Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
From left: Kendra C. Johnson, Joyful Drake and Mo'Nique. - CONTRIBUTED
PHAT GIRLZ, starring Mo'Nique, is an often hilarious comedy about a fat woman living in a slim woman's world, trying to stay on the treadmill between a 'slim fast' aesthetic and a 'supersize me' culture. The story is essentially a fat chick's fairy tale. This means it's really no different from a slim chick's fairy tale, it's simply a little thicker around the middle.
Written and directed by Nnegest Likké, the film is clearly low budget, but still enjoyable. At its core is a host of fat jokes often targeting the story's heroine, Jasmine Builtmore (Mo'Nique). Clearly, the name 'Builtmore' is certainly among one of the writer's jokes, as Jasmine is a little more well-built than others.
Mo'Nique knows how to deliver a line, and the film jiggles with hilarity. Phat Girlz relies heavily on her comedic skills, especially in those moments when it seems to take a moment from the plot and simply allow her to engage in a dissing contest, or some variety of the dozens. These moments are usually hilarious, and should allow for much vindication for all who share her pain, and mere hilarity for those who don't.
DEPICTING SELF-ESTEEM
Phat Girlz is, however, trying to be more than a romantic comedy with a fat star. It's attempting to be about the issue of self-esteem, and in some ways it succeeds. Jasmine is not merely hounded by fat slurs. Having lived her life on the wrong side of the fat divide, at least by American standards, she is attempting to squeeze her self-esteem and her bottom into a size five and neither will fit.
Her perceptions are supposedly about to change when she encounters a Nigerian Tunde (Jimmy Jean-Louis) who appreciates women from the bigger side of life. So, Likké attempts to suggest that African Americans suffer from a warped sense of self that a return to their African roots would cure.
However, as funny as the movie is, the fat chick/slim chick divide is a little annoying, and the film does not have the maturity to suggest that fat women and slim women can understand each other. It goes even further to suggest that all slim women have a crisis of self-confidence which must work itself out by assailing the extra rolls on a full-figured woman.
One thing this movie accidentally makes clear is that if a woman's weight depends solely on the attempt to attract men, she will get the wrong end of the stick, whether it's a fat one or a skinny one. Indeed, the movie plays too heavily on the need of a man to rescue, which would be absolutely annoying if Jean-Louis was not in possession of a fabulous body. But he is, and the flick is funny. So it can be accepted ... flaws and all.
