According to filmmaker and actor Ash Christian, I am a fat girl. So is he. As explained in Christian's debut film, Fat Girls, anyone can be a fat girl, regardless of gender or body mass index. A fat girl is anyone who doesn't fit in, who's too quirky for the mainstream, whose jokes don't make everybody laugh. And, of course, the worst possible place for fat girls to spend their time is in high school.
In Fat Girls, Rodney (played by Christian) and his friend Sabrina — who really is a fat girl, both inside and out — struggle with their identities and how it feels to be constantly on the outskirts. In many ways, Fat Girls is a typical coming-of-age high-school film, but in other ways, it completely refutes the genre. Rodney lusts after the hot new student from England, Joey, who is way too cool for the backwater town in which they live; he struggles with his sexuality, unable to admit to his über-Christian, widowed mother that he's gay. But he doesn't transform from caterpillar into butterfly; Joey doesn't discover a deep well of love for Rodney; the graduation dance isn't the grand finale in which everyone learns to accept Rodney and Sabrina. Fat Girls doesn't conclude in a neat, pretty package — and that's what makes the film so refreshing.
Fat Girls screens as part of Cinema Q at Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli Student Union on Thursday, January 17, at 4:45, 7:15 and 9:20 p.m. Visit www.denverfilm.org or call 303-595-3456.
