“Why is your body a different shape?” fatness and masculinity in the superhero film

ABSTRACT In recent decades, American superhero films, and with them often very traditional constructs of masculinity, have become omnipresent in cinemas worldwide. This article examines a specific type of male representation, male fatness, in two examples of the genre, Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). The author argues that in both films the fat male character is depicted as demasculinized, thereby standing in a tradition of male fatness stereotyped as outside of normative masculinity. In the superhero genre the body plays a particularly relevant role in signifying a hegemonic masculinity, which is highlighted by the way the two films position the characters’ fatness, or also behaviors associated with fatness, in contrast to the expectations of superhero masculinity.


Introduction
Over the last 15 years American superhero films 1 have had a decisive impact on the cinema landscape worldwide, and in reaction to their success a range of criticism has emerged regarding the cultural and economic implications of this phenomenon.A commonly voiced critique addresses the fact that the representational politics of the genre are often severely lacking: most of the films feature White, 2 male protagonists and thereby further traditional notions of gender relations and masculinity. 3In this article I will engage with issues of masculinity and specifically with the intersection of (superhero) masculinity and fatness.I argue that in the two films analyzed the fat male characters are, in different ways, presented as demasculinized, and that it is their fatness in particular that is positioned as oppositional to traditional notions of masculinity.The representation of male fatness as outside of normative masculinity is a common structure within Western society but holds specific relevance within the superhero film, since this genre relies to a large extent on the male body signifying a hegemonic masculinity.A further emphasis within the analysis will be on how fatness is employed as a source of (visual) comedy and on the association of fatness with the notion of failure.In terms of theory, I will apply existing fat studies theorizations of fatness and specifically of fat masculinity and will also draw on literature about superhero comics and films to establish the background of how traditionally male superheroes embody normative gender ideals.
The films I will focus on are both superhero films based on superhero comics.Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse (Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman and Bob Persichetti 2018) is an animation action film based on the character of Miles Morales who has been appearing as Spider-Man in several Marvel comics since 2011.Avengers: Endgame (Joe and Anthony Russo 2019) is based on the super hero team of the Avengers, who first appeared in comic form, also published by Marvel, in 1963.The Avengers are at the center of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the franchise that has been at the forefront of the recent rise of the superhero genre, and Endgame is the 22 nd film released in the MCU. 4 In addition, I will also touch upon Thor: Love and Thunder (Taika Waititi 2022), the 29 th film of the MCU, although only briefly in the form of an excursus, because male fatness itself features only very briefly in this film.All three films were hugely commercially successful and widely seen: Spider-Verse had an international box office of 375 million dollars, Endgame became the highest-grossing film of all time with a box office of more than 2.7 billion dollars and Thor: Love and Thunder made 760 million dollars worldwide (Box Office Mojo, 2022).I chose those films for my analysis because their Othering and widely seen representations demonstrate how male fatness is constructed as the anti-thesis of normative masculinity, specifically within the context of the superhero genre.

Superheroes, masculinity and the body
Constructs of masculinity are at the core of the superhero genre, as has been pointed out by critics and scholars.Chambliss and Svitavsky (2013) analyze the American pulp fiction heroes of the first few decades of the 20 th century as cultural reactions to anxieties surrounding traditional masculinity that were caused by rapid urbanization and modernization.In their analysis they posit the comic book superheroes of the 1940s and 1950s as direct successors of these pulp characters that also inherited a dedication to asserting White male superiority.In her investigation of the origins of the modern superhero film Kvaran (2017) acknowledges these origins in inter-and postwar patriarchy, but argues that the threats masculinity was exposed to during the 1960s and 1970s due to the successes of the women's rights movement led to a counter reaction in the form of the ideology of hypermasculinity, with superhero films being one expression of it.While the genre of the superhero film had its initiation in 1978 with Superman (Richard Donner 1978), and delivered several blockbusters throughout the 1980s and 1990s, its steep rise in mainstream popularity didn't start until the 2000s.Several scholars have read this as part of an attempted "remasculinizing" of America (Brown 2016), taking place, again, in reaction to virulent anxieties surrounding masculinity, this time caused by the trauma of 9/11 (see also Horton 2018;McSweeney 2018).
