Sometimes I am puzzled at how society has changed enough to where we require a skinny, good looking actor to envision as the American Ideal. Long gone are the days when the pudgy, tousle-curled dark-haired, pool playing, transit bus driver character fit the normal American ideal of the standard for the male role. Characters like Keanu Reeves or Brad Pitt have created this image of outrageous lifestyles and looks making the normal job and life seem outdated, outmoded and outlived. Why work in a factory, retail shop, car wash or boring business environment when you can go out and shoot up some bad guys or constantly be a "player" in some euro bar where you get paid millions of dollars serving drinks to rich, single and available ladies who will give themselves over to you fully? Sorry- I think I need to add another actor named Tom Cruise to that list now. The thing these two, well three guys have in common is this: they are skinny while Ralph Cramden is not. Jackie Gleason was, for the most part, someone every guy at one point in his life can relate to. Can any of us relate to the pains and struggles Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves or Tom Cruise do for work in their roles? Even when they try to play off the "everyman" role it is ridiculous.Americans have not gotten any skinnier since the 1960's. In fact we have gained an additional 28 pounds since 1960 for the average American constituting in subtle height differences as we have also grown taller apparently. Anytime you see the stalwart Dionyisan Ideal which Nietsche prophesied for the "Uberman" we can only imagine the skinny, attractive Pitts or Reeves or Cruises of today. The fat guy is out. He is either destitute or dead by the 22nd century according to most movies or shows. In the movies like Star Trek do we ever see a fat guy walking the halls of the Enterprise? No. And in TV shows we only see a glimpse of gut-hanging but these are only in cases of the white trash role or the mafioso/gang thug depicted by Italians or Blacks. Reality is lost and realism is nonexistent when the fat guy is missing from the camera.
One of my favorite characters was John Candy. He is missed dearly. He was one of the last outstanding characters who showed what reality more or less is when it comes to the big guy. I doubt we will ever see anyone in that type of role again. While he only performed comedy roles he still showed the role of the big guy as a true moral character with strengths. Sadly the role of the big guys is also a soft character, gentle and emotional. Where are the General George S. Pattons of the big guys who are as hard as stone and ready to kill the first Nazi they see? Where are they in the Actor's Guild?
Something Dennis Miller once said- "the fat man is the singing canary in the mineshaft of capitalism..." We are not depicted as intelligent, bright, strong, energetic, healthy, adventurous, approachable, etc. instead we are depicted as weak, dumb, obnoxious(thank you Michael Moore), dullard, lazy, prudent, unlikable. The list could go on. But I tell you, until we have a fat martial artist in the movies taken seriously or a handsome loverboy who is bulging at the waistline slopping saliva with Catherine Zeta Jones, nothing is going to change. The fat man will be the guy in the line at the airport as Keanu runs by to save some jumbo jet from near destruction once again, afterwards slopping saliva with the likes of Catherine Zeta Jones.
