Remember that terrible movie from the 90s, She’s All That? You know, the one where the cute little pixie wore overalls and glasses and was pranked by the cool kids because she’s so unattractive, until she puts on a dress and contacts and suddenly she’s super hot? That movie always irritated the heck out of me, because she was never ugly, ever. Hollywood utterly fails to grasp the concept of ugly.
And now, we apparently have a She’s All That for the next generation, which doubles down with messages about beauty and size. You’ll be absolutely not shocked to know that Hollywood understands fat even less than it understands ugly.
Meet The DUFF. This is, apparently, an actual acronym that actual people use, and I’m thrilled to report I don’t know those people. DUFF stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend. In the movie, “A high school senior instigates a social pecking order revolution after finding out that she has been labeled the DUFF to her prettier, more popular friends.”
Here’s the cast. Do you know which one is the Duff? Did you guess the one in the overalls, because of how ugly and fat she is? You win a prize called You Should Go Work In Hollywood!
The actress is Mae Whitman. Look at her in this still from the trailer:
Apparently there is some deep meaning at the heart of the movie, about how “we are all somebody’s Duff,” which is empowering in some way, I guess? I read a bunch of interviews by the producers and the actors, and I still can’t figure it out.
It gets weirder: This movie is based on a novel of the same name, where the lead character apparently isn’t really ugly or fat, either. So while I want to blame Hollywood, I guess I have to blame the author… who is fat.
What are actual fat people supposed to think and feel when non-fat people are being called fat? It drives me bonkers, to be honest. Mae Whitman is not fat. Apparently the character she plays, Bianca, is not fat. Why would a fat girl (she was 17 when the book was published) write a story about a non-fat girl being called fat? Doesn’t she live in the same world where I do, where thin people talk about “feeling” fat (tip: it’s not a feeling, it’s a physical state), where Jennifer Lawrence makes comments about how she is “Hollywood obese,” where plus-size models wear sizes as low as 6-8, where thin women proclaim their “fatness” as a way of trolling for compliments?
I have come a long way with accepting my fat body, and being comfortable and outspoken about calling myself fat. Because I am, legitimately. So it really burns my biscuits when non-fat people co-opt the word. Ahem:
I freely admit that I should probably read the novel (and see the movie) before I make judgments about it/them, but life is way too short for that. There are only so many movies I can see and so many books I can read in my lifetime, and these aren’t going to make the short list.
You know, Hollywood loves a remake. Maybe one day they’ll remake The DUFF with an actual ugly, fat girl! If, you know, they can find a pair of overalls that fit.
