So I guess I can't pawn it.

[wednes]

Oooh, I've wasted my life:

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

In all seriousness, the next time I see someone on TV in a fat suit I'm going to hunt them down and punch them in the face.
I honestly don't know why fat suits are:

a) acceptable to wear anywhere, anytime
b) considered an effective way to begin dialogue about weight
c) considered funny

Is dressing up to look like a different ethnicity or religion funny? Last I heard, the only people who thought blackface was funny were pointy-hat-wearing, cousin-fucking rascists. How is a fat suit different from this? Do we tool around in wheelchairs with Stephen Hawking style voiceboxes to begin a dialogue about disability? Of course not, because people would be incensed. Making fun of people's appearance is the act of a 10-year-old playground bully. Excusing it by saying you're trying to raise awareness is ridiculous...as if they're trying to broaden the horizons of people who have never laid eyes on anyone above 150 pounds. Sheesh!

Bruno Kirby died. Hrmph. He was young, too.
In better news, I'm probably seeing DaVinci Code for real tonight, after planning to see it a zillion times before.

Comments

[wednes.livejournal.com]

I think doing it for altrustic reasons is totally different. You wouldn't be trying to amuse people.

Gwenyth (or however you spell that) Paltrow gave an interview about going out in public in the Shallow Hal fat suit. Reportedly, she was amazed at how people treated her--wouldn't make eye contact, snickering, rude comments from cars etc.

Odd how it never occurred to her that life might be a little easier for people who look like Gwenyth Paltrow.

[darkeryet.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I had forgotten about that horrible movie. It was painfully bad, I couldn't sit through the entire thing. And Gwyneth... I can't stand that woman anymore. First I was just irked with her stuck up statements about alcohol and macrobiotic diet, then she really pissed me off with that classist "I would rather die than let my kids eat *something completely normal and cheap*" (can't remember) comment. It was awfully offensive to moms who don't happen to be wealthy and have time to prepare meals from scratch or whatever. When I saw that recent "I am African" picture I was like OK, I can't stand her at all.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she doesn't seem to have a clue how to NOT be physically attractive and privileged.

[sudrin.livejournal.com]

I want to go on record here and say I thought Shallow Hal was actually a pretty good movie. Except for the lame ending where someone has a Tail I thought it was a much more touching movie than I expected. Granted, some of the jokes were a bit heavy handed (Geyser like splashes in the pool, over exaggerated clothing sizes, etc) I thought its heart was in the right place. Now as far as what Gwyneth Paltrow may have said I have no opinion but I think at least the message of Shallow Hal was much more well intentioned than it easily could have been.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

In the end, I don't think it's okay to have a movie full of fat jokes just because he chooses the fat girl at the end. Admittedly, it wasn't as mean spirited as I anticipated, and the movie made some good points. But if they play a fat girl breaking a bench or emptying out a pool for laughs--they are indeed being mean spirited.

The ironic thing about this is that this is exactly what judecorp was trying to tell me about saying things are "gay" in the negative. Stupid poetic justice!

[sudrin.livejournal.com]

Well, you talked about starting a dialog and I think at least to some extent this movie attempts to do that. Yeah, most of the fat jokes are too over the top as I indicated (*see Geyesers). It could have simply had her magically lose weight at the end or plenty of other nonsense but instead it at least tried to say that its all about what people /want/ to see. No, its not the movie *I* would have made. I certainly don't appreciate that Ivy Snitzer went uncredited as the body double and there are a host of jokes in the movie that didn't work for me, but in essence saying that one man can see the beauty in a woman despite what society/other people/Playboy Magazine sees in them is a postive message. But who knows, maybe I like Hal are just seeing what I want to see and society is seeing something else.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even thought about that body double. grrrr.

Truly, it's not the worst movie ever made or anything; but they touted it as being "pro fat" and "pro acceptance." But at best, it was a perfunctory statement not in tune with the actual tone of the film. But yeah, there's worse things out there certainly.