Even before engaging in any kind of narrative analysis, just the physical appearance of superhero characters very often already indicates their indebtedness to traditional notions of masculinity, namely through their muscular physique.Brown (2016) discusses how essential "visible muscularity" is to the understanding of gender difference and how equally essential it is to the superhero genre."Superheroes, both on page and on screen, perform masculinity and embody it to an extreme" (Brown,42).Roblou further emphasizes this performative aspect: muscularity presents the male body as the source of male superiority that is expressed through the superhero's actions -"he does what he does because he physically can" (Roblou 2012, 78).An important role in these processes of gender performance is also played by the superhero's costume.It highlights the muscularity of the body and at the same time draws attention to the body's actions, to how these muscles are engaged (see Barbara and Graydon 2015).But muscles are not just an expression of a physical superiority, they are also culturally understood as an indication of the control the mind has over the body, of the "extreme willpower" of the superhero (De Dauw and Connell 2020, 6).
These connotations of control that muscularity carries, stand in diametrical opposition to how fatness is perceived in contemporary society."Letting oneself go," not being in control of one's own body have almost become synonymous with being fat.Bordo argues that this close association of softness of the body with a lack of control can be seen in how even on thin bodies any kind of "bulge" or "flab" needs to be erased to ensure "a body (. ..) whose internal processes are under control" (Bordo 1993, 190).These associations are also gendered: normative masculinity is constructed as an expression of bodily control, which is why the fat body is often not considered to be a masculine body (Stoloff 2002).Bell and McNaughton point out how these feminizing and emasculating properties of male fatness might have become more prominent in recent decades through the general rise of the societal role of fitness and body image, but aren't in themselves recent phenomena and have historical precedents (Bell and McNaughton 2007), an argument supported by Gilman's (2004) analysis of fat male figures throughout Western history.
Nevertheless, fatphobia and fat oppression are still highly-gendered phenomena, affecting women to a much larger extent than men (see Braziel 2001;Hartley 2001;Murray 2008).This gendering finds its expression in the fact that not all fat male film characters might be presented as demasculinized.Instead, some are examples of what Richardson has termed "the politics of 'bulk,'" with "bulk" being perceived as a combination of muscle and fat that has strong connotations of masculinity (Richardson 2010, 78-79).On the other hand, in many instances, contemporary Hollywood cinema does have a tendency to stereotype male fatness as infantilized or in some other way not normatively masculine (Plotz 2020).

Spiderman: into the spider-verse
This section will discuss Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse and will highlight how male fatness is presented as incompatible with superhero masculinity and, beyond that, becomes associated with failed fatherhood.
Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse focuses on Miles Morales, a teenager from New York, who first develops superhero abilities after getting bitten by a spider and then, upon having to watch the original Spiderman, Peter Parker, being murdered, promises to continue his legacy.Soon thereafter he meets Peter Parker from a parallel universe, who is still alive, but different from the Spiderman Miles knows and who doesn't really live up to the expectations Miles has of a superhero.In one of their first exchanges Miles questions him about who he is and the differences between him and the Peter Parker from Miles' universe.Part of that is Miles asking him "Why is your body a different shape?" while the viewer sees a sort of two-shot of Miles and Parallel Peter's big belly, the size of which is emphasized through the framing, which cuts off Peter's head and lower-body, turning him briefly into what Charlotte Cooper has called a "headless fatty" Cooper (2007).Cooper coined the term to describe a visual trope widely spread within news coverage on "obesity," in which fat people become objects of a dehumanizing gaze and are reduced to being their bodies.In addition to this framing, Peter's body is further negatively highlighted through Miles frowning skeptically at the belly in this shot, which is also intended to contribute to the comedy of the shot.
