10 Best/Worst Fatsuit Performances in Film...and their Food Equivalent
Sure you can pull a Michael Bay and just cram your movies full with explode-y things, and earn a boatload of money in the process (See: Transformers). The catch though is that the initial investment for all those special effects and CG shenanigans cost a lot, too.
You know what earns a lot in the box office that ain’t as expensive? Fatsuits. As the ancient Hollywood saying goes, “Put a man in a fatsuit, and watch the dough roll in.” Yes we just made that up, but nonetheless, it holds true. It works especially well if you have a formerly respectable black comedian in the lead (See: Murphy, Eddie).
Opening this week in local cinemas though is one movie that dares to defy that Hollywood convention as it tackles the fatsuit issue, the shameless political incorrectness involved, and innate offensiveness head on.
We, of course, are flat-out kidding you, because the movie we’re talking about is Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, the sequel to the 2000 original Big Momma’s House. The film sees Martin Lawrence reprise the role of FBI Agent Malcolm Turner who, you guessed it, disguises himself as a morbidly obese, elderly African-American woman in the film. To add a little twist, Turner brings his son (played by Brandon T. Jackson) along for this drag of a ride.
Entertainment Weekly only had the nicest things to say about the film: “Clowning around underneath that fat suit must be exhausting. Almost as much as watching it.” And the L.A Times was just as gracious, calling it “a lifeless piece of pure product, slapped together with haphazard disregard for comedy, storytelling and filmmaking.”
Lifeless and exhausting though as the film may be, it sure is bringing home the bacon in the box office as Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son has earned around $75,000,000 as of press time.
So are you ready to have your arteries clogged with the fat? If you are, then do affix your sugary gaze down below and check out 10 other movies that make use of the infamous fatsuit.
Alyson Hannigan as Julia Jones in Date Movie (2006, 20th Century Fox)
The premise: Julia Jones, an obese woman, dreams of marrying the man of her dreams; in the process she unsurprisingly ends up being the butt of all the crass fat jokes crammed in this soulless “spoof” of the romantic comedy genre. Check out the milkshake scene here.
Food equivalent: A cheap Lay’s alternative that simply tries too damn hard to be as satisfying as the real thing.
