2011年6月1日 星期三

Georgea Kovanis: 'Bridesmaids' stuffs fat jokes into a dress

Being a bridesmaid can be a lovely experience -- a chance to share a happy moment in a close friend's life.

It can also be disastrous -- friends turn into self-centered brides, their mothers into dictatorial monsters and other bridesmaids into simpering servants. In the meantime, you've spent several hundred dollars on a dress that makes your butt look bigger and dyed-to-match shoes that are going to kill your feet when you're forced to dance with one of the groomsmen.

It's with that jumble of emotions that I've been awaiting the May 13 release of the new movie "Bridesmaids."

It's the work of producer Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin") and director Paul Feig, who managed to get the humor and heartache of being a teen just right when they collaborated on one of my favorite television shows of all time, "Freaks and Geeks." And it's being billed as a female version of "The Hangover," a movie I genuinely enjoyed.

So I scoured the Internet for early reviews.

I watched the trailer multiple times.

And I started feeling uncomfortable.

There's a fat bridesmaid.

Of course, she's a buffoon who tucks her napkin into her collar and emits a cacophony of bodily noises.

And apparently we're supposed to find all that gross and funny because fat people are gross and funny, right?

Every so often someone declares that we, as a society, have reached a state of fat acceptance.

They may point to the fact that designers such as Calvin Klein and Michael Kors make clothing for plus-size women.

Or that Crystal Renn, the sometimes plus-size model, has appeared in German Vogue and is the new face of Jimmy Choo.

Or that "Mike & Molly," a CBS sitcom about a fat couple who fall in love after meeting at Overeaters Anonymous, is doing well in the ratings.

And all that sounds great -- until you remember that the average American woman wears a size 14. And in the world of fashion, plus-size models can be as small as a size 10. And Renn has lost weight and, according to her agency's model card, wears a size 6 dress. And even in the modeling world, that's not exactly plus size.

Or you see a replay of an interview with 19-year-old Ashley Kauffman of Riverside, Calif., who said she wasn't allowed to sit in the front row at "American Idol" because a show worker said she was too fat.

Or you remember that when it comes to "Mike & Molly," Maura Kelly, a blogger for the fashion magazine Marie Claire, said: "I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything."

None of us want to be fat, but -- because of bad choices or genetic predispositions -- it happens.

Overweight men often get a pass when it comes to their size -- they're called husky or stout, or someone says they're built like a football tackle.

Overweight women typically do not.

We may talk about how far women have come since our mothers and grandmothers. How these days we take care of our children and households while maintaining careers as elected officials and corporate executives and whatever else we might want, or so the modern success story goes.

But you'll have a much easier time living that wonderful life if you're thin.

Our western standards of beauty reinforce that.

So we make fat jokes. We starve ourselves. We sign up for weight loss surgery.

I guess it's easier to do that than to make the skinny bridesmaid the gassy one.

Contact Georgea Kovanis: 313-222-6842 or gkovanis@freepress.com


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