While Miles never directly criticizes Peter Parker's big belly, what does bother him and even disappoints him soon becomes apparent: it is this Peter's unwillingness to fulfil the promise the other Peter gave, namely to take Miles under his wing and show him the ropes of being a superhero.Parallel Peter only very reluctantly agrees after Miles makes clear that he is in urgent danger from the Kingpin, the villain of the film.The next scene opens with a close-up of Peter eagerly taking a big bite out of a burger and Miles, again, frowning at him, this time because Peter seems more interested in the burgers ("I love this burger.So delicious.[. . .]In my universe this place closed six years ago") than in solving crimes and saving the world.The next disappointment comes when Miles suggests they "swing" to their next destination so that Peter can teach him how to do that, and the film cuts to them sitting in a bus and Peter proclaiming loudly that he is not going to swing that far, "not after a hearty burger breakfast," while Miles, sullen, is looking out the window.In both of these scenes when Miles is openly disappointed, the expectations Miles has of Peter fit with the heroic masculinity associated with the superhero genre -he expects him to be enthusiastic about fighting the bad guys and saving the world, and also to teach Miles so that he can contribute to this fight and protect himself.The humor develops out of the incongruence between these expectations of the superhero and Parallel Peter's cynical disinterest and selfishness.In both of these scenes Peter's inability to live up to the ideals of heroic masculinity are expressed through habits stereotypically associated with fatness -eating unhealthy food and physical laziness.
There is, however, a further aspect of normative masculinity that Parallel Peter fails at in relation to Miles and that becomes more apparent when looking at the themes of the film as a whole: fatherhood.Many superhero films are highly invested in father-son relationships (see Bialowas and Cheek 2020; Kvaran 2017) and Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse is no exception.At the beginning, Miles' relationship with his strict father, a New York cop, is presented as strained while his slightly deadbeat uncle is shown to be a more understanding and positive father figure.By the end of the film these roles have reversed -it turns out that the uncle is actually working for Kingpin, the big villain, and although he gets to redeem himself, he still has to die a heroic death.Miles' relationship with his father is patched up through his father explicitly voicing love and support, which in turn is shown to give Miles the confidence and persistence to defeat Kingpin.
Throughout the film, Miles is eager for a supportive father figure, and Parallel Peter's refusal to take up this role has a precedent in Peter's own backstory.In a flashback he narrates how his life had crumbled because of his divorce, which was caused by him not wanting to have children.Some of the accompanying images are visual hallmarks of representing a contemporary "failed masculinity," which here are also slightly exaggerated for comical effect, such as moving into a dingy apartment by himself and crying into his mattress.Part of the flashback, and the comedy, is his narrating that, at some point after the divorce, he was in his apartment "doing sit-ups, doing ab-crunches, getting strong" while the viewer sees that he was actually eating a pizza.His fatness is highlighted here not just in the contrast of eating greasy food versus the masculine activity of "getting strong" but in addition visually through a closeup, again, of his fat belly, this time almost jumping over the waistband of his trousers.So even though there is no direct connection between his fatness and his refusal to be a father figure, the flashback overall still makes it clear that it was fat Peter who didn't want to have children and thereby failed at fulfilling one of the pillars of traditional masculinity.
In addition to male fatness often being perceived as non-masculine in general, there also exist more specific discourses that seem to consider fat fathers in particular to be a problem.While the rise of the mostly positively connotated term "dad bod" indicates that, as so often, a certain deviation from bodily ideals is still more acceptable for men than women (Contois 2020, 247), there also seem to be limits to this "bod."Qualitative studies have shown that fathers concerned about their weight often see being physically active, in particular being active together with their children and often also passing on an interest in fitness and sports, as essential elements of fatherhood, and frame fatness as an impediment to fulfilling this aspect of their role (Monaghan 2008;Scheibling and Marsiglio 2020;Shirani 2013).These concerns reflect a gender ideology described by Connell in which masculinity is not just constituted by the masculine body but specifically by the performance of that body and that "gender is vulnerable when the performance cannot be sustained" (Connell 2005, 54).
In relation to Miles, Parallel Peter does over the course of the film accept the role of substitute father, even acting like a proud dad on occasion and subsequently asking himself whether he might want to have children after all.While this development toward fatherhood is not accompanied by any weight loss, it is noticeable that as soon as Parallel Peter starts acting like a responsible father figure toward Miles, his belly is not highlighted any longer, neither visually nor through dialogue.The demasculinizing properties of fatness are not called upon because they don't fit any longer with this new characterization of Parallel Peter as father figure and thereby as normatively masculine.

