[Editorial] From One Fat Girl to Another: Thank You Piggy (2022)

We have an issue in society with fat people, treating them as sub-human, judging them for having perceived low will power and in turn low morals and being no better than wild animals who consume all in their path.

The film industry reinforces these negative stereotypes, especially in horror, which you can read in my previous article, Fat as a Death Sentence in Horror here (Ghouls Magazine, 2021).  I am sympathetic to a point, as a filmmaker there is very precious runtime to tell the audience what they need to know for the story meaning that  non-verbal cues are utilised in the form of stereotypes to get their message across. Fat bodies convey character traits of greed, corruption and laziness in a half second frame. But with a return to fat suits being utilised instead of actual fat actors, in films like Dune (2021), The Batman (2022) and The Whale (2022) – the ridicule and spectacle of the fat body is at an all-time high with respect for the humanity behind these bodies at an all-time low. Enter Piggy (2022).

Written and directed by Carlota Pereda, adapted from her short film of the same title, Piggy follows Spanish teenage girl Sara who is fat. She spends her days sitting in her family’s butchers while studying and eating her hair, a nervous habit she relies on to ease her anxiety. Sara is lonely, studying while the “cool kids “are outside enjoying the sun and their freedom. She wears a BFF bracelet of a bygone friendship she is clinging on to. Clau, wearing a matching bracelet, taunts her with the other mean girls Maca and Roci. Clau has abandoned the “uncool” Sara to elevate her social status and court the hunky bad boy who has the motorbike – Sara longs for this inclusion and affection. They call her Piggy; you don’t need me to explain why.

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On a hot day, Sara makes her way to the local pool after most patrons have left so she doesn’t feel exposed. She too deserves to cool down and have the rest bite that a pool provides in the baking sun. I applaud this film for never shying away from Sara’s body. She wears vest tops and shorts, exposing her arms and legs and a bikini just like other girls her age would wear. At the pool, there is a strange man, and those three mean girls. They tease her, calling her every name under the sun, taunting the man she is with as her boyfriend, ridiculing the very idea that anyone could find Sara attractive. They try to drown her and Sara calls out to her ex-best friend Clau for help only for Clau to pull out her phone to film the ordeal. The mean girls take all of Sara’s belongings including her phone, forcing her to walk home in her bikini, further exposing her fat body to torment. 

In a scene that brought me to near tears, Sara is harassed by a car of young men as she tries to get home. Calling her fat-centric insults while also grabbing at her body they lift her up untying her bikini and remove her agency over her person. She screams in pain, fear and humiliation. She has done nothing wrong, her only “sin” is to be fat. The ridicule fat women face from men is hypocritical. There are certain groups of men who feel entitled to women or believe women’s existence is to fulfil their desires. Fat women are viewed as unattractive in our society (even though many men, of all sizes, find fat women attractive) while also maintaining that all women should be sexualised. This scene is able to convey this nuance - calling Sara ugly and fat as slurs but also grabbing and showing authority over her person, she is there for their enjoyment.

Sara finds refuge on a country lane and a van overtakes her, and in the back of the van is a bloody Clau. Clau begs Sara to help her, just like Sara begged Clau for help only moments before. The van driver is the man from the pool. He looks at Sara in his wing mirror and drops a towel for her to use. He spares her. The Man is the only person who has given Sara any kindness. And he is a kidnapping murdering sociopath…he is also a fat man.

Sara gets home, promptly showers the events away, and eats a secret stash of food from under her bed to ease her anxieties. There is commotion at the pool as a body has been found. Sara’s mother is desperate to know the gossip, convinced her daughter must know something as she knows she sneaks to the pool. But Sara doesn’t want to tell a group of nosy women about the bullying she has been experiencing for the shame it will bring. She snaps, and Laura Galan’s performance is excellent here, her voice so high and tight from trying not to cry while also letting go of enough anger to scream “THEY CALL ME PIGGY! AND YOU DO NOTHING”. Mum is hurt. But vows to act…by feeding her daughter salad leaves.

One of the contentious areas around fat people, health and diet culture is the concept that fat people must overeat, and we have been told for decades, the only way to lose weight is to stop eating or eat very little. Look at any replacement meal diet like Slimfast or Herbal Life, or starving diet like Intermittent Fasting or the 5:2 diet. Fat people eating is seen as a crime. If you frequent social media and see any thin attractive woman eating a takeaway, the comments section will be filled with “Get it girl!” “you deserve a treat” but if a fat person were to do the same, the comments are “of course that’s what you are eating” or “you are going to die young if you keep this up”. We are becoming more and more aware of the long term effects of diet culture and anti-fat bias on people through studies where they have proven that receiving hate for being fat actually increases blood pressure and mental health issues (Scientific America, 2022) – not the food they are eating. But if you have been indoctrinated your whole life to hearing fat as a bad word, and the only way to not be fat is to stop eating – well you get Sara’s mum. Mum wants to defend her daughter now after being humiliated in front of the village for not advocating for Sara, while also feeling pressure to change the attribute they are bullying her for as she believes being fat is wrong.

