GWSS 3307: Feminist Film Studies, Fall 2008

The problem I noticed most within Shallow Hal and one that is addressed in the People magazine article is the lack of pride that Rosemary is allowed to have in her body. The film is tremendously sexist- with men dictating the amount of confidence Rosemary can seemingly have in her body. In the magazine article, they ask if Rosemary “not hiding her body� meant the film had positive aspects. In addition to Holliday’s comments that all the shots of her body are “in the context of getting laughs�, each scene in which Rosemary is scene wearing skimpy clothing where she exudes some level of confidence in her body is used as a punch-line. During the pool scene, when she’s wearing a bikini, a child ends up stuck in a tree because of her cannonball. When she’s wearing shorts with her parents her father chastises her and tells her to change into something more “appropriate� for a woman of her size. All of these scenes, and many more, do not portray larger woman’s bodies as a source of pride but rather a source of shame, due in large part to the reaction and prejudices of men. The film is horribly offensive and has a particularly ugly lense through which it views women, especially those who are large.