Disfigured

I love Netflix, because not only does it make watching movies possible for me, as a mom to a toddler, but I can get just about any film/TV show I want. I just finished watching Disfigured, a film about a fat woman who belongs to an FA group, still struggling with self acceptance, who befriends a recovering anorexic. For those of you with a history of ED, the film does have several scenes which may be triggering. Although the film was a bit on the shallow end, in terms of the story, the characters were really well developed. Lydia, wasn’t just a caricature of a fat woman, she was a whole person, something which you rarely find in film or TV. It’s also extremely unusual to have a fat character as a lead, especially since she doesn’t miraculously lose weight by the end of the film.

One of the most powerful scenes in the movie was the sex scene between Lydia and Bob. This was a real sex scene, two people, naked, having sex. I have never seen a sex scene involving one fat person, let alone two, in which the characters were not portrayed as ridiculous, hideous, over sexed, or just freaky. I have never seen a woman, who looks like me, as a romantic interest, let alone naked on screen. I could get some BBW porn I suppose, but that is not a portrayal of a “normal” woman, it’s a portrayal of a fetish. This was a regular movie, about regular people, who happened to be fat, and also happened to have sex.In your typical Hollywood movies, fat characters are often played by thin people in fat suits. These characters exist for one of two reasons, either to show their miraculous and wonderful transformation into thin people (i.e. socially acceptable heroes), or for comic relief (i.e. look at how much that fat person eats, look at the fat person farting, look at the over sexed fat person, and that’s just in Eddie Murphy movies). That was not the case in this film.

This was not my favorite film, it could have been more in depth, and portrayed anorexia more realistically, but overall it was really good. It would be great to see more movies with fat characters who are just regular people. I’m not sure how likely that is, but we can voice our opinions with our money. If you go to see a movie in which a “fat” person is portrayed as a caricature, only to be mocked, or be accepted only after losing weight, then you are supporting a culture in which all of us “real” fat people are also mocked, and expected to lose weight in order to be acceptable. Fat people are PEOPLE. Disfigured portrayed Lydia as a person, in our obesity-hysteria filled culture that is unusual and commendable.

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