Dumplin’ is a Tender, Big-Hearted Comedy With a Lot to Say About Body Image and Femininity
If you’re new here, I write about media, body image, inclusive fashion, and how all of these areas intersect. Be warned: this post contains spoilers.
“The world is full of people who are going to try to tell you who you are, but that’s for you to decide.”
A few months ago, Dumplin’ was added to Netflix’s ever-growing list of original content. Starring Danielle Macdonald (Bird Box, Patti Cake$) and Jennifer Aniston (a lot of things), the film follows Willowdean, a young woman in Texas with a beauty queen for a mother and a penchant for Dolly Parton.
To spite her mother and take a stand against the limited beauty ideals she believes pageants perpetuate, Willowdean and her best friend Ellen join the local beauty pageant for what they call “a protest in heels.” The movie is refreshingly wholesome. Hopefully by now, you’ve heard why it’s awesome and seen it for yourself. But if not, keep reading for a summary of some of the film’s best lessons.
There’s not just one way to be fat (or rebellious).
One of the best things about Dumplin’ is its portrayal of multiple fat characters. Willowdean, Lucy, and Millie, are all central to the story and are all very different. In a lot of media, we’re often lucky to get one fat (or at least, not very thin) character. Often, it feels those storylines fit a few oversimplified tropes: they’re bitter and evil (Ursula from Little Mermaid), openly confident and therefore supposed to be ridiculous (the lovely Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect, a true fan favorite), or someone to feel sorry for.
However, Dumplin’ treats its fat characters well by actually developing them and each of them contributes to the storyline in a crucial way.
Willowdean
Willowdean is brash, not traditionally feminine (and proud of it), and something of a reluctant hero. In her words, she’s “not the Joan of Arc of fat girls.” She vocalizes her distaste for pageant culture early and often throughout the film. But she decides to participate in the local beauty pageant, to 1.) make a point (mostly to her mother) that “a swimsuit body is a body with swimsuit on it.” and 2.) in response to finding an application her aunt Lucy never turned into the pageant (more on that soon).
Lucy
Willowdean’s late aunt, Lucy, catalyzes the plot of the movie. From the few glimpses we get of her, we know that Lucy is ultra feminine, a diehard Dolly Parton fan, and the woman that Willowdean credits with raising her. Upon finding the pageant application Lucy never submitted, Willowdean surmises that, “she obviously didn’t feel welcome [in the pageant] with people like [her] mom lording over it with their measuring tape.” We don’t know a ton about Lucy, but she is stylistically the antithesis of Willowdean, and she had a very strong influence on her upbringing.
Millie
Finally, we have Millie. In many ways, it seems that Millie is more similar to Lucy than Willowdean is. A true team player, Millie is inspired to join the pageant after Willowdean does, but for very different reasons. In her words, “I don’t want to revolt, I’ve been wanting to do this since I was 8 years old.” Willowdean looks down on Millie, and in one of the opening scenes of the movies she says to Ellen, “whenever I see Millie Mitchellchuck I think, I’m fat but at least I’m not clueless.”
However, Millie goes through her own development arc throughout the film, and sticks to her guns despite the lack of affirmation she gets from the other main characters. Throughout the movie we not only get to see Millie shine and take the top prize at the pageant, but we also see her stand up to her mother, who did not support her desire to join the pageant, presumably to protect her from what she assumed would be hurt feelings when she ‘inevitably’ lost.
The fact that Dumplin’ has multiple, complex(!), fat characters who don’t fall into traditional tropes is actually pretty novel in and of itself. But that’s not the only thing this movie does well.
Fatphobia disguised as concern for health.
If you didn’t already know, one of the most pressing problems facing fat people is lack of access to proper healthcare. It’s not that people over a certain BMI are somehow denied access to certain services, but that negligent medical professionals sometimes write-off any number of ailments as a consequence of being overweight without much or any due diligence. The issue here is not hurt feelings. It’s that when symptoms are not further investigated, it can lead to an incorrect (or completely missed) diagnosis.
I’m not here to debate the health implications of weight (and I’m certainly not qualified to do so), but I can appreciate that we do see a glimpse of this conversation in the film. The reason behind Lucy’s death is not revealed in explicit terms.
But in the heat of an argument, Rosie says to Willowdean: “I really wish you didn’t idolize (Lucy) so much, if she took better care of herself she would probably still be here.” It’s difficult to ascertain what exactly this comment means when we don’t know why Lucy died, but the fear that fatness leads to premature death is an oversimplification anybody over a size 12 is used to hearing.
On a different but related note, the movie also briefly addresses the assumptions often made about fat people and their diets. When she notices that Willowdean has a minor breakout on her forehead, Rosie asks her daughter if she’s been eating “that greasy stuff” from the diner she works at. Willowdean responds that she doesn’t even like eating burgers…and as far as I noticed, the movie doesn’t depict Willowdean eating fast food at all.
This moment is small and seemingly inconsequential, but in it, Rosie assumes Willowdean must be eating “poorly” because of her weight/skin. It’s a small (but prime) example of the ways we make assumptions about people’s diets based on their bodies.