Avengers: endgame
In this section, I will analyze the character of Thor in Avengers: Endgame.The focus will be on the framing of the fatness of this character as opposed to the normative masculinity embodied by the traditional superhero and as an expression of an immature, "arrested" masculinity.
Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, is one of the Avengers and thereby one of the main characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).Avengers: Endgame is his eight appearance in the MCU and follows up on Avengers: Infinity War (Joe and Anthony Russo 2018), in which the Avengers were defeated by the supervillain Thanos who managed to fulfil his evil master plan of eradicating half of humanity.In Endgame all of the -remaining -Avengers are depicted as somehow broken by these events and their inability to prevent this catastrophe.In the case of Thor, this brokenness is signified by a common shorthand in contemporary culture for failure and a loss of control: fatness.
As McSweeney points out, the MCU iteration of Thor is the kind of action hero typical of the era in which he emerges, the new millennium: a masculine hero who is also sensitive but whose violence is still decisive for his triumphs, even if it is -to some extent -critically questioned by the films (McSweeney 2018).Nevertheless, he is also a hard-bodied hero in the tradition of the action stars analyzed by Jeffords in Hard Bodies, her seminal study of the action genre in the 1980s (Jeffords 1994).An aspect of this are the shirtless scenes that Thor has had in almost every MCU film he appeared in and that show off the muscular physique of actor Chris Hemsworth, whose intense workouts for the role are also commonly part of the films' public relation campaigns.
In the first encounter of "fat Thor" in Endgame, he is presented in a manner that seems to be consciously referencing this prominence of Thor's/Chris Hemsworth's upper body within the franchise: he is shirtless and the camera first shows him from behind, thereby building up some suspense until he turns around and we then see a shot of him from the side, which already highlights his protruding belly.In the next shot, he is now fully facing the camera and spreading his arms wide, which again draws attention to his bare fat belly.In addition, these shots of him are framed by reaction shots of fellow Avenger Bruce Banner, who has come to visit him and whose bemused and slightly concerned facial expressions further emphasize how out of the ordinary and also worrying Thor's current bodily state is.Furthermore, Thor's hair is greasy, his home is messy and, as the dialogue informs the viewer, smellyall of which fit with stereotypes of the "fat slob."They are also indications of pathology, of a life out of control and thereby also fit the common perception, and also narrative utilization, of fatness as a "spoiled identity, an identity that can only communicate its own failure" (Kent 2001, 132). 5Here Thor's fatness, and specifically his fat belly, narrate how Thor hasn't been able to cope with the events of Infinity War and has subsequently "let himself go." Further relevant is the fact that Chris Hemsworth wore a fat suit for the role, which also became part of the film's PR, in a similar manner as his workouts for the previous films, e.g. with Hemsworth discussing it in interviews.Over the last two decades, fat suits have become a common and also heavily criticized aspect of fat representation in Hollywood.LeBesco posits that the fat suit inherently has a distancing, Othering effect that is produced by the privilege implied by thinness, similar to the effect Blackface has due to its relation to Whiteness (LeBesco 2005).Another argument addresses the visual comedy of the fat suit which turns fat characters into a "novelty, a visual gag" that evoke comedy primarily because they are fat and thereby in clear contrast to the slim actor underneath (Gullage 2014, 180-181).That Thor's fatness and specifically his fat belly functions as a "visual gag" for the film, and can also be seen in a further aspect of the film's public relations, namely merchandising.Funko Pop figures are popular collectibles for genre film fans, and the figure of Thor that was produced for Endgame shows him shirtless, with a pizza slice in one hand and the other hand rubbing his big belly.
What the depiction of Thor's life at this stage also communicates is stereotypical male "arrested development:" he is hanging out with his (male) mates, playing video games, drinking beer, eating pizza.The whole set-up is reminiscent of a certain type of Hollywood comedy of the last two decades, some of which has been discussed as "bromance," in which grown-up male characters reject mature adulthood in favor of hanging out with their friends (see Forster 2014;Weinman 2014).A film text that is directly referenced by the dialogue is The Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen 1998), when Thor is called "Lebowski" by one of his superhero colleagues.While The Big Lebowski itself might constitute a relatively nuanced engagement with the constructs of masculinity (Tyree and Walters 2020), this shout-out here is presented as an insult, evoking the image of "the Dude" as a lazy, unproductive "bum."Part of the dynamic that is highlighted through these intertextual references is an avoidance of any kind of responsibility, what in Thor's case means he is no longer taking seriously his duties as King of Asgard and leader of his people. 6Overall, what these behaviors add up to is a refusal to fulfil the expectations of normative adult masculinity.Instead, Thor has almost regressed to the life of a teenager, which also puts the character within a tradition of infantilizing representations of male fatness (see Plotz 2020).
