School Blues

Movie: Fat Girls

My Rating: 2 stars

I don’t know what I was expecting from this movie.  Maybe not very much, because I wasn’t all that disappointed with it.  Bit, “not much” is exactly what I got out of the film.  This movie is about as predictable as any other, run-of-the-mill, gay, coming of age film you’ll find on the market.  And, I’ve seen a lot of them.  Maybe that was the trouble.  Each new generation of awkward, gay teens is going to need one of these movies to help let them know that while high school may be a huge drag, there are bigger, more exciting things out there.  But, these kids might not have watched all the previous versions of this story (like I have), and may not realize that it’s the same story over and over again, just with a different cast.

This iteration is about the rather dumpy, ungraceful Rodney, and his equally large-and-in-charge best girl friend Sabrina.  These two kids call themselves “fat girls,” but this label has more to do with their personalities and outlook on life than how they look on the outside.  All different kinds of people could theoretically fall into this “fat girl” category.  Rodney never defines the term, but I think this personality type has something to do with people who have given up caring about the superficial things that high schoolers are obsessed with, and who feel free to pursue their real interests, even if they may be considered uncool.  This philosophy is a little liberating, but it does alienate these friends a bit from their peers.  Worse, it also invites the sort of unrelenting harassment that only insecure teenagers are cruel enough to engage in.  But, these guys are going to make it.  They know that a world of opportunity awaits them in some, big, coastal city.  Whereas, the idiot football players and shallow cheerleaders can really only look forward to getting knocked up at seventeen and pumping gas for the rest of their lives in this backward hick town.  And, that’s what keeps our protagonists going—a mix of hope for their futures, and some good, old-fashioned schadenfreude for their mean peers.  It’s not much, but it’s pretty much what unpopular students have relied on for decades.

This movie isn’t bad by any means.  It’s got a pretty strong, universal message for downtrodden kids living in the crazy Bible Belt (and it has a sense of humor about these fervent religious types).  But, it really isn’t anything very remarkable.  I’ve seen this same story a hundred times before, and this version isn’t significantly different or better than any of the others.  I guess there’s someone out there to whom this movie would really speak, but it would have to be someone who was very fresh to the genre.  But, with all the entertainment we have access to these days, I’d save your valuable movie-watching time slot for something a little more exceptional.