Negative conditioning turns into self-fulfilling prophecies.
A central theme in Dumplin’ is counting yourself out. Willowdean assumes there’s no way she could win the pageant (or that Millie could), just like she assumes there’s no way her conventionally handsome coworker, Bo, could really have a crush on her. The film shows us that these limiting beliefs are probably the result of Willowdean having internalized a lot of the negative feedback she’s heard about her body throughout her life.
For example, at the beginning of the movie we see a group of boys teasing a young Willowdean about her size. We also see that this persists into high school as boys call her “whale” at the pool and make fun of Dumplin’, her mother’s nickname for her. If these are the types of interactions Willowdean has associated with men her whole life, we can see why she might be suspicious of Bo’s feelings towards her.
Even when Bo asks Willowdean out, she runs away from the date after he touches some of her back fat. In recounting the story to Ellen, Willowdean wonders aloud, “why does this hot guy want to kiss me?” Even when Willowdean does get what she wants, she has a difficult time trusting it.
Of course, the viewer knows this hot guy wants to kiss her because she’s wonderful! But we can see how Willowdean’s limiting beliefs about herself cause her to actually run from what she wants and in that sense, her negative thoughts about herself become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Femininity as Reclamation
One of the best things about Dumplin’ is that it refuses to make femininity and feminine people the butt of the joke. There’s an insidious and toxic belief in our culture that says femininity = weakness = playing into patriarchy, but that’s just not true.
While the main character may have a lot to learn on this topic, the movie revolves around one of the most unapologetically feminine icons of our time, Dolly Parton. As Willowdean puts it, “She’s in on every joke you could possibly tell about her.”
We see so many types of femininity represented in the movie, and it’s largely portrayed as something that’s not only positive but powerful. Even as its main character may shame pageant culture at the outset of the story, the film is careful not to.
“Two different versions of the same story.”
Dumplin’ also portrays the strength and resilience of female friendship so well. At the beginning of the movie, Willowdean tells the viewer about a time that Dolly Parton responded to a letter she wrote to her, thanking her for bringing Ellen and her together. She quotes the letter as saying, “The greatest friends have nothing and everything in common all at once. Sounds like you two girls are different versions of the same story.”
Through the portrayal of their friendship, the viewers witness two very different experiences that sometimes clash, but never invalidate the other. This is a hard-won lesson for Willowdean, who has to come to terms with the fact that women who don’t look like her can also be hurt by patriarchal norms.
We see this arc through Willowdean and Ellen’s friendship. Joining her in the pageant and saying that the nickname Dumplin’ also hurts her because it hurts Willowdean, Ellen is the picture of solidarity. When Willowdean describes her panic when Bo kissed her, Ellen tells her about similar experiences she’s had with her boyfriend. The friends may be very different, but they can relate to each other in important ways.
However, at times, Willowdean has trouble seeing Ellen’s participation and support as valid. At one point Willowdean tells Ellen, “You just wouldn’t get it because you’re not built for the revolution.” Willowdean’s words sting, but the viewer can sympathize with the sentiment as it comes from a place of pain and years of feeling unseen and disrespected for her body. However, that doesn’t make the exchange fair for Ellen. Throughout the movie, Willowdean has to learn to accept that Ellen’s pain is also valid.
Ultimately, the film does a great job of showing that insecurity affects us all, while acknowledging the power dynamics that perpetuate thin privilege. Ellen and Willowdean have a friendship that is true, but complex. They’re proof that there are some paths in life we have to walk alone.
Mothers, Daughters, and Generations of Pain
From the beginning of the film, we understand straightaway that Willowdean has a complicated relationship with her mother, Rosie. There are the obvious points of tension: her mother’s demanding job, the loss of Lucy, and their completely opposite interests.
At the same time, there’s a deeper current to their relationship. We learn pretty quickly that Rosie was also overweight growing up, but that she lost a significant amount of weight and went on to win the local beauty pageant. So she can, of course, relate to her daughter in a way that Willowdean sometimes wishes she couldn’t.
In contrast to Willowdean’s relationship with her body and image, Rosie is very concerned with her looks, as we can see by her strict diet, exercise regimen, and chiding comments about diet and appearance. Of course, this energy must be exhausting to be around.
In their own way, these behaviors show Rosie’s shows her love and concern for Willowdean. As she puts it, “I just want you to have opportunities. It is harder for big girls, I was one, I know.” And she’s not wrong. Willowdean’s response is something most daughters sometimes want to say to their mothers: “sometimes you need to support me, not protect me.”
Via Willowdean and Rosie’s relationship, we see the impacts of generational pain. Sometimes the way that we show care for others is rooted in our pain, and while it may be shared with the best intentions, it really can be more of just projecting our fears onto others.
All in all, Dumplin’ is a tender film that not only does its fat characters justice, but is also careful to illustrate the pain of very different types of people and present them as equally valid. The movie manages to capture the way that its characters’ relationships with their bodies impacts their perspective and relationships without judging them for it. I hope we get more movies like Dumplin’ in the future.
