Sunday, May 14

Gilbert Grape

"Gilbert Grape" was on tv last night. I love that movie. It's such a good story, with genuine characters and superb actors portraying them. I remember watching it when it first came out, ten years or so ago, and I remember my reaction to Gilbert's mother - how eyepoppingly, jawdroppingly fat she was. This 200 kilo-woman was like nothing I had ever seen before and her enormous body made just as much of an impression on me as it did on the couch she lived on in the film.

Sadly though, when I watched it last night she didn't look that fat at all. After being fed for years and years through documentarys and newspaper articles with the image of obese american men and women - a lot of them weighing as much as 500 kilos - Gilbert's mother looked sort of like an average american. Hell, she could even move around on her own.

And half the kids on the schoolyard a couple of blocks from here weigh a lot more than I do.
What's going on?

posted by Stella at 9:39