The Whale - Brendan Fraser's welcome comeback, but why did it have to be in this movie?
Another dehumanising narrative about fat people
Darren Aronofsky - director of some of the most modern polarising cinema, proudly stated during promo of The Whale, that he worked closely with the Obesity Action Coalition in order to properly give insight into the lives of those living with obesity. Aronofsky known for venturing into the absurd and extreme version of whatever the topic at hand is in his films. Requiem for a Dream, one of the best films I’ve seen that I never want to watch again took addiction to maximal devastating limits, Black Swan took idealised feminine perfection to a chaotic and unhinged place, and mother! broke all the rules when it came to showing the human interference and its consequences with the planet with some heavy plagiarism from the bible. But The Whale is much more reserved, Charlie, an extremely obese online writing teacher is suffering the terminal effects of severe obesity, and knowing his days are numbered, he reaches out to estranged daughter in an attempt to reconcile their broken relationship. He’s lonely, other than a nurse, Liz who comes to help him with basic tasks. He’s quiet, gentle and clearly resigned to his fate.
The problems with The Whale are present from the outset, Aronofsky declares that The Whale humanises obesity, I’d fiercly argue the direct opposite. It reduces fatness down to a sweaty, greasy, pathetic mess. Charlie’s constant apologies to Liz are loaded with double-meaning, any fat person would know that he’s not sorry because he can’t get up, or can’t do basic tasks like walking to and from the front door unaided, he’s apologising for being fat - or rather, apologising because he feels like he needs to. His existence is a burden, and he knows it. The lingering shots on Charlie struggling, the concentration on his round frame, the sweat that seems to be constantly present on his head, his lips, his clothes. Charlie is disgusting because fatness is “disgusting”. There is a particular scene of Charlie binge eating, and finally vomiting and crying that is revolting, and honestly, I believe that all it was designed to do was to give viewers permission to double-down on the fat=disgusting ideology.
One utterly disturbing trend that came off the back of the Trump presidency was merging Trump’s fascist, racist, sexist and homophobic (and virtually any other ism/ist/bic you can think of) to his weight. There is a conflation in media between moral goodness, intelligence and weight. You can’t be a good person if you are fat, you also can’t be that intelligent if you’re fat - for evidence of this, go to any comment section of anyone deemed ‘fat’ of any forum online, and you’ll see the death threats and vicious abuse in swathes. Hate comments coming under the guise of ‘what about your health?’ - again, conflating good health with moral goodness, humanisation is only afforded to “moral goodness'“. The Whale specifically attributes Charlie’s situation to self-destruction. The binge eating, eating buckets of fried chicken, huge sandwiches, massive supplies of chocolate, subscribes to societal beliefs that fat people are squalid, responsible for their own downfall - if only they reached for a salad instead of fried chicken. One thing to bear in mind with The Whale is that Charlie is an entirely fictional character created by a thin, white man. And contains all the hallmarks of stereotypes of fat people - self-resentment, uncontrollable urges with food, a lack of desire to “improve” themselves, laziness, and The Whale validates all of this. By creating a character that is inherently gentle - it elicits empathy. If the only way fat people can be empathised with is by being pathetic doesn’t that in itself show that fat people are not humanised by default?
Not only is The Whale subscribing to and reflecting the general stereotypes of fat people, it also is excluding real-life fat people. Brendan Fraser dons a ridiculous fat suit that further characterises fatness as disgusting. This film turns fat people into a zoo, rather than trying to tackle the social framework that upholds moral goodness conflated with weight, it shows stereotypes like a freak-show. Why wasn’t a fat actor cast in the role? It’s not like Darren Aronofsky is an unknown director who needs the star power of A-List actors, Aronofsky came up so often in my film degree, I’m convinced that he could release a movie about paint drying and he’d still rake in the viewers. It confirms the assumptions I have - that people in positions of power in media will do all they can to silence real fat voices (if we’re leaning into assumptions, I’m going to speak mine) because god-forbid anyone fat is anything deeper than their fatness. To acknowledge that fat people aren’t a stereotype of laziness and gluttony, would be to acknowledge the social structures in place designed to exclude and suppress fatness. As far as I can tell - fat people are one of the last marginalised groups that are ok to abuse, exclude and humiliate - The Whale exacerbates this cruelty by reflecting stereotypes and confirming the biases toward fat people. For everyone who sympathises with Charlie (and mostly because it’s Brendan Fraser) there will still be a large part of the audience who will look at fat people living full and happy lives, and still reduce them down to their weight.
The film itself - is quite boring, the narrative arc is basically Charlie isn’t this horrendous person (shock horror), and that’s sort of it. Presented in 4:3 aspect ratio, deliberately to make the confines of the apartment Charlie resides in seem small, everything is dark, dank and gloomy. It seems to be constantly raining and grey. The script isn’t anything special but in terms of acting performances, Brendan Fraser (outside of all the problems with the film) is great - it’s a shame that Fraser has been out of the limelight for years, he is a good actor (and The Mummy franchise is another set of films I won’t hear a bad word about - I love them). He has a gentle quality - similar to Keanu Reeves, a wholesome likability - had anyone else been cast as Charlie - I question if the film would have been as successful - there’s a definite mirroring of Charlie and Fraser and this film is definitely riding on the coattails of the “Brenaissance”.
Overall - I can’t see past the overwhelming offensive anti-fatness messaging of this film. It’s damaging, hurtful, and just shows how far we’ve still got to go when it comes to representation of fat people in cinema. To quote from Lindy West’s piece in the Guardian (The Whale is not a masterpiece - it's a joyless, harmful fantasy of fat squalor) -
Thin people hate us so much that this is what it looks like when they’re trying to like us.
Aside from the damaging view of fat people, it’s a strangely muted offering from Aronofsky, particularly given his last film was mother! a rocket launcher of metaphor and loaded imagery, it’s a dull film held together by Brendan Fraser who is great in it. It also feels about 20 years too late, are we really entertaining these types of narratives now? There’s a sort of smugness and a weird feeling of “faux-bravery” - “who’s going to speak up for these poor fat people if I, Darren Aronofsky won’t”. The only thing I’d recommend is not conflating The Whale with a sympathetic narrative, it only serves to reinforce the structures of hatred that marginalise fat people. If you’ve found a new thread of sympathy for fatness by watching The Whale, you’re exactly the type of person that this film was made for - I’ll leave that to you to decide if that’s a good thing or bad thing. In answer to the inevitable question of “what should fatness in cinema look like?” - my basic answer is - definitely not this. Look to Shrill, an excellent 3 season tv show in which fatness is centralised but not the defining feature of our main character. That’s a good starting point.
You can watch The Whale (and decide for yourself) streaming on Amazon Prime.