About Schmidt (2002) 6/10
Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) has just retired, and his wife has just died. Empty and sad, he journeys to his daughter’s (Hope Davis) wedding.
An entire thesis could be, and perhaps has been, written about the role in this film of Kathy Bates’s naked ass. By the time Schmidt arrives in Denver to meet the parents of his future son-in-law Randall (Dermot Mulroney), we are relieved by their warmth. Roberta (Bates) has a home painted in deep rusts and golds, decorated with art and musical instruments, and she dresses in a flowing purple caftan. After an hour of Schmidt’s sorrowful, repressed, seething grays and tans and blues, arriving in Denver is like finding a warm fire after trudging through the snow.
Her manner is also a relief; she is immediately frank and natural, welcoming Schmidt with a burst of conversation and a much-needed drink. Suddenly, you realize that this is the first real conversation you’ve seen in the film; everyone else is formal, artificial, dishonestly cheerful, or blasé.
But you’re not meant to like Roberta, or at least, not to embrace, accept, or respect her. Ultimately, I think she’s simply a poorly written character. Why should so much inappropriateness and weirdness be laid upon the only character in the entire movie who makes the audience feel good?
All of this funnels down to one moment; the only moment in About Schmidt that anyone talks about: Kathy Bates nude in the hot tub.
We are given, essentially, two facts about Roberta: First, she is passionate, warm, colorful, blunt (likable), and second, she is inappropriate and ridiculous (unlikable). Then there is a third fact: She is frankly sexual. The movie is very confused about whether it is categorizing this third thing as likable or unlikable. No, I’m wrong. The screenplay is clearly designed to make Roberta’s sexuality unlikable; from her unbelievably inappropriate, boundary-violating, outrageous “sharing,” to the look on Schmidt’s face when she strips (very quickly, and then dipping immediately into the hot tub, where she is effectively covered by the bubbling water), the movie sneers and laughs at an overweight, middle-aged woman who has the temerity to believe her overtures would be welcome.
Where I am confused is that I like Roberta. I like her sexuality. I like her openness. And the stupid dialogue she is given to be funny (but only in a “look at the freak” kind of way) is jarring. It just doesn’t fit, and the reason it doesn’t fit is that the need to make Roberta look like an idiot is rooted in hostility, not in real character development.
Roberta is an overweight, middle-aged woman who is not ashamed of her sexuality. Therefore, there must be something wrong with her. She is joyful, but fat! How can that be? Well, the script tells us, it’s because she’s kind of a nut. And the audience, by all reports, sucks it up.
The thesis-worthy fact about Roberta is the public reaction to her few seconds of nudity. Horror! Shock! Disgust! Most reviewers pause to mention how “disturbing” or ugly this scene and Bates are, and most use the word “fat” as if it were the equivalent of “leper.” On message boards, people compare it to “Stuck in the Middle With You” from Reservoir Dogs as the most unpleasant thing they’ve ever seen on film. Four Word Film Review has such gems as “Needn’t see Bates nude” and “Fat mama in tub”.
The way that Kathy Bates is targeted, the way that it becomes okay, in our culture, to direct enormous venom towards a fat woman with the temerity to be sexual, is eye-opening. You may think that “fat activism” is about the images of thin women constantly being paraded before us as the ideal, but it’s much more. It’s about hating a woman for daring to be fat. (And make no mistake, this is about women. A much, much smaller percentage of reviews mention that, in the very same scene, Jack Nicholson’s equally overweight naked behind is also briefly on-screen.) It’s about having permission, in any publication, to express that hatred, without fear of alienating your readers. The hatred is so profound that it confused the screenwriters; clearly, Roberta could be a source of salvation; she could inject color and feeling into Schmidt’s emptiness, and certainly, if a young, thin woman brought such passion, she would not be ridiculed.
As for the movie, Nicholson is brilliant (so is Bates). The filming is beautifully controlled. The story is sad and uncompromising. None of the characters are very nice; and the screenplay is honest with that.
Harry Groener appears, and this always throws me off, as I sit and wait for his head to split open and a giant snake to emerge. I’m a geek.
Okay so first of all, I always complained to mom about my name. I contended it was a fat name. She always said I was being ridiculous.
Trust me, it’s true. Most Roberta’s as portrayed in the media are fat, often prison guards. There are a smattering of other common names for this stereotype, including Bertha and Louise. Trust me on this.
Second of all I didn’t much care for the movie, and certainly this was one reason.
Third of all have a peak: (wish I knew how to hyperlink in comments)
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=23258194&blogID=50702831&Mytoken=C0B487F9-B01A-4039-8159825131E742D2891695984
oh look it did it for me! Thanks hyerlink/wordpress gods.
(shit I meant peek not peak.)
(and ps Groener repeats his snake trick this week — not weak — on the 7am Buffy hour.)
Yeah, I took longer to get there. But what gets me about Bates-Roberta (as opposed to Lipp-Roberta?) is she represents The Big Threat. Fat and sex. It is simply not okay to view sex and fat together as anything but repulsive.
I mean, look at Shallow Hal. You might, if you were enormously magnanimous, allow fat people to exist without criticism. But you can’t DATE them because THEN there is SEX. (Sorry, shouting.)
Hyperlink trick. Surround a word or phrase with a hyperlink by using pointy brackets <> as follows (I am using SQUARE [] in my example just to show you, you have to use POINTY).
[a href=”this_is_the_url”]this is the phrase that will be linked[/a]
[…] Property of a Lady takes a look at yet another media medium, movies. In her Monday Movie Review, she takes a look at all the attention that Kathy Bates’ naked body received from that fleeting moment in About Schmidt when her character dares to be sexy. “The way that Kathy Bates is targeted, the way that it becomes okay, in our culture, to direct enormous venom towards a fat woman with the temerity to be sexual, is eye-opening. You may think that ‘fat activism’ is about the images of thin women constantly being paraded before us as the ideal, but it’s much more. It’s about hating a woman for daring to be fat.” […]
I’m glad you two are hammering on this. Everyone has different things that “work” for them, with respect to sexual attraction or sense of physical beauty, but as a culture we really do need to be hammering on this hating. Sometimes when I’m overcome by despondency I allow myself to believe my rational assessment, which is that our species is incapable of being in a hate-free state, and that something is always shifted into the hate category, just a question of what. Argh. Not helping, I know… Anyway, you go girls.
Rich Hogen! Long time no hear. Thanks for the comments.
[…] 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. […]
wow, i must be out of the loop. i’d forgotten about that bit, although other parts stood out really memorably (the bit where the woman in the campground tries to have a moment of emotional connection, and all he can think to do is try to kiss her; and her subsequent freakout).
i think Bates is hot, myself. i wonder how we were “supposed” to take his running away; it seemed in character. and i mean, -everyone- in that movie was pretty awful one way or another.
but i can well imagine the audience’s reaction to that, now you mention, and how it might color my feelings.
that was a depressing little film.
oh yeah, and the reviews. that does color it, doesn’t it. that sucks.
like i say, it’s been a while, but i honestly didn’t see it that way. maybe ’cause i’m a fat hottubbing woman myself. i mostly saw it as one more example of how scrweed up this poor guy is about sexuality…hm. was she actively invasive, in the film? Or was she just making an offer that he ran like hell from? i had thought the latter; or -was- it even an offer?
“we don’t need to see that.” goddam, people suck.
She definitely implied an offer; I think there was hand-on-knee and a wink-wink thing, but he was also definitely shocked beforehand.
The filmmakers seemed confused to me; I mean, her authenticity was so great, but on the other hand, she was a buffoon (especially as a mother).