Fat Girl

Fat Girl is a film that questions and attempts to convey the issue of female victimization and objectification through shock value, rather than real introspection. We are presented with two different characters, the younger overweight girl, Anaïs, and her older, more physically attractive sister, Elena. These two characters are presented as a juxtaposition of each other, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. One common string between the two seems to be the constant concentration on sex. Anaïs views sex as meaningless, an act of pleasure and entertainment. She expresses her desire to lose her virginity to somebody she doesn’t care about, in order to reinforce its meaninglessness. Elena, on the other hand, is fully willing to publicly display her sexuality, but is reluctant regarding the actual act, seeing it as something special to save for one she loves. Nonetheless, both of these girls have sex on their mind constantly.

We see Anaïs swimming in the pool, pretending that two inanimate objects are her lovers, and she must choose between the two. Elena, on the other hand immediately meets Fernando, whose intentions are made very clear due to his one-dimensional character. Fernando immediately describes his intentions to sleep with Elena, and is willing to say anything or do anything to accomplish this task. The audience is forced to hear to all of his arrogant and self-centered lies, as Elena absorbs every word of it as truth. We don’t see the events of the film from a male gaze, as nearly every scene is told from Anaïs’ point of view, yet the perspective is no more redeeming towards men then woman in a male-focused film. Fernando is a lust-filled, lying manipulator who seeks to objectify Elena in order to accomplish his goal. In a 25 minute real-time sex scene, we see him convince Elena to perform anal sex. We are forced to confront not only the domination of Elena’s character, but the suffering of Anaïs as well. Once the actual act begins, the film transitions to a shot from her point of view, and we see how her sister’s objectification leads to her own victimization, as she is exposed to a scene that many would claim to be inappropriate for a girl of her age.

The film receives its message in its penultimate act, where Elena learns what the audience knew all along, that she lost her virginity to somebody who had no respect or love for her. This is revealed to the mother, a strict, addled, aging woman who lashes out at both her daughters due to the event. The film presents a tense 15 minute scene of the mother driving home, speeding ahead with a cigarette constantly in her mouth, and barely avoiding large semi trucks as the audience anticipates their certain doom. The film ends in a rest stop, late at night, as a trucker with an axe breaks the front window of the family’s car, instantly killing Elena. After strangling the life out of the mother, Anaïs exits the car and runs towards the woods, where the axe murder hunts her down and rapes her. The entire act plays as a long-running joke to a short punch line. If the definition of comedy is a story with an unexpected result, then Fat Girl’s third act is purely that, a tense anticipation of the family’s certain doom in a car wreck, only to result in death by a brutal axe murderer. We have our final scene as the police arrive and escort Anaïs out of the woods. When asked if she was sexually assaulted, she firmly denies it and implies that it was consensual.

Fat Girl’s dedication to addressing the issue of female victimization and objectification is both the film’s strong point and downfall. The message is clear, as the film ends in Elena’s dedication to treasure sex being punished, and Anaïs’ lack of caring for the issue being reinforced as she accomplishes her goal of losing her virginity to a complete stranger. Instead of being presented with a character that represents the antithesis of objectification, we instead are presented with two characters that wholly embrace it, and capture every essence of female sexual stereotypes. Of course, this act pays off in the shock value of these character’s fates, but the film also tends to lose sight of its core themes by relishing in the film’s final objectification. Earlier scenes play with this message much clearer, as we see the crushed soul of Anaïs while she is made to witness the moans, grunts, and screams of her sister’s sexual encounters. Yet the end result simply shows a constant joyless existence for women. Every female, nay, every character in this film is reinforced by stereotypes. Men are the dominating, lying, horrible people who are single-minded and uncaring. Women are bound to their men, subservient and constantly punished through rape and death. In the end, it almost seems as if the director, Catherine Breillat, is glorifying and promoting rape as Anaïs comes out “stronger” after her sexual assault.

The film becomes engrained in the viewer via its shock value, instead of careful handling of feminist themes. This isn’t to say that the practice of shock value carries no merit, but it is a fine line to tread. Both Fat Girl and Sucker Punch essentially deal with the same issues, but why does one get perceived as a successful inclusion of a shock-induced message, while the other is conveyed as an anti-feminist horrifying piece of blockbuster garbage? That’s not to say Sucker Punch was remotely successful at conveying its message and themes, but the inclusion of such a brutal execution of Fat Girl’s message can result in mixed messages to the audience.

Overall, Fat Girl succeeds due to this shock value. The ending scene is a punch line strong enough that we are all taken aback and forced to confront the issues of sexual victimization, both in consensual and non-consensual environments. But its possible contradictions could potentially carry an opposite message to the viewer, that women are not free-thinking equal humans, but primitive, naïve, sex-obsessed individuals. It’s a fine line to tread in filmmaking, and Fat Girl comes very close to overstepping that boundary.

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