Gettin' Real Tired of the "Funny Fat Girl" Stereotype

I hate Pitch Perfect. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I hated this film.

So, two things happened this week that have led me to write this. The first is that "cinematic treasure" (Please oh please sense the sarcasm in my tone) Pitch Perfect is being released on DVD. The second fact is that the film's star, Rebel Wilson, hosted the MTV Movie Awards, the very classiest of awards shows. (Again, sense sarcasm, although Aubrey Plaza "doing a Kanye West" was kinda awesome.) From the two facts I've stated, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that I hate Rebel Wilson. But, reader, you would be wrong. I like and admire her greatly. I think she is funny and beautiful. It's not Wilson that I hate, but rather the role she is constantly forced to play. Yes, I am talking about the aforementioned "Funny Fat Girl".

Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids. Look how this poster shows how WILD AND QUIRKY she is.

I'm not sure if "Funny Fat Girl" is the precise definition of this type of character, but for the purposes of this feature, I'll continue to use the term. The Funny Fat Girl, or FFG, is most likely to reside within ensemble comedies. Basically what we're thinking of here is the female equivalent of Alan, Zach Galifianakis's character in The Hangover. In Hollywood terms, they're overweight, probably obese. (Regardless of their actual size, because Hollywood sizes aren't like normal person sizes.) They are very confident about themselves, and either ignore the issue of their weight, or make jokes about it - Wilson's character in Pitch Perfect is called Fat Amy so that skinny girls don't call her that behind her back. They will ALWAYS have a wild and crazy personality. They'll say ridiculous things and most likely turn out to be a bit stupid.

I don't have a problem with comedy, I really don't. I love a laugh, and I don't mind laughing at say, Borat, because instead of being controversial just because, which tends to be the American way, Sacha Baron Cohen et al were actually trying to make a point about how people can be dumb, bigoted idiots. But the problem is, despite how subtle and "pro-fat" the writers of these films may think they're being, they are essentially trying to get people to laugh at "fat" women. And it's definitely the case that women have it worse than men. In The Big Lebowski, how many of the film's jokes were about Walter's (John Goodman's character) weight? And in Pitch Perfect, how many are about Fat Amy's? A scene immediately springs to mind where, while the rest of her accapella group are running up and down stairs, Amy is lying on her side, doing "vertical running". These films are simply encouraging an image of "fat" people as being lazy. 

Another awful fact about these films is that, despite these women actually having a healthy self-image of themselves and being sexually confident, any sexual encounters they have are purely for comedy. Megan's encounter with Air Marshall John consists not of playful flirtation and chat-up lines as it probably would in a rom-com and if she was skinny, but of her being sexually aggressive and gross. Yet again, this is putting forward a negative idea of "fat" women, that they are only capable of intimidating men into liking them. And never mind one of these women being the main object of desire or "girl next door" in a film because, as stated in So Outrageous's interesting piece about the limited amount of labels for a "fat" girl:

 "A fat girl can never be a girl next door because her fatness is indicative of excess or lack of self-control, which can not coexist with the wholesomeness and invigorating liveliness of a girl next door."

In my view, characters like these are basically writers attempts to convince audiences that it's a great idea to laugh at someone who may not be conventionally beautiful, but is confident in their own skin. And instead of giving these characters real personality, they just consist of weird quirks and "hilarious" one-liners. Which, to put it simply, kinda sucks.

There's still a lot of things wrong with the world of film (but luckily there are also a lot of things right) so for me to simply snap my fingers and wish away this dreadful stereotype would be stupid. And I have no problem with Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy being in more films. Just please, writers, write some decent roles for them. Give them hopes and fears and families and boys that think they're cute. Don't make the film's biggest laughs about how weird and fat they are. And, most importantly, please stop writing god-awful films like Pitch Perfect.

Grace Barber-Plentie