Avengers Endgame Failed Its Fat Fans
By: Rachael Hope
Tags: Entertainment, Body Image, Society, Movies, Culture

*minor spoilers ahead!*

I could write a dozen paragraphs about how much I loved Avengers Endgame. The story was wrapped up in a near-flawless manner. I loved the continued character development of Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark, who is one of my favorite characters. There were several progressive-feeling moments that touched me to the point of tears.

Unfortunately, one of the thing I’ll remember most about Endgame is how I felt when Marvel let me and all it’s other fat fans down.

I won’t say how far into the future we we meet up with Thor in New Asgard. He’s been living there long enough to become slovenly and unkempt, with dirty clothing, messy hair, and a frizzy beard. It’s obvious that everything he’s been through has thrown him into a depression and trauma he’s unable to deal with, so he muffles his feelings constantly with alcohol. Between Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Endgame, Thor has watched his brother and half his people die in front of him, lost his mother, and watched half of the universe disintegrate before his eyes. Who wouldn’t be messed up after all that?

I wish I could describe the feeling of absolute disappointment I felt sitting in a full theater and hearing the laughter and comments when the camera zoomed in on Thor’s muffin top. His body turned and the focus fell on the prosthetic and/or digitally altered stomach pooch, unrealistic to anyone whos’s ever lived in a fat body. From around me, gasps and guffaws reminded me that fat bellies (like mine) are shocking, gross, something to be feared.

I sat in that theater last night, literally surrounded by people who were laughing at me.

No matter how much I loved the rest of the movie, the plot, the character development and story arcs, I will ALWAYS remember how I felt in that moment. I will remember the familiar sense of disappointment when I become a punchline, and how let down I felt by everyone involved. I will remember how a hundred people around me perpetuated what I’ve already been told over and over, that being fat makes me a joke.

I’d been warned that this was coming, I’d seen an article online before going to the movie about the fat jokes that would follow. I’m lucky to be far enough along in shedding the shame society likes to rain on people with bodies like mine that instead of being ashamed or devastated, I just felt disappointed and angry.

I carry an internal list of the movies and TV shows that are marred by scenes like this- comments and jokes that pass without a thought from people who aren’t shaped like me. These microaggressions color every day for people like me, we have it drilled into us time after time that our existence is nothing more than something to be ridiculed.

Given an opportunity to show that depression and PTSD can result in the inability to function and take care of yourself, the writers and producers chose to make some fat jokes. Given a chance to make the positive statement that even a god of Asgard is susceptible to depression, to help real people in pain feel less alone, they chose to zoom in on his stomach.

Does adding a high-tech fat suit add something to this? Or does it exist only so that Rocket can make fat jokes and later in the movie someone can make a joke about Cheez Whiz running through Thor’s veins? Did having one of Thor’s loved ones tell him to “eat a salad” add something to the movie or to that particular scene? Does perpetuating the idea that being fat goes hand in hand with being sloppy and unable to care for oneself do anything other than alienate a large group of fans?

I guess I could acknowledge that at least they didn’t make Thor’s beer belly and mini-man-boobs an obstacle for him. Throughout the movie, in fact, the extra weight didn’t seem to have any physical effect on him at all. Which raises the question: why make Thor fat at all?

I applaud the inclusion of a real emotional reaction to someone having lost things, and showing that Thor is in real pain. I’m just not clear on why fat jokes were a necessary part of that.