Is there more to Fat Pig than meets the eye?
Thursday, May 29th, 2008I still vibrate with anger when I remember a fellow critic, who shall remain nameless, spotting me enjoying an ice cream at a press night and pausing beside my seat to wag his finger in my face and admonish me with a single, patronising word: “Fattening!”
So I’ve been intrigued by the responses to Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig over the last few days – not least, the remark by one departing female spectator on the night I attended that it was “sooo embarrassing when the fat girl came on in a swimsuit”. It’s incredible, and not a little enraging, that society in general still seems to regard the display of appetite in women as inappropriate, ugly even. The fusing of two kinds of sensuality – the pleasure derived from food and from sexual connection – in LaBute’s play inevitably pushes buttons.
Interestingly – and again, frustratingly – some of the reviews seem to me to have betrayed a latent sexism. How could LaBute’s character, Helen, have allowed herself to get into such a lamentable state? Surely she knows women are supposed to be decorative, and that she’s ruining her chances of snagging a mate, so what’s with the self-sabotage? What deep psychological flaw underlies what most of the play’s other characters, and apparently some commentators, regard as her repellant layers of excess flesh? And why hasn’t Labute devoted more stage time to exploring it? Never mind that Helen seems a pretty well-adjusted individual with a frank enjoyment of food. Never mind that her spineless lover Tom’s inability to eat anything without scrutinising the label for the calorie content is more psychologically dysfunctional. Helen is a discomfiting anomaly, a woman who is frank about her pleasures.
I think the play is also about commodification, which warps natural human instincts and fetishises them. Tom and his creepy colleague Carter scrutinise air-brushed beauties in glossy men’s mags as if they were goods for the purchasing. Tom’s on-off girlfriend Jeannie sees herself as a product on the marriage market, almost past her sell-by date at 28. As a result she’s prepared to settle for Tom, even though she admits she doesn’t like him much, or if he won’t oblige for the vile Carter. Bodies are an investment; Jeannie talks about working on hers in Pilates. By contrast, when Helen speaks of “something we can work on” she’s talking about real emotional investment, about improving her and Tom’s relationship. About something, in other words, that she believes can genuinely make them both happier, rather than simply more saleable.
Then there’s the issue of masculinity – of the war films beloved of Helen and Tom that present an idealised, heroic image of manliness utterly absent from an environment where egos are so fragile, so anxious for peer approval, that men require their women to be physically flawless human handbags.
In the last lines of Nicholas De Jongh’s review, I felt I perceived a degree of guilt at having spent the evening laughing at a fat girl. “Fat Pig shows women being brought down… I find the process repellant and my own laughter shameful”, he writes. I’m by no means claiming that LaBute’s play, or indeed his production, are without their shortcomings. But I think if we look at the play more carefully, there’s no need for shame; the joke’s not on Helen.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Bang on. I’ve been hudely perplexed by most of the reviews. The play is a study of male failiure - Tom is given a chance of great happiness but then blows it because he’s a coward. In the end, all critics reveal themselves but this has been something else. There’s a lot of confusion out there - especially from the Daily Mail guy who took a deeply sexist swipe at Jo Page. Obviously, one doesn’t expect that much from the Mail but he also managed to get one of the character names wrong which was - well, pathetic. Anyway, I suppose I’m just moaning now, but I liked what you wrote.
June 1st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I read with great interest both Sam’s blog and Robert’s comment. Since I saw the play yesterday, I have been considering one thing above all others: would it be the same, would we react in the same way, if the gender roles were reversed, if Helen were small and Tom large? I think not, in fact I’m sure not. It’s a tangential point, but since the play is bound to interest fans of British television comedy, not an irrelevant one: in all the recent articles celebrating the wonderful James Corden and his success with Gavin and Stacey, not one that I have read has mentioned that he is a larger than average guy. Why the hell should they? And yet… Would his co-star Ruth Jones be treated like this? Has Dawn French ever been?
June 8th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Sam Marlowe is right to be affronted and baffled by some of the reactions to Fat Pig, not to mention her eating habits. If the idea of art is to make one look at life with fresh eyes, this play is a major success.
I will not try to explain Neil LaBute’s intentions, as he does so well enough for himself in the interview that he gave to TheatreVOICE.
It is though instructive to analyse my own reactions to what initially appeared to be a light but extremely witty, comedy star vehicle.
On reflection, this off-Broadway transfer is also a deep meditation on the way in which we and our society stigmatise those who do not conform to the standards pressed upon us all by the media.
The protagonist could as easily have had one leg, the wrong coloured skin or a Cockney accent. So much today rests on initial impressions and the fear of embarrassment if one associates with somebody who does not fit common expectations.
Neil LaBute’s achievement is in holding up the mirror for us to stare into, thereby understanding the kinds of foibles that all are prey to and few have the courage to rise above.
Sam Marlowe will never be a Fat Pig but many of us would enjoy far more fulfilled existences if we could live and let live.
We should not be obsessed by our shortcomings nor basing reactions to others on what is really skin deep.
In that context, Neil LaBute has made a tremendous contribution not only to the theatre but potentially also to the behaviour and happiness of those that are lucky enough to see this play and be moved and changed by it.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Spot on review - recently watched Fat Pig and while really enjoyed it and found it funny in places, at the end found it overwhelmingly sad. Many other reviews seem to think the play is about provoking guilty laughter from the audience with “fat gags” but it is so much more and possibly just as much about how conformity and cowardice affects us than how overweight people are judged in society. I am disgusted but not surprised by the remark that Sam Marlowe heard from a fellow theatregoer (“sooo embarrassing when the fat girl came on in a swimsuit”), after all I guess this is demonstrative of the attitudes that give Neil LaBute inspiration to write this type of play. In response to Robert Webb’s comment, the journalist from the Daily Mail also reflected this in his comments and I would say, his offensive attitudes to the female actors provide a very good reason not to be too concerned about his opinions! From watching Fat Pig I thought that the whole cast were fantastic and that it says something about Neil LaBute’s writing and Robert Webb’s acting that I came away from the theatre both hating Tom for what he did to Helen but feeling desperately sad and sorry for him.