"Palindromes" - Reversing Fat and Skinny Roles?

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Saturday, July 28, 2007

Todd Solondz has made some of the sickest, funniest movies around. Check out Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling, and Happiness. And most of all, check out Palindromes, a movie about twelve-year-old Aviva whose biggest dream is to become a mother. When she gets pregnant, her parents force her to have an abortion, and she runs away from home. This sounds very tragic, but it's humor at its blackest. Probably many viewers don't like this sort of thing - after all, we see a born again pedophile falling into the old habit as Aviva wants to carry his child. But the movie is brilliant, just brilliant.

And why am I bringing it up in this blog? Well, the interesting thing about Aviva is that she's played by four [edited: five] different women. One of them plays Aviva as a child (she's black and fat). One of them is a skinny redhead. Another is a chubby brunette of about 15. The most interesting one is a supersized black woman. I've never seen anything like this. It totally breaks the viewer's expectations of what a woman looking a certain way can and should experience, and I must admit I had trouble forgetting about Aviva's size, while the movie made absolutely no mention of it, and it had no bearing on the plot. Which is really a first. I don't think I've ever seen a more weight-neutral movie.

Palindromes made me question how neutral I can be about a character's weight. I'm used to the skinny girl being the attractive one, or the norm girl with no visible flaws, while the fat girl is usually the pathetic loser who can get no man. Which is offensive to both fat women and men who admire them. How many times have I said that I'd like to see a movie with a fat girl in a role that could have been written for a skinny girl? That's my definition of a good fat role - "could be a skinny girl". I've only seen a handful of those, and never in the main role.

However, this movie made me constantly question how this all could happen to a supersized girl, exposing my underlying expectations. In the movie, Aviva stumbles into a house inhabited by Mama Sunshine and her family - a mishmash of children handicapped in one way or another, all taught into a shiny happy, if slightly disturbing, fanatic Christian faith. Mama Sunshine is quick to adopt Aviva as one of her children. She just happens to have a dress in her size at hand, even if no one else in the family is supersized. We see Aviva sleeping in a children's cot bed. We see the pedophile men craving her, and a little boy - one of Mama Sunshine's many children - falling for her. Her weight is neither the reason nor an obstacle for the men's and boy's feelings. There are no fat jokes, no eating scenes, no references to her size whatsoever. Yet I kept expecting some.

In the sex scenes, the chubby 15-year-old always takes over. Perhaps she was the oldest one and there was some rule about not being able to show a really young girl playing that role. Of course, the chubby one is closer to conventionally pretty than the supersized girl, but she's still "Hollywood fat", and wouldn't be attractive to men in a mainstream flick. In the final sex scene between Aviva and a boy some years older than her, we see Aviva turn into all the different actresses in turn while they have sex. In the very last scene, we see child-Aviva again, saying: "This time I'm sure I will become a mother!"

This type of reversal of skinny and fat roles - or combination of them? - is, of course, quite intentonal and self-conscious. Was it meant to draw attention to the weights of each actress, or take focus away from it? Is Solondz saying that what matters is who you are inside, or is he simply playing with the viewers' expectations of fat and skinny girls? Maybe he's drawing parallels between what is expected of white and black vs. skinny and fat actresses. The movie makes you think, but it doesn't give you any straightforward answers.

Palindromes makes constant references to Aviva's cousin, Dawn Wiener (the protagonist of Welcome to the Dollhouse) who has killed herself. One of the reasons for this is her weight gain. Dawn's brother Mark has a different explanation: he believes that people can't change. "You can lose weight and your skin might clear up, but you're still yourself." This is underlined with Aviva's constant skin color and body type changes. Your weight, age, or even the color of your skin isn't as significant as the person you are.

I enjoyed seeing a supersized girl in the only weight-neutral role I've ever seen. However, I couldn't forget her weight because of the juxtaposition with the other girls. I'd love to see a movie that goes one step further, with a fat female protagonist whose weight is never an issue more than it is in real life. That could really make people think.

A trailer showing all the Avivas - yes, all the girls in the clips are her.