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leam1983 · 1 year

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The Whale - Thoughts

This is a long one, and it touches on topics some might find sensitive. See the appended tags for content warnings.

One of the leading lines of thoughts on here is that Charlie's character has tinges of fatphobia. As someone whose boyfriend is a self-admitted chonker, I'm used to hearing derogatory comments aimed at him, and I know how - in-context - it can feel demeaning or crippling.

That said, this is a movie. It's a movie, yes, but also a movie rooted in a play, which itself has some lived experience scaffolding its structure. It might be uncomfortable to see a big guy wracked with guilt as he caves in and snarfs a bucket of KFC on his own, but it doesn't mean that morbidly obese people can't be subject to bulemia or to other eating disorders. Fat acceptance goes a long way, sure, but the human body is like any assembly of struts bolted to a foundation: it has a certain stress tolerance that varies from person to person, and some of us shouldn't allow themselves to gather too much body habitus.

Let's dial things back down, for perspective. My BF is verging on three hundred pounds. He's five feet six, so he feels quite obviously rotund, at that weight. He dresses it well, having a yen for Business Casual that doesn't drop, ever - not after hours and not on weekends. Walter feels naked without a vest and necktie, he loves flashing his fob watch, and honestly asks me which cufflinks he should wear for this or that meeting at the office. He doesn't have an ounce of shame in regards to his weight, and even has surprising levels of cardio, being known for short straight-backed sprints down his floor's main hallway whenever he forgets to bring a document or two over to the meeting room. He, in his own words, knows he's obese, and he's never let that slow him down.

The main issue is that since we've officially started living together, his increased happiness more or less translated into an increase in appetite. He was about 260 when we first took drinks together and redid his entire wardrobe last year. That's a little over five years since, with three of them marking a notable slackening of his dietary habits.

He still doesn't mind it, or so he tells me. He's still the same cheerful and chipper guy I fell for, the same faux snob who's actually really glad to speak of his more highbrow interests to whoever'll care to listen, from high-end audio to unique pieces painted by local artists that he wants to acquire.

The problem is that he gets drowsy at an increasingly rapid pace. He keeps himself alert at work with a little radio piping Big Band standards practically every day, but the occasional serious traffic jam can sometimes result in my needing to nudge him awake once the coast clears. He also hasn't managed to be active during evenings in about a year, now. We settle in for some after-hours TV or rounds of light discussion, and there's always a point where Walt's chin dips, his breath deepens and then transitions to soft snores. If I let it go, he'll eventually rip-roar himself half-awake with a bonafide Cartoon Snore. He's been given the CPAP talk by his GP, but refuses to consider it. I've always known he had a bit of a napping fetish, but what involved charming little kips before meal prep now sees him sink quite deeply.

I've made it clear on multiple occasions that while I wanted to respect his choices, I didn't feel like losing a loved one on the cusp of their sixties. I'm lucky, in that he understands I'm not interested in Walter George the Suited Six-Pack-Packer; I just want the same old warm, kind and decent man I've fallen for to last for at least a decade or two.

His response is almost always the same. He smiles, pulls me in closer, and kisses me; pulling at my lips a few times.

"It'll be okay," he then tells me. "The moment I feel like I'm losing control, I'll take the necessary steps."

He tells me that, and falls asleep mid-sentence a few hours later, at barely a few minutes past 7 PM.

I'm not blind, I know what Sleep Apnea is. Dad has it, and he, at least, sticks to his CPAP regimen. He's also cut back on salt, reduced his red meat intake, and used the dog as a handy excuse to get out more.

Walter just sits there and pulls the William Taft card. "It's just how I am," he says, his smile radiating warmth and love even while I can recognize the telltale signs of sleep pulling at his mind: the slow eye-squints, the malapropisms, the occasional sentence that goes nowhere, the marred recipes with one or two ingredients missing when a foodie like him would not have allowed himself to omit details; the now-frequent nights where I feel like I'm lying next to a beached whale gasping for air even while he swears that he's really, seriously, super comfortable...

That, in essence, is what The Whale is referring to. Fatphobia would involve heckling someone who, despite their weight, has a clean bill of health or easily manageable quirks. Telling your morbidly obese boyfriend to be a bit more careful is not fatphobic. Brendan Fraser's character has it even worse: he's bulemic! Food is his single coping mechanism for a gaggle of real and imaginary personal flaws, and he's entirely aware that he's digging his own grave! How can it be fatphobic to have such a character realize that he needs to move forward and make amends in order to find enough courage to save himself?

If anything, Charlie's progress is slow, hard - and indubitably noble. His own white whale is a return to the life he destroyed in shutting everyone out and finding solace in food, in his working past his own self-loathing. It's not my place to keep badgering Walter on his own flaws, but there's a point where you have to admit that in the absence of a divulged weight gain fetish and in his added weight being a constant product of dietary negligence - as opposed to concerted efforts to gain weight - "how he is" is a really pithy excuse for something else. Depression, avoidant behavior or some weird form of call for help - whatever it is, something's clearly at play.

The problem is I'm not Walter. Because I love him, I can't force him to act. I can try to get him to open up, sure, but I haven't made much progress in that regard. Because I love him, I owe him to at least make it clear that I'm trying. If he wants to go down in a stroke after gaining so much weight his suits become impossible to afford, I'll be right there alongside him.

#the whale #darren aronofsky #brendan fraser #sadie sink #on obesity #on fatphobia #on bulemia

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kaiajadelovesanaandmia · 7 months

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Twilight th1n$$p0 part 2 of ♾️

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paigewants2besk11ny · 26 days

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miss my body before puberty hit me and i gained 1000 pounds

#sk11ny #sk1nn1 #sk1nny aesthetic #sk1nny legs #sk1nsp0 #tw bulemia #tw m1a #@nor3×14 #th1nsp1ration #bu1imia

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nwjnspo · 10 months

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ninguém te forçou a comer, forçou? ninguém mandou você comer, ou mandou? você comeu porque quis. a comida é tão prazerosa, que bom que se contenta tão fácil. espero que se contente com toda essa banha que você tem também e só vai sumir quando parar de comer tanto assim.