Wow, it’s been nearly a year since my last post! It isn’t that I opted out of the FA movement, far from it, but I didn’t feel like I had much to add to what others have posted in their blogs. Until yesterday, that is.
Yesterday, as I stayed home sick with a cold, I decided to watch Good Luck Chuck on DVD (it was given to me by a friend). At first, I thought it was going to be your typical rom-com, but it wasn’t long before I realized that it was more of a bro-com (ie. fratboyish comedy).
Nonetheless, I continued watching despite the movie’s incessant sexism — all the women in the movie, except for Dane Cook’s black receptionist are young, pretty (as per societal standards), slim and white (yes, I include Jessica Alba in there because, despite of her latina background, she’s definitely treated as a white woman). I wasn’t too impressed with the film but I let it continue…
Until I got to the scene where the fat black receptionist (played by Ellia English) hit on Cook because he’s a good luck charm (ie. women who sleep with him meet the man of their lives afterwards). It was bad enough that she was portrayed as being desperate, although Cook’s reaction is at least redeemable when he gives in to her, but where the straw broke was in the following scene, when Cook’s buddy, played by Dan Fogler (himself on the fat side), reacted to the news thusly: “ewwwww, you *had sex* with her???”, as if that was such a perverted (or sick, or unthinkable) thing to do.
I couldn’t stand it, and I stopped the DVD, as I refused to continue watching it. I was getting a Shallow Hal vibe all of a sudden, in that the movie sends the message that being a fat man is no big deal, but being a fat woman (and black too?) is to be repulsive and unattractive. Yes, I know I’m reading a lot out of a broad comedy that doesn’t try to fly too high and that doesn’t hide its Maxim roots much under its coating of a rom-com, but still… Let’s just say that I’m not going to keep this DVD.
Dancing with my mirror 
Moi said,
February 27, 2010 at 3:14 am
The absolute worst part of the movie I can remember was when Chuck’s buddy was trying to get him to bed down with a very large Woman poolside doing the stereo-typical “fattie” things. She had a garbage bag of food, it was very..ya know.
But if memory serves, when he slept with the black Woman and his friend gave him a hard time about it Chuck was kind of sweet about the encounter, I dunno, I’m prolly gonna have to freshen up on YouTube or something. But I hear ya!
ladyjaye75 said,
February 27, 2010 at 2:05 pm
I agree that it was more the buddy character that I had problems with, rather than Cook’s character, but still, it’s not as if they improvised their roles. The friend character is what makes it a fratcom rather than a rom-com and that really annoys me. And your description of the scene with the poolside fat woman confirms that I did well to stop the movie when I did. Just hearing about it requires sanity points, so I could imaging actually seeing the scene!
Moi said,
February 27, 2010 at 4:09 am
Found it here!!
Very sweet;
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/905834/good_luck_chuck_reba_clip/
Until his troll friend comes along..