The (In)Visible Funny Fat Girl: Cinematic Erasure Of The Fat Female Body And Gendered Body Politics In The D.U.F.F (The Designated Ugly Fat Friend)

Abstract

 Popular Culture in the 2000s perpetuated fat-phobic attitudes into mainstream contemporary discourse, relegating corpulent women to comedic roles and positioning them as the stereotypical butt of jokes made by actors occupying normative bodies who fit into narrow beauty standards set by Hollywood. Despite their visual presence, these adipose women were often rendered invisible by the camera and suffered the stereotypical trope of the jolly fat friend, the fat female desperate for male attention or the lazy slob- essentially, they embodied the binary of the sidekick that highlighted the beauty of the slimmer heroine.  Fat studies is an emergent interdisciplinary and intersectional field that addresses the marginalization of big women; this paper here explores how fat women are reduced to minor roles that often lack narrative significance and are placed in situations where their body is the punchline to the joke. It borrows from Feminism, Culture Studies, and Psychology to argue against the erasure and stereotyping of fat female bodies in Mass Media and critiques their widespread erasure on the big screen. This paper deconstructs the trope of the funny fat friend using the 2015 movie The D.U.F.F (The Designated Ugly Fat Friend) as a primary source. It is based on the 2010 book of the same name by American young-adult author Kody Keplinger, which establishes the idea that every female friend group has a ‘designated ugly fat friend’ who is the approachable gateway towards her more attractive friends. The movie stars Mae Whitman as ‘Bianca’, a smart but loud, sarcastic and poorly dressed snark with two gorgeous best friends Casey and Jess. The male love interests are ‘Wesley’ the jock played by Robbie Amell and ‘Toby’ the seemingly sensitive musician who is also Bianca’s long-time crush. Wesley points out that she is the D.U.F.F in casual conversation when they have an argument, not knowing that this would insult her greatly and have her questioning her close female friendships when her worth is undermined by her friends’ attractiveness. In a classic trope not new to the romantic comedy genre, Bianca is rejected by Toby who only befriended her to get closer to her beautiful friends. She then pairs up with her nemesis, Wesley, for a social and physical makeover designed to make Toby want her. Sparks end up flying between Wesly and Bianca, and the latter uses Wesley as a coping mechanism during her parents’ divorce as she vents out her frustrations by beginning a physical relationship with him.