Brendan Fraser Got Emotional During A 6-Minute Standing Ovation At The Venice Film Festival Premiere Of “The Whale”
Brendan Fraser stars in the new Darren Aronofsky film, The Whale, which is his first starring role since the 2013 direct-to-DVD Canadian action movie, Breakout. The film, based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter, is about a 600-pound man, played by Brendan ft. A Fat Suit, who struggles to reconnect with his teen daughter, played by Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink. It premiered over the weekend at the Venice Film Festival, and 53-year-old Brendan’s performance blew people away. At the end of the screening, Brendan received a 6-minute-long standing ovation. Oscah! OSCAHHH! And because Brendan is a Canadian Good Boy* (a la Keanu Reeves) who famously struggled before this long-awaited career comeback, he got all choked up during the applause.
*OK, he technically holds dual Canadian/American citizenship, but us Canucks still claim him!
The video of the standing ovation shows Brendan trying to leave the theater, but being convinced to stay. He tears up, bows, and kicks his foot in an “aw shucks” way reminiscent of that other video of him getting emotional when a fan told him everyone was rooting for his comeback. It’s very touching:
The standing ovation for #TheWhale was so enthusiastic, Brendan Fraser tried to leave the theater but the crowd’s applause made him stay. #Venezia79 pic.twitter.com/ZZ0vbFX7Rl
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) September 4, 2022
As much as I love Brendan Fraser, I’m pretty sure audiences at the Venice Film Festival would give a half-deflated balloon stuck on the ceiling a standing ovation (see: Don’t Worry Darling’s 4-minute-long standing O, compared with its meh reviews). So The Whale’s glowing in-person reception is no guarantee that it’s actually a good movie. There’s also a lot of online criticism about how the film is fatphobic. And, news flash, people don’t love smaller actors wearing fat suits and prosthetics:
CW//fatphobic language
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[checks privilege]
The praise for The Whale, the fat suit, the "revolutionary" fat suit enhancing CGI,terms like "morbidly obese;"is disgusting &dehumanizing. It's not lost on me that the praise for his performance is in making a fat person seem human— @PiaGlenn (@PiaGlenn) September 5, 2022
It seems like the art house version of My 600 lb Life or something of that sort. Gawk. Gasp. Marvel at the way you find yourself feeling compassion for this [person] in spite of their moral and physical failing!
Pat yourself on the back for imagining humanity in a body so wrong!
— @PiaGlenn (@PiaGlenn) September 5, 2022
If you're thin or even a smaller fat and you go see The Whale, I hope you think about the harm fat suits do to super fat people like me, and the harm done by portraying people like me as tragic figures.
— Ben Wrex 🏴 (@WrexBen) September 5, 2022
On Sunday, Brendan told journalists at the Venice press conference that wearing the fat suit was “cumbersome”, via Newsweek:
“I developed muscles I did not know I had,” he said. “I even felt a sense of vertigo at the end of the day when all the appliances were removed; it was like stepping off the dock onto a boat in Venice. That [sense of] undulating. It gave me appreciation for those whose bodies are similar. You need to be an incredibly strong person, mentally and physically, to inhabit that physical being.”
I agree that we need to ditch the fat suits. From now on, they are only to be used for educational purposes! Such as Dr. Tyra Banks and Professor Melissa Gorga’s groundbreaking social experiments:
Pic: Alberto Terenghi/IPA/INSTARimage/Cover Images