Sizedoes not matter and definitely should not be the yardstick for judging one’s abilities. If there was one message I walked out of the theatre with after watching Paul Fieg and Melissa McCarthy’s Spy, it was that.
When I walked into the movie hall carrying my tub of caramel popcorn — cursing myself because a tub of caramel popcorn is not exactly the recommended early morning snack for a plus-size (calling anyone fat is rude!) woman — I was prepared for a riotously funny spy-movie spoof. I least expected it to be so strongly feminist and body image positive. And I definitely did not expect to identify with Melissa McCarthy’s Susan Cooper.
The fat, 40-something, single woman saddled with a desk job with the CIA, Susan Cooper is ME. Except for some points — I am not 40 (just yet) and I don’t really eat hand towels at posh restaurants. Susan loves cakes, has a great sense of humour, a hopeless crush on a dishy man who would not look at her twice (in my case they are all on screen, so they sometimes do look straight at me) and is always second-guessing herself. When colleagues crack fat jokes at me I laugh, perhaps louder than they do, just like Susan does. I often feel like a boss in new clothes till a carelessly passed comment reminds me that fat can look only so good, just like it does with Susan. But, just like Susan, I’ve realised I can kick better ass than a lot of people no matter how I look or what I wear.
An ace trainee who got drafted into the desk side of operations, Susan doesn’t look like someone fit enough, capable enough or intelligent enough to be on the field, especially when the field agents you are up with are either the suave James Bond kind of men who can’t get over how good they are (like Jude Law, who plays McCarthy’s on-field partner Bradley Fine) or the adrenaline junkies and action aces (like Jason Statham’s character Rick Ford, which is a spoof of every role he has ever played). When she is put out in the field she is absolutely unsure of herself, which may have something to do with the covers she is given. They all fit the image of a fat and middle-aged woman — from a single woman with 10 cats to a divorcee mother of three. But she remembers her moves quick enough. You don’t need a male spy to ace hand-to-hand combat and dispatch evil henchmen or hop on to a bike and give chase or, for that matter, be the one to save the day.
She pants as she gives chase to criminals, vomits colourfully over the dead body of her first kill, topples over with the bike as soon as she gets on and faints when she sees poison melt a hole through someone’s throat. Just like normal people would! But when she finds her inner courage there is no stopping her. She makes one Swedish henchman almost cry without even touching him once. She cusses like a boss and saves the lives of not just her crush, Fine, but also bests the irritating Ford. And when she needs help the most, it comes from another woman whose only use is perceived to be for “taking things off high shelves” (because she is unusually tall). When all is done and the world is saved, Susan chooses a girls’ night over the offer of a “long dinner date” with her crush (hurray!). She walks away complaining about her calf-muscles seizing up, not surprising given the exercise she’s had. And when she wakes up next to a man after a drunken celebratory night, she is the one who screams with disbelief about who she ended up in bed with. Yes, F and not F!
I walked out of the movie hall feeling more badass than ever, thanks to a plus-size woman who not only challenged gender roles but also the way people are judged by the size of clothes they wear!
Chandreyee Chatterjee