What this "new," fat, Thor also has developed is a tendency to cry.He starts sniffling when Bruce Banner mentions the name Thanos for the first time and repeats this behavior later on, when they are on their actual mission, which in the scene is also highlighted by the dialogue ("Are you crying . . .?").Instead of fulfilling his part of their mission, he originally panics and refuses to take action ("I can't do this!"), running off instead.Crying and running away from a risky situation -both of these behaviors strongly emasculate the character and are in stark contrast to the ideal of the brave and pro-active superhero.
In addition, in several scenes characters link their lack of faith in him, and his ability to perform as the masculine superhero, with foods and/or his eating habits and thereby his fatness.In the already described scene, in which the audience first encounters Fat Thor, Thor replies to the question of whether he is all right, with "Yes; don't I look all right?," to which Racoon, a fellow superhero, replies "You look like melted ice cream."Later on, when he is reunited with the other Avengers and they discuss who is supposed to wear Thanos' glove, a decisive element of their plan, they are all opposed to Thor taking on that task.When he tries to convince them and dramatically exclaims "What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?" one of them quips, "Cheez Whiz?." 7 During their mission, for which they go back in time, he encounters his mother, who in his timeline was murdered several years ago.She immediately recognizes that he hasn't been doing well and gives him an emotional pep-talk, at the end of which the dialogue explicitly links his current failed masculinity with his fatness, when she says: "Now you go and be the man you are meant to be (. ..) and eat a salad." Another scene of a group meeting in which they plan their mission also links Thor's fatness with his inability to perform as the superhero he is expected to be.Here, one of the others ask him about an issue he should be an expert on, and then the film cuts to a shot of him sitting in a corner, sleeping, with a beer can in his hand.The scene is meant to be comedic, with the comedy based on the contrast between the expectations about how a tense mission-planning meeting among superheroes proceeds and Thor's inappropriate demeanor.Part of this demeanor, is also, again, his fat belly, which is a deliberate element of the shot of him, emphasized through his posture and his rucked-up t-shirt.
In the end, Thor does manage to live up to the expectations of superhero masculinity by participating in the final showdown and contributing his part to undoing Thanos' crime and bringing back the people who had died at the end of the previous film.Still, a hint of demasculinization seems to linger when in his final scene he and another male character engage in stereotypical male territorial posturing but when the others egg them on, don't actually want to fight each other and back down.

Excursus: Thor: love and thunder
Thor: Love and Thunder came out in 2022 and is set after the events of Endgame.It is discussed here in the form of an excursus, since it features Fat Thor only very briefly and also doesn't change the argument developed on the basis of the two other films.
In Love and Thunder, Fat Thor is seen at the beginning of the film, as part of a montage sequence that is narrated by a character who recounts the "legend of the God of Thunder" to a group of children, thereby also providing a recap of past films to the film audience.In the sequence, as in Endgame, there is again a reinforcement of the notion of fatness being a spoiled identity, when the narrator describes how Thor reacted to the loss he experienced with "he hid his heart behind a big fleshy bod, so it could never be broken again."Similarly, the visual comedy of the fat suit is again emphasized, this time in a sequence of shots that show Fat Thor working out, and thereby losing his weight, going "from dad bod to god bod," as described by the narrator.This is the last the viewer sees of Fat Thor, with the rest of the film featuring Chris Hemsworth slim and fully muscled up.The one element of this presentation of Fat Thor that stands out is the fact that slimming down itself hasn't yet turned Thor into his old self again.The voice-over narration makes this explicit by stating "beneath his god bod, there was still a sad bod, just trying to get out." On the one hand, this might seem like a digression from the representation of fatness as a spoiled identity since it shows that slimming down doesn't lead to any fundamental changes and that a "god-like" body can still contain aspects of a life not fully "under control."On the other hand, considering the rest of the film, this can be easily explained.Thor's personal crisis is necessary as the emotional drive behind the film's narrative about how to cope with death and grief, and still allow oneself to be close to other people.At the same time, different from Endgame, in Love and Thunder, Thor is once again the main protagonist, and the film, as all three previous Thor films, makes ample use of Chris Hemsworth's physique.This is most obvious in a comically exaggerated scene in which he stands stark naked in front of a large audience and the pleasure of his sight makes women and men faint, a scene that was also prominently used for the film's trailers.So while the film still needs to present Thor as emotionally compromised, it also needs him to be his old, muscled self, since having him fat in a whole film centered around him does not seem to be an option for the lead of a superhero film.