Sara goes to find her phone in the area the mysterious van was in earlier. She finds it but the Man is also there. And they have this very intense and sensual tryst – he is not a threat to her. They are interrupted and Sara heads home. She gets into bed, watches some porn, and masturbates to the memory of this murderer. Now I think a lot of people will have an issue with this because the obvious position to take is “Sara! Now, come on!” – but, let me add some nuance. I was a chunky kid, always had big boobs, hips and a belly. I didn’t know how to dress my body because cool clothes aren’t built for huskier girls and I was also in Spain whose biggest size in shops like Bershka and Stradivarius went up to an XL – size UK 12/14. I watched films of these straight sized girls who get to be with cute boys. My friends got to be in relationships (I know they were just high school ones but still!) and I wanted that. I was a horny teenage girl too. I was desperate for someone to look at me and think I was beautiful; I was worth facing potential backlash because they thought I was attractive. To have this film showcase that fat girls have sexuality is brilliant but to highlight that desperation of affection to the point where Sara is wanking over a murderer is truly great and an astute observation of the realities of being a fat teenage girl, or any teenage girl who didn’t fit the beauty standard. 

Clau’s boyfriend, Pedro and suspect numero uno, asks Sara to tell the police about her being at the pool. Clau sent him the pool video which he apparently deleted out of pity. Sara rightfully tells Pedro that he also bullies her. He claims he doesn’t say anything, but he watches, he is complicit. While they are having a genuine moment getting high, Pedro stiffens as friends recognise him and he fears how his social status will tumble being seen with “Piggy” – it’s so simple, and God it hurt. The notion of being the greatest person in the world, but if you don’t look “good” then no one wants to be seen with you - poor baby Sara has my whole heart. 

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The Police strive to find the truth of what happened to these girls and Sara, accompanied by her mother, is lightly interrogated. She explains how she was at the pool and the girls mocked her and tried to drown her but neglects to disclose anything more. As she leaves, she has come on to her period and bled through her shorts. Back at home, Sara’s mum is desperate to know her daughter’s secrets – but the Man is in the house, beating up Sara’s dad and now striking her mother in order to protect his beloved. He grabs Sara and whisks her away, almost running over those nasty boys from before as punishment for mocking Sara and the Man for being, you guessed it, fat. 

The car crashes and the Man carries Sara into an abattoir and it's, oddly, very romantic. He cares for her tenderly as she has a bump on her head. When she wakes, she finds the missing girls, Clau and Roci strung up on some hooks. She ungags them as she tries to untie and Clau is inconsolable – screaming at Sara for not helping her sooner. The Man returns and he wills Sara to kill Roci – all of this was for her.

The film calls the man Desconocido (literally translated as unknown) and he is an interesting villain. No doubt he is a bad man, kidnapping and murdering teenage girls is a red flag. However, he is also very kind and supportive, in his own way. It is important that he is fat, and we can assume he has been treated similarly to Sara and can relate to her plight in a way only fat people can. It is difficult to face the levels of oppression that existing in a fat body are subjected to, fat people can face neglect by medical professionals due to their weight (Psychology Today, 2020), overlooked for professional opportunities (CBC, 2018) because they are seen as lazy or “their face does not fit” and the potential struggle to find love as your body is constantly reinforced as the worst option for a potential partner. The Man understands this and, as he is older than Sara, knows that this treatment does not end in high school – it happens at every stage of life. He wants to protect her from the mean people, the fatphobia rampant in our world. Am I excusing him for killing these girls, no – but do I find it cathartic, yes. However, he is not our hero. Sara is. The Man is the path Sara can follow, being perpetually and justifiably angry at the world. Or she can come to realise she is not what these people say she is, she can rise above it, be the better person in a “Unless they paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind” way of tackling this issue. I understand the sentiment, but I am also tired of the “when they go low, we go high” approach – quite simply fuck these people. Leave them hung up and let the police save them. 

Sara decides against killing her peers and takes an opportunity to strike the Man but he sees it coming. They tussle and fight for the knife. Eventually Sara starts to growl and scream, like a boar she has been mocked for resembling, as she mounts the Man and uses her teeth to rip out his jugular. He bleeds out. And Sara is filled with regret. Regret for killing someone yes, but also regret for killing the only person who has been kind to her, regret for killing the only person who found her attractive, for killing the only person who defended her without being prompted to do so. 

As Sara rises from her grief, Roci calls her “Piggy” once more. Seriously Roci, fuck you. This highlights that fat people can go above and beyond but some people will never get past how your body looks. Sara cuts the girls down but walks out leaving them to find their own way home. Covered in blood (another entry into the ‘Blood Soaked Women’ horror trope which I have written about for Ghouls Magazine, 2022), Sara walks back, running into Pedro on his motorbike. He offers to drive her back into town and she gets her “girl sitting on the back of some cute guy’s motorbike” moment. She is finally the cool girl. 

Piggy is a film that will stay with me for a long time. The nuance, sadness, and catharsis this film brought to me, a person who can heavily relate to Sara, was top tier. I highly recommend it but if you watch this film and find yourself laughing at Sara in any way, like some people in my screening laughed at her being picked up and carried – I would love for you to have the self-awareness to critique yourself and ask why you find it funny. Unfortunately, the answer is because you find fat bodies funny and you do not take the human inside them seriously. And that makes you part of the problem. 

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