I love Shallow Hal because it's shows perfectly how people are when it comes to weight. I have a soft spot for that movie for having the courage to say what it did.
I like Shallow Hal, but I think its message is muddied in a couple of ways.
First of all, the movie gives us the "premise" that all 'ugly' people are really beautiful on the inside and all "beautiful" people are really ugly on the inside. Rosemary, his boss' wife, the two guys in the Peace Corps Rosemary knew, the children in the hospital, the girls in the bar, the girl in the cab, the hostest at the restaurant all appeared to Hal as being "beautiful" -as he was seeing a physical representation of their personality. But the other nurse at the hopsital was seen as being ugly. Because, you see, she was beautiful on the outside so, obviously, she was ugly on the inside! Granted, IIRC, we only see one instance of the beautiful=ugly, but considering
all of the "ugly" people Hal saw had "beautiful" personalities...
Secondly, and this is the big one, Hal didn't come to realization that his views were wrong until
after his friend broke the spell. He only approached Mary because she was hot, infact he went up to her and insulted the large undies she was buying. If he had seen the "real" Mary he would've never gone up to her (for the sake of argument we'll say he's not a complete ass and he wouldn't of made the undie comment to her) if he saw the real her. He only "defended her" when they left the diner because he thought
he was being insulted. He only made her feel good about wearing revealing clothing because
he wanted to see her in hot clothes becuase
he saw her as being hot.
Nothing he does from the moment he gets the spell to the moment it's broken is done because he's seeing the "real person" it's all being done becuase he's a misogynistic asshole who's just chasing tail. He didn't share the cab with the girl because she had a beautiful personality, he did it because he thought she was hot!
He wasn't dating Rosemary, at first, because he loved her personality he did it because he thought she was hot! Now, granted, when the spell is broken Hal realizes the whole "real love" thing and makes the right decision -and doesn't dump her for being fat- but all of his motives up to that point were only done because he was seeing the "ugly" women as being hot. Because, again, all ugly people have beautiful personalites on the inside.
And, frankly, Rosemary was morbidly obese. It's one thing if a woman is on the healthy side, a bit heavy or whatever I'm hardly one to only drool after skinny super models. I like my women with some meat and stuff to them. Hell, to this day I defend Monica Lewinsky as not being totally "fat" and perfectly "do able" during that whole Lewinsky-gate thing. She was plumbishly cute.
But there's a difference between being a woman with a few extra pounds and being a woman who orders an entire meal for several people for herself (as Rosemary does in the movie). There's not having metabolism and there's just eating too damn much.
Some people are overly obsesed with being with someone to meet a "perfect" type, ignoring perfectly average , normal, or hardly obese people for the sake of the magazine cover.
But this woman isn't one of those. This woman is way, way past that line well into being just obscene. She's putting her health at risk, her life at risk, and her children's lives at risk all in the name of fame. She's eating 10,000 callories a day and doing minimal activity. And she claims she's healthy. She's not some beautiful-on-the-inside fat person being picked on needlessly because she has a few extra pounds, she's a woman who weighs 600lbs and aims to way almost double that. She's a woman who can't
simply stand up without using all of the efforts of her bones and muscles. I don't care who you are, that's not healthy.
And, yeah, the risks associated with being heavy sway both ways, some people are "healthier" being heavy than they are thin, but this woman is pushing her body to the limit, she's not someone who's dieting and eating right and "just can't lose weight" she's someone who's testing every organ in her body to see how much they can take. A heart can only pump so much of her pancake-batter thick blood through her veins so much it's a muscle like any other, it works harder than any other muscle in your body, and sooner or later her's is going to get strained.
This woman is doing herself a great dis-service and a great dis-service to all of the women out there who do have real eating-disorders and those out there who do try and eat right to lose weight and just can't. Vast differences between this woman and, say, your average Jenny Craig club member.
And Shallow Hal's message is very, very shallow. Hal wouldn't of given Rosemary a second look or thought if he saw the "real" her. He only went after her because she's hot, only got to know her because she's hot and it took him practicaly forever to realize how much he "really" loved her once the spell was broken. Good, movie. Funny, but the message is shallow.