Conclusion
Both films show how fatness, and specifically the fat male belly, becomes emphasized visually through cinematography and/or performance, and how this emphasis is also employed for comedic purposes.Fatness is further utilized narratively as a symptom of failure, either of a failed marriage or, more broadly, of a "spoiled identity."In addition, the male fat characters are shown specifically as failing at normative male identity, either through refusing the role of fatherhood or through "arrested development," a more general refusal to take up the responsibilities of adult masculinity.Within the context of the superhero genre particularly relevant is how fatness or also behaviors associated with fatness, such as eating unhealthy foods, are positioned in contrast to the expectations of superhero masculinity.In both films the fat characters do in the end live up to the expectations of normative masculinity; however, this might also be related to the fact that both characters are presented as "formerly slim" and in both cases their fatness seems very much limited to their belly, making it easy to cover up visually and also to put aside in terms of narrative and meaning.
Overall, this analysis has shown the limitations of the representation of fatness: the fat characters are White cisgender men and their fatness can easily, literally, be covered up, but despite these privileges the films seem incapable of a normalizing representation, instead Othering them.This also confirms the role the normative body plays in signifying a hegemonic masculinity within the superhero genre, with every deviation from the bodily norm constituting a diminishment of the normative gender role.

Notes
1.The focus of this paper is the American mainstream superhero film genre.While superhero films exist outside of this context, e.g. in Indian or Chinese cinema, my analysis addresses examples of the American mainstream and therefore those international contexts are outside the scope of this essay.For an overview of the topic of superhero cinema outside the USA, see "The Global Contemporary Superhero Film" in The Contemporary Superhero Film: Projections of Power and Identity (2020) by Terence McSweeney.2. I capitalize "White" and "Western" in order to highlight the fact that these terms aren't simple adjectives but describe artificial, cultural constructs.
3. An example of a widely voiced critique would be that it took the Marvel Cinematic Universe 18 films until it managed to release Black Panther (Ryan Coogler 2018) and thereby a film that didn't have a White male lead.It took 21 films until Captain Marvel (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck 2019), the first with a (White) female lead, was released.4.Although Spider-Verse is also based on Marvel comics, it is not part of the MCU. 5. Kent here references Moon's analysis of fatness as "spoiled identity" (Moon and Kosofsky Sedgwick 1990, 23) and also points out that before Moon the influential fat liberation anthology Shadow on a Tightrope (Schoenfielder and Wieser 1983) used the term to describe fat identity.On the use of the concept of "spoiled identity" within fat studies see also 2017.6.The Marvel character Thor is to some extent based on the figure of the same name from Norse mythology.In the MCU he is a God and also an Alien, who became King of the Asgardians in Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi 2017) in which his father Odin was killed, Asgard was destroyed and its citizens had to flee.Endgame first shows their new settlement "New Asgard," a fishing village in Norway.7. Cheese Whiz is an American brand of processed cheese sauce that is often used for snacks or fast food such as corn chips or hot dogs.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Barbara Plotz teaches film studies, media and communication, and digital humanities at King's College London and the University of Winchester.Her research is situated at the intersection of film and cultural studies, with a focus on representation, gender, the body, and genre cinema.She has published a monograph with Bloomsbury Academic, entitled Fat on Film: Gender, Race and Body Size in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (2020).