Shallow Hal: She Ain't Heavy she's Padded???

By Alexis Adams

The movie SHALLOW HAL will be released later this year. Normally, I wouldn't pay much attention to this particular type of movie, but the content caught my eye. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black. In it, Gwyneth will be wearing a FAT SUIT, which was designed for her part in this.

The plot is basically as follows. A shallow man falls in love with a 300-pound woman because of her "inner beauty". When his father was on his deathbed, young Hal (Black) was told to date only the youngest, prettiest women. And so he does, and as he reaches middle age, he's appreciated women only for their surface. What a surprise, then, when he meets a woman (Paltrow) who's quite obese, but he falls in love with her inner beauty.

I find this plot particularly annoying. First of all, Paltrow is a very thin woman. There are thousands of plus size women out there. Why do they feel it necessary to build "fake fat?" Why not portray the fact that real fat can be beautiful? Secondly, why is it focused on inner beauty? Why do they have to constantly put out to people this false reality that fat people have only inner beauty? There are lots of gorgeous fat women who have outer beauty, as well. I'm also tired of fat women being portrayed as comical. We are just as real as anyone else with every type of emotion. Yes, our hips are wide, but I don't go around knocking over everything in site with them. Don't portray us as clowns.

In conclusion, this is one movie you won't catch me watching. Sorry Gwyneth!