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wiggleallaround's review
2.0
This was just so male-gazey and sympathetic to the status quo. Like, I guess if you're a straight-sized asshole in 2004, this play might make you think a little outside the box, see how anti-fat and terrible the world is to people who are "different." But in 2021, this is just garbage. Helen deserved so much better. What did she even see in Tom anyway? Besides his mediocrity...
chi_hoosier's review
4.0
I'm not crying. You're fucking crying. Fantastic. Heart wrenching. So very painfully true.
lilypale's review
1.0
Helen’s quirky because she watches war movies. She’s “not like other girls.” The other female, Jeannie, slaps men, her coworkers, IN THE OFFICE, because she’s a crazy ex girlfriend. Labute continues his “social commentary” plays about sexism with our protagonist being a wishy-washy casual sexist who for some reason is best friends with the most sexist sexist that ever sexisted. I read this right after finishing The Pillowman, a masterpiece, which only made this experience all the more miserable.
annemariewellswriter's review
2.0
Reading this dialogue gave me a headache. And the female characters' dialogue was clearly written by a man. And fuck, Tom is a gaslighting piece of shit.
introvertinterrupted's review
2.0
No actual completion came about at the end of this play. Helen's character was the only one I had any real feelings for, the other characters were just bratty and caricatures of other stereotypical characters. This is my second time reading him and I feel a little disappointed by this particular play. LaBute often writes on interesting topics, but it seems like his plays end up without having any real type of closure. So much more could've been done in terms of plot and character development, yet LaBute just left us with a bare shell of a story. Not to mention the main character stays stagnant throughout the whole story and doesn't really talk for longer than a few lines at a time untill the last scene of the play where he belts out a weak monologue. This would make a great subpar made-for-tv-movie.
jonh's review
1.0
Absolutely disgusting, and terribly written.
I've written about my disdain for Neil LaBute before. Not only are his plays incredibly mean-spirited and misogynistic, but they're not really well-written either, so even if he IS doing something subtly skewering misogynistic characters, the writing isn't good enough to adequately distinguish between the opinions of the characters and the writers.
Case in point: Fat Pig, a play about a man coming to terms with his overweight girlfriend. Gag. Mistake number one is centering this play on the guy. Neil LaBute's protagonists, from what I've read, are ALWAYS guys, and they're always milquetoast and uninteresting, with stuff happening TO them rather than them making stuff happen.
But the worst part of Fat Pig is just the premise. Tom (the protagonist) starts dating a woman larger than himself and his co-workers ("friends", the play charitably calls them) make fun of him for it. And not only make fun of him for it, but one of his female "friends" keeps picking on his girlfriend because she herself is attracted to Tom. It's just . . . gross.
The whole play is horrendously gross, and it LaBute doesn't put in enough effort to justify its grossness. Maybe there IS a subsection of society that's not okay with fat people. (Okay, we KNOW there's a subsection of society that's not okay with fat people.) And maybe there's a Tom out there who's so fucking shallow that his friends criticizing his girlfriend's weight would actually give him fucking pause. But what does that ultimately prove? An asshole can't get over standard conventions of beauty? That standard conventions of beauty are dumb? Does LaBute assume that the majority of people out there would find this a worthwhile topic of debate?
It's been a while since I read this, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but the feeling has stuck with me: disgust. Disgust at such a shallow and gross play. Even if I didn't vehemently disagree with the fundamental premise, I'd still hate this play. Characters are one-note and have little room to grow and the dialogue is just horrendous. Stilted, awkward, gross. Gross! I'd still say check this out, because it's fascinating how terrible it is. But ugh. Fuck Neil LaBute.
I've written about my disdain for Neil LaBute before. Not only are his plays incredibly mean-spirited and misogynistic, but they're not really well-written either, so even if he IS doing something subtly skewering misogynistic characters, the writing isn't good enough to adequately distinguish between the opinions of the characters and the writers.
Case in point: Fat Pig, a play about a man coming to terms with his overweight girlfriend. Gag. Mistake number one is centering this play on the guy. Neil LaBute's protagonists, from what I've read, are ALWAYS guys, and they're always milquetoast and uninteresting, with stuff happening TO them rather than them making stuff happen.
But the worst part of Fat Pig is just the premise. Tom (the protagonist) starts dating a woman larger than himself and his co-workers ("friends", the play charitably calls them) make fun of him for it. And not only make fun of him for it, but one of his female "friends" keeps picking on his girlfriend because she herself is attracted to Tom. It's just . . . gross.
The whole play is horrendously gross, and it LaBute doesn't put in enough effort to justify its grossness. Maybe there IS a subsection of society that's not okay with fat people. (Okay, we KNOW there's a subsection of society that's not okay with fat people.) And maybe there's a Tom out there who's so fucking shallow that his friends criticizing his girlfriend's weight would actually give him fucking pause. But what does that ultimately prove? An asshole can't get over standard conventions of beauty? That standard conventions of beauty are dumb? Does LaBute assume that the majority of people out there would find this a worthwhile topic of debate?
It's been a while since I read this, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but the feeling has stuck with me: disgust. Disgust at such a shallow and gross play. Even if I didn't vehemently disagree with the fundamental premise, I'd still hate this play. Characters are one-note and have little room to grow and the dialogue is just horrendous. Stilted, awkward, gross. Gross! I'd still say check this out, because it's fascinating how terrible it is. But ugh. Fuck Neil LaBute.
rohaniroslan's review
4.0
The title "Fat Pig" appealed to me and when I found out that it was the same playwright who wrote "The Shape of Things", I knew I had to read it. I knew that this play was going to be uncomfortable. Although there were some sweet moments, there were a lot of cringey ones too, and it felt as if I was eavesdropping someone else's personal thoughts. It felt unwelcoming and intrusive. But true to LaBute's word, this play really is about human weakness, and it's almost embarrassing to read about how far one is willing to sacrifice personal happiness just to be liked.
goblingirlreads's review
2.0
It was ok. I'm trying to read at least one play a week. This was not...a good start? It wasn't bad, there just wasn't a lot to grab onto, like no characters I really loved or plot twists that kept me going.
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