just turns into a crazy chase. If you can’t find a £600 actor, is a £300 actor or a £400 actor enough?
Aronofsky’s words drew a negative reaction, such as from respected writer and professor Roxane Gay:
If you want to read more about the anti-fat bias in the term obese, click here.
and brothers Actor and Co-Producer Guy Branum:
“It’s prohibitive from a health perspective… it’s impossible to fill a role with a real person dealing with these issues.” – Darren Aronofsky, pointing out the very real concern that I’m likely to explode from obesity on set , if you cast me in a movie. https://t.co/q1svif78WB
So what about people who have seen the film? Many critics have praised Brendan’s performance, and the film has a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
That being said, many reviewers have found issues with the portrayal of Charlie’s body. Polygon called it an “act of hate disguised as tough love.” Vanity Fair wrote that the film’s depiction of Charlie’s body was one of “terrible terror” rather than empathy. Slant wrote, “Considering how Libatique’s camera consistently treats Charlie as an unsightly pity, it’s difficult to deny the film’s fatphobia.”
In a media landscape where anti-fat prejudice is systemic, fat suits are often used for spooky effects, and fat stories revolve around trauma and spectacle – do we really need another movie?
#Heres #Whale #starring #Brendan #Fraser #facing #backlash
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