Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something unusual: the 2022 movie ‘The Whale’.
Where to begin? Ah yes, ‘The Whale’ is 2023’s ‘Velma’
more obtuse cousin, geometrically speaking, and I feel like I can prove it. Let
us start.
MK’s ‘Velma’ was a cartoon TV show aimed to irritate
everyone in general… that is it. MK felt that this is the right way to stir
controversy and discussion… and she was right, to a point: for a while, ‘Velma’
was the talk about the town, until it
stopped, and everyone is doing their best to forget that it’d even existed:
i.e., Ms. Ming-Na Wen, who is usually trying to milk every teat – from AoS to ‘Mulan’
to SW and beyond has never mentioned that she was a voice actress in ‘Velma’:
the cartoon was that bad! Where were we?
Ah yes, Ms. Wen’s presence in ‘Velma’ – I have been
honestly shocked to learn that that is the case – ‘Velma’ might have been
renewed for a second season, (why, for the love of God?), but Ms. Wen still is not
mentioning her presence on that show. Bully! However, what about ‘The Whale’?
One of the differences between the two is in the
degree of their approach to controversy and co. – whereas ‘Velma’ aimed at everyone,
and so her contents were diluted… period, ‘The Whale’ tries to talk about one
specific group: the overweight people. Right.
Zoom out, and you can see that the issue of weight has
always been ambiguous in human history, with each of the biological sexes
reacting to it differently. For a start, being overweight slash fat meant that you
are successful enough, socially and financially speaking, to afford being so –
a peasant and a soldier/warrior were two different social strata themselves in
the past, (up to the WWII period), but both were lean; Hell, by the time of the
first half of the 20th century the human society had evolved enough
to move past such social labels as ‘peasant’, ‘soldier/warrior’, ‘merchant’,
but extra weight was still equated to social success, as it can be a liability,
illustrated clearly by Charlie, the main character of ‘The Whale’. Regardless,
extra weight is usually tolerated in human men… in human women, not so much.
Indeed, most of the discourse regarding weight that arose in the 1980s and 90s
up to now, (the early 2020s - and beyond?) is usually dominated by women… and
men who love them, of course. As a result, a lot of such discussion is
sexualized, fetishized, and so on.
…Going back in time, you can see that while a man was
expected to be lean, (unless he was a successful merchant, or moneylender, or
something), a woman was not. Rather, she was expected to be robust… why?
Because both biology and gender politics: for a good long time, until the
second half of the 20th century, a woman’s worth was most often that
of a mother and a child-bearer, which meant that a certain amount of ‘extra
weight’ was the norm, actually – if a woman lost too much weight her worth as a
mother and a child-bearer was jeopardized, which was bad. It was also sexist
and patriarchal in the worst meaning of that word, so when in the second half
of the 20th century women finally won their equality with men officially, they began to slim down – and
then the models arrived, women who slimmed themselves down to a point that they
began to resembled animated trophies – you know like the ones presented at the
Oscars and similar ceremonies – another case of a good enough idea taken to
excess. As a result, the human society again began to discuss just what was the
norm of a woman’s weight, a discourse
that continues into modern times (2020s) and will probably go on beyond.
And now we got ‘The Whale’, whose main character is a
notably overweight man. In addition,
the issues of sexualisation and fetishisation of weight are nowhere near in
sight in the film. Therefore, there was some controversy and discussion about ‘The
Whale’, but very little, and the film mostly got accolades rather than
criticisms, but…
…But they ring hollow and most critics seem to admit
that it was BF’s acting as Charlie that kept the film together, and that is not
really good news for the film. See, just as ‘Velma’ has nothing going for it beyond
mockery of… everyone, ‘The Whale’ is in the same boat, only while ‘Velma’ went
for everyone, ‘The Whale’ tried going for the overweight – on one hand. On the
other, while ‘Velma’ didn’t hold any punches, ‘The Whale’ didn’t have any:
whereas ‘Velma’ was acute and angular, ‘The Whale’ had all of its’ angles
ground down. Pause.
What exactly ‘The Whale’ is about? It is about
Charlie, an overweight English professor who hates himself, does not do anything
about it, and lies, claiming that he has not had any money to do anything,
while he actually does. He also does not appear to be leaving his apartment –
in part because he is overweight, but it part because he does not want to – he has
no life. The problem with that is that it is his choice. The problem with the
problem is that he is overweight and some people are upset about it, i.e. how ‘The
Whale’ represents the overweight people. Mr. A, the movie’s director, flat-out
dismissed it, but…
…But the thing is that ‘The Whale’ is about a man,
depicted actually in a bland, non-controversial and uninspiring manner, which
is why most ‘social justice warriors’ (or whatever the proper term currently
is) have ignored it – as have a lot of other people, both associated with the
WG/WL communities and not. Yes, Charlie is overweight. Yes, his last
relationship was with another man, (though he has an ex-wife and a daughter).
However, both of those factors are tacitly underplayed, leaving Charlie mostly
as a depressed anti-social loser who doesn’t want to leave his apartment and
whose only friend is a female nurse named Liz. Next?
Here is the thing. Mr. A is not wrong when he rebuffed
his critics – ‘The Whale’ is not entirely about the weight. Only in a certain
way it is – the movie is named ‘The Whale’ for crissakes, therefore the
excessive weight should play some sort of a critical role… otherwise, why
include it? ‘Waiting for Godot’, for example, is minimalist to an extreme, but you
do not have actors in fat suits in it either, because it would just distract
from the rest of the movie/play/etc. Mr. A tried to play it smart regarding any
controversies, (in a manner not unlike Disney/MCU post the first seasons of AoS
and the CA: CW film), and he succeeded: ‘The Whale’ of his film’s title doesn’t
apply just to Charlie, but to the entire film, as just like the metaphorical
whale and Charlie, it is big, grey, and doesn’t go anywhere. But, hey,
accolades galore! Yay, really!
…This is it for now, though. See you all soon!
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