Okay, I’m back on Saved! I want to talk about the way that this movie, supposedly a force for tolerance and acceptance, reinforces and supports looks-prejudice and fat-prejudice.
(Man, I made it sound fun, didn’t I?)
At one point in the movie, the trio of outcasts (a pregnant girl, a Jewish girl, and the brother of our Bitch Villainess) decide to strike back. The brother (Macaulay Culkin, whose character uses a wheelchair) reveals that Hillary Faye wasn’t always a beauty, and shows his friends a picture of her when she was *gasp* fat (and pimply and wore braces).
Now, Hillary Faye (played by Mandy Moore) is mean and domineering. She abuses people by being holier than thou, and using the Bible as a weapon (literally, in one scene). What she never does is mock or humiliate anyone on any issues other than religiosity or sinfulness. She never, in the course of the film, remarks on beauty or size (but there are, of course, no fat people) or race.
Doesn’t matter, because you know what? It’s okay to make fun of someone for being fat. Everyone knows that. If you need to humiliate someone, there is no better target than their weight. In fact, if they’re evil and dishonest and mean, the weight is still the way to go. It’s totally acceptable and doesn’t reflect badly on you to do that.
To add another layer of interest, what the outcast gang does is broadcast the fat picture to every student’s laptop; everyone sees that Hillary Faye was once fat. The unspoken implication is that her power over others in school is based on her looks, and that to change to perception of her looks chips away at her power.
On another level of course, the movie establishes that Hillary Faye is fearful and insecure. (Which of course is true about all fat or formerly fat people. /sarcasm) And again, it’s perfectly acceptable to use that against her, because she’s The Enemy.
If Hillary Faye had been black, would it have been okay to make pickanninny jokes instead of addressing her behavior? If Hillary Faye had been male, would his looks have been the target? The attack used was unique towards women and towards fat. Which is, y’know, not a surprise, but is particularly unpleasant in a movie about overcoming prejudice and embracing difference. Yeah, right, sure.
Actually, it isn’t true that Hillary Faye never remarks on beauty. She tells Tina, “Do you want to go back to being invisible girl with bad hair? Because I can make that happen.” She also flips out in ways that aren’t holier-than-thou, like when she screams at her brother for spilling ketchup on her new pants.
grrr…
Amy, she remarks on the presentation part of appearance; bad hair and fashion are totally under one’s own control. But as I recall, she went straight into holier-than-thou in the ketchup scene, into “all I do for you” and so on.
It’s not actually true that bad hair and fashion are totally under one’s own control. Think about Tina; she’s working two jobs (that we know of) and her father is an alcoholic. A school like hers, in my area, would dismiss 90% of that girl’s tuition (or more, if her family was a big part of the church), thanks to needs-based tuition. So she’s busy (doesn’t have the 70 minutes my former roommate dedicated to her hair) and poor (doesn’t have the money to invest in fashion — even for the prom, when she wants the tiara but apparently doesn’t have the money for it).
Plus, considering that it’s high school, someone who chose not to invest in hair and fashion would probably be held in contempt simply for “not trying,” which, if you ask me, is just as mean as anything else.
I see your point; makeovers are financially based. You paid better attention than I did—I forgot about her working extra jobs and so on.
[…] Here’s the thing: Both of the included blogs were about movies. And this is what fascinates me; the image. The interaction between images and social constructs. The things we see on-screen (or on TV or in magazines) reflect the unspoken and often unconscious prejudices we hold. What is acceptable to see, what is unacceptable to see; what is shown as good, shown as evil, never shown at all. I honestly don’t see how you can watch movies with a critical eye and not notice the sexism and the narrow definition of acceptibility. […]