‘The Whale’ Director Darren Aronofsky: Fatphobia Criticism “Makes No Sense”

The Whale, an awards-season contender starring Brendan Fraser as a morbidly obese man making amends while living out his final days, is being called an “exercise in empathy” by its director, Darren Aronofsky. But despite that billing, the film has been met with criticism—for Fraser wearing a fat suit in the role of Charlie and how the character’s experience has been depicted onscreen.

Following the movie’s Venice Film Festival premiere, Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson wrote in his review that Charlie’s current existence is told with “a kind of leering horror, a portrait of a man gone to catastrophic ruin so that we, in the audience, may tap into our nobler, higher minds and see the worthy human being beneath the frightful exterior,” adding, “That doesn’t feel anything like empathy.” More recently, Roxane Gay wrote a New York Times opinion piece in which she referred to The Whale as “an inhumane film about a very human being.”

When asked about criticism of the project, which is adapted by Samuel D. Hunter from his 2012 play, Aronofsky told Yahoo Entertainment that it “makes no sense” to him. The director argued that “actors have been using makeup since the beginning of acting—that’s one of their tools. And the lengths we went to portray the realism of the makeup has never been done before. One of my first calls after casting Brendan was to my makeup artist, Adrien Morot. I asked him, ‘Can we do something that’s realistic?’ Because if it’s going to look like a joke, then we shouldn’t do it.”

Aronofsky then acknowledged that “people with obesity are generally written as bad guys or as punch lines,” adding, “We wanted to create a fully worked-out character who has bad parts about him and good parts about him; Charlie is very selfish, but he’s also full of love and is seeking forgiveness. So [the controversy] makes no sense to me.”

He reiterated this stance in an interview on The Los Angeles Times’ The Envelope podcast, emphasizing his collaboration with the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC). “They really feel this is going to open up people’s eyes,” Aronofsky said. “You gotta remember, people in this community, they get judged by doctors when they go to get medical help. They get judged everywhere they go on the planet, by most people. This film shows that, like everyone, we are all human and that we are all good and bad and flawed and hopeful and joyful and sorrowful, and there’s all different colors inside of us.”

In his first interview about The Whale, Fraser told Vanity Fair about collaborating with the OAC, speaking with many who’ve undergone bariatric surgeries, and watching content about people living in higher-weight bodies. “I learned quickly that it takes an incredibly strong person inside that body to be that person,” Fraser said. “That seemed fitting and poetic and practical to me, all at once.”

Aronofsky told VF that Charlie’s physical body was just one facet of who he is in the movie. “Unfortunately, so many characters portrayed in the media who are living with obesity are treated awfully—either they’re humiliated, made fun of, or just living in squalor,” Aronofsky said. “That was never Charlie. Obesity is just part of what Charlie is. After 10 minutes of spending time with Charlie, that’s the breakthrough that we hope the film has [for viewers].”