Fat Accompli


Does ''Shallow Hal'' poke fun at heavy women? -- Gwyneth Paltrow says
the film challenges the audience's preconceptions, but not everybody's
laughing at the Farrellys' fat jokes by Liane Bonin

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,182549~1~~,00.html

In the Farrelly brothers' ''Shallow Hal,'' Gwyneth Paltrow plays
Rosemary, a warm-hearted Peace Corps volunteer who starts an unlikely
romance with a superficial lothario named Hal (''High Fidelity'''s
Jack Black). Thanks to the power of suggestion, Hal is temporarily
blinded to Rosemary's obesity. He later comes to accept her exactly
as she is, but some people are wondering if the movie itself is less
than loving towards the large.

''The moral of the story is lovely, but that's not good enough,''
says Sally E. Smith, editor in chief of BBW, a magazine for plus-
size women. ''People who are biased against people of size won't
come away from that movie with the happily-ever-after message. Every
stereotype about fat people is reinforced.'' For example, 300-pound
Rosemary has two restaurant seats collapse beneath her, eats like a
ravenous linebacker, and manages to propel a little boy into a tree
from the force of her cannonball dive into a swimming pool.

Smith feels many of the jokes are not only unkind, but perpetuate
myths about heavy people. ''Plus-size women don't break chairs all
the time, and we aren't compulsively eating,'' she says. ''There
are many reasons why people are larger than average, and food
consumption isn't a major reason. It can be genetic, or it can be
from yo-yo dieting, for example.''

Paltrow, understandably, takes a different view of the film's
outrageous humor: She thinks it challenges the audience's
preconceptions. ''I don't feel that it's at all offensive,'' she
says, noting that her body double gave the movie an enthusiastic
thumbs-up. ''The Farrelly brothers walk this line very gently,
and instead of really poking fun at fat people, they said, Hey,
this is something that society feels, and we're going to turn it
upside down and try to make people not feel that way.''

But Smith isn't buying Paltrow's explanation. She says that the
actress' decision to don a fat suit is in itself a slap in the
face to heavy women. ''It's really no different from [a white
actor] putting on blackface,'' she says. ''She has no real
experience as a woman of size.'' Paltrow, who is 5'9'' and
slender, counters that she did try to live like a large woman,
if only for a little while, by wearing her fat suit in the lobby
of her hotel. ''I was really nervous about being found out, but
when I actually walked through the lobby, nobody would even make
eye contact with me or look in my direction,'' she says. ''People
think it's polite not to look at someone who's outside of what we
all consider normal, but it's incredibly isolating and it really
upset me.''

Still, Smith feels the sweet message Paltrow applauds in ''Hal''
could have been delivered just as easily without showing
Rosemary's XXL underwear and her french-fry-and-chili-cheeseburger
chowdowns. ''It just continues the cycle of women being obsessed
with their weight,'' Smith says. ''With all due respect to
Gwyneth Paltrow's work, I don't think she gets it.''
(Posted:11/02/01)