Last weekend I and the other youth leaders took a group of teenagers on a youth weekend away. The topic was the tricky area of sex and relationships. On the Saturday night we watched one of my favourite films: Shallow Hal. OK, maybe I shouldn't admit to liking a film so much that features so many fat jokes, including Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit. What a horribly chauvinistic and puerile film, you would be forgiven for thinking. Despite all that, however, it's actually a really sweet film.
Hal, played by the marvellous Jack Black, is (as you may have guessed from the title) extremely shallow when it comes to women. He exclusively pursues women who look like models: they have to be slim yet busty, with a pretty face, long legs and a pert bum. He argues that he simply has 'high standards'. His friends can't understand why such a sweet guy has such a massive flaw, judging women purely on their looks. Then one day he is stuck in a lift with the self-help guru Tony Robbins, and during their conversation Robbins challenges Hal on his extreme shallowness. He offers to hypnotise Hal so that he will be able to attract the most beautiful women in the world. What Hal doesn't realise is that Robbins is teaching his subconscious to see only people's inner beauty.
Hal continues in his quest for the perfect date, chatting up women whenever he sees them and, to his surprise, they start to respond. He sees Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) walking along the street and is bowled over by her beauty. He introduces himself clumsily, but finally manages to convince her that he really is interested in her, and they start dating. Soon they fall in love, and Hal is deliriously happy. What Hal doesn't realise, and which his equally shallow friend Mauricio has not failed to notice to his disgust, is that Rosemary is very overweight. Cue lots of very silly visual gags with chairs collapsing under the svelte Paltrow, sneaky peeks of Rosemary's chubby arms and legs and Rosemary consuming endless snacks while apparently staying whippet-thin.
And it isn't just Rosemary who appears different to Hal than she does to the rest of the mocking world. The girl in the taxi with the dodgy teeth and crazy hair, who is taking a break from university to look after her sick grandma, looks like a model to Hal. Three women who work with blind people, whom Hal meets in a club, look elegant and gorgeous to him, while being repellent to Mauricio. Rosemary's friends from the peace corps, who devote their lives to helping others in need, look ruggedly handsome to the jealous Hal, whereas the rest of the world sees one man's excessive weight and the other's psoriasis. The children from the hospital where Rosemary volunteers look beautiful to Hal, who jokes that they are just pretending to be ill to stay off school. In a sadly beautiful scene towards the end of the film, Hal goes back after his hypnosis has been lifted, and realises that the children are all in the paediatric burns unit and are, to the world, horribly disfigured. The nurse on their ward, however, who appears to Hal as an ugly, bony old woman, is in reality young and attractive, although her heart is not as beautiful as her body.
I find this film very touching, largely because it seems to me that, through hypnosis, Hal sees people as God sees them. Fat or thin, wrinkled and scabby or smooth-skinned, busty or flat -chested, muscled or flabby, God really isn't interested in our outward appearance. That's not to say that God is only concerned with the 'spiritual' and not the physical; God does care about our bodies, but he doesn't care what they look like. He doesn't see what we see. He sees what matters.
Hal, played by the marvellous Jack Black, is (as you may have guessed from the title) extremely shallow when it comes to women. He exclusively pursues women who look like models: they have to be slim yet busty, with a pretty face, long legs and a pert bum. He argues that he simply has 'high standards'. His friends can't understand why such a sweet guy has such a massive flaw, judging women purely on their looks. Then one day he is stuck in a lift with the self-help guru Tony Robbins, and during their conversation Robbins challenges Hal on his extreme shallowness. He offers to hypnotise Hal so that he will be able to attract the most beautiful women in the world. What Hal doesn't realise is that Robbins is teaching his subconscious to see only people's inner beauty.
Hal continues in his quest for the perfect date, chatting up women whenever he sees them and, to his surprise, they start to respond. He sees Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) walking along the street and is bowled over by her beauty. He introduces himself clumsily, but finally manages to convince her that he really is interested in her, and they start dating. Soon they fall in love, and Hal is deliriously happy. What Hal doesn't realise, and which his equally shallow friend Mauricio has not failed to notice to his disgust, is that Rosemary is very overweight. Cue lots of very silly visual gags with chairs collapsing under the svelte Paltrow, sneaky peeks of Rosemary's chubby arms and legs and Rosemary consuming endless snacks while apparently staying whippet-thin.
And it isn't just Rosemary who appears different to Hal than she does to the rest of the mocking world. The girl in the taxi with the dodgy teeth and crazy hair, who is taking a break from university to look after her sick grandma, looks like a model to Hal. Three women who work with blind people, whom Hal meets in a club, look elegant and gorgeous to him, while being repellent to Mauricio. Rosemary's friends from the peace corps, who devote their lives to helping others in need, look ruggedly handsome to the jealous Hal, whereas the rest of the world sees one man's excessive weight and the other's psoriasis. The children from the hospital where Rosemary volunteers look beautiful to Hal, who jokes that they are just pretending to be ill to stay off school. In a sadly beautiful scene towards the end of the film, Hal goes back after his hypnosis has been lifted, and realises that the children are all in the paediatric burns unit and are, to the world, horribly disfigured. The nurse on their ward, however, who appears to Hal as an ugly, bony old woman, is in reality young and attractive, although her heart is not as beautiful as her body.
I find this film very touching, largely because it seems to me that, through hypnosis, Hal sees people as God sees them. Fat or thin, wrinkled and scabby or smooth-skinned, busty or flat -chested, muscled or flabby, God really isn't interested in our outward appearance. That's not to say that God is only concerned with the 'spiritual' and not the physical; God does care about our bodies, but he doesn't care what they look like. He doesn't see what we see. He sees what matters.
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