Virgie Tovar and Magdalena Arroyo opened Day Two of the Bentonville Film Festival Thursday with a Reel Magic Morning coffee talk at Meteor Guitar Gallery about fat phobia, activism and embracing one's body with joy.
Tovar is an author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts on weight-based discrimination and body image. Arroyo is a trainer, facilitator and consultant for the Office for Diversity and inclusion/IDEALS Institute at the University of Arkansas.
"We live in a culture that is saturated in fat phobia, which means it's a culture of discrimination against higher weight people," Tovar said.
She said that despite the fact that around 70% of women fall into this category, they are often treated as a minority within American culture. That means overweight women face discrimination in employment due to negative stereotypes, and they are less likely to experience comprehensive preventative medical care because doctors are fixated on their weight.
The discussion also explained roots of white supremacy and sexism in establishing diet cultures and continuing the negative stereotypes inflicted on fat people.
"If you grew up in a larger body, you're taught to make yourself invisible, take up as little space as possible," Tovar said. "Paradoxically we're hyper visible and invisible at the same time."
"Fat in Front of the Camera: Why It Matters," a panel discussion at Thaden School, picked up the conversation about how people with higher weights are depicted on screen and reiterated Tovar's point.
"You may have felt uncomfortable reading the word 'fat' in the festival program," said Elizabeth Kilpatrick, senior vice president of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, as panel members Tovar, Ashlie Atkinson ("The Gilded Age," "Mister Robat" and "BlacKkKlansman"), Joy Nash ("Grey's Anatomy," "Twin Peaks") and Adrienne Acevedo Lovette ("Better Call Saul," "Fosse Verdon") nodded. "You may feel uncomfortable hearing me say that word right now. Fat, fat, fat. It's a word that has had so much incredible power over me for much of my life."
Kilpatrick said the Geena Davis Institute's 2020 review of programming most viewed by children revealed that plus-sized characters were not only underrepresented, they were depicted as clumsy, poorly dressed and losers.
"Even more astounding (was that) they were two times more likely to be depicted as stupid," Kilpatrick said.
The actors on the panel related their own experiences on the set.
Atkinson shared a story of a fan who told her that the scene of her running in "BlacKkKlansman" was funny because of her size. She also echoed the push in Hollywood to do away with fat suits. Lovette talked about the need for stories about plus-sized women in leading roles that are not focused on their weight or weight loss. Nash said that David Lynch was the first director to look at her as a person, not a stereotype, when she was cast for "Twin Peaks."
The afternoon of Day Two was also full, with a Cherokee Film Office takeover, a discussion and mixer at the Meteor Guitar Gallery; screenings of competition shorts next door at the Walmart World Room; and the opening of the festival village.
The Geena Davis Outdoor Theater officially opened at 5 p.m. at the Momentary and will continue to screen animated films and family-friendly picks for free throughout the final days of the festival.
Geena and Friends, perhaps the most popular of the Bentonville Film Festival events, took place at Thaden School Theater Thursday evening with a star-studded cast doing an hour-long variety of table reads from male-centric movies reimagined for an all-female cast.
This year's event featured Geena Davis with Angela Sarafyan ("Westworld"), Brianne Howey ("The Exorcist"), Chelsea Javier ("Smile or Hug") and Ashlie Atkinson ("Gilded Age"). Together they recreated popular scenes from "The Godfather," "The Hangover," "Pets," "Stuber," "Spiderman" and "Central Intelligence." The five actresses performed after having worked together on them for only a day.
Davis told the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette shortly ahead of the event that she thought it would be "a really fun way to show people that most roles could be played by either men or women."
In some scenes the differences were subtle, like casually calling each other sisters as opposed to bros, saying "hello ladies," or mentioning their sisterhood. For instance, "we changed all the hims to hers and changed the names," Sarafyan said. Atkinson described the task as not attempting to do male impersonation but just embodying the characters.
Other changes were more overt, though, like the chosen scene from "The Godfather."
"The (original) 'Godfather' scene had a female character that was eye candy, so we deliberately chose a man for that," Davis said. Nardeep Khurmi ("Land of Gold") played that role.
The whole evening garnered laughs, both from the audience and the actresses. Davis concluded by saying that a lot of roles for TV and film could be played by "most anybody; it doesn't have to be who you first think."
Elizabeth Kilpatrick of the Geena Davis Institute, actor and director Adrienne Acevedo Lovette, writer Virgie Tovar and actors Joy Nash and Ashlie Atkinson pose after the panel discussion "Fat in Front of the Camera: Why It Matters" on Day Two of the Bentonville Film Festival at Thaden School. The panel was moderated by Kilpatrick.
(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Monica Hooper)
This year's Geena and Friends event featured Geena Davis with Angela Sarafyan ("Westworld"), Brianne Howey ("The Exorcist"), Chelsea Javier ("Smile or Hug") and Ashlie Atkinson ("Gilded Age"). Together they recreated popular male-centric scenes from "The Godfather," "The Hangover" and other movies. The actresses performed after having worked together on them for only a day.
(NWA Democrat-Gazette/April Wallace)