December 2007: Andrew J. Douglas Andrew J. Douglas, Bryn Mawr Film Institute "The Multitalented, Multivalent John Goodman" Respondent: Heidi Schlipphacke, Haverford College Friday, 7 December 2007 Temple University Center City Campus (TUCC) Room 620, 6:30pm-8pm Directions to TUCC

When considering that for many years, John Goodman has been the de facto poster boy for obese men in Hollywood, it is interesting to note that he did not begin his career as a particularly overweight man.  Indeed, it would appear that Goodman’s weight has risen as his star has, and while a case could be made that this direct relationship is a hindrance to him as well as a help, its existence substantiates the notion that weight is an important facet of an actor’s star text.  If the physical fitness of a traditional leading man is typically taken for granted, yet understood to be crucial to his status, so too is the fatness of an obese star—especially one of Goodman’s stature and popularity.

         

John Goodman and Roseanne Barr

Goodman’s star text is a particularly useful one in a discussion of masculine obesity because it functions in two distinct ways, whether on television or in film.  Specifically, in his work on Roseanne, Goodman’s weight is a desirable trait in both the diegesis—to his television spouse—and outside of it—to the network, producers, etc.   However, in his movie roles, Goodman’s weight is primarily valued by filmmakers as visual shorthand for the part his characters play (or do not play) in the narrative, and is either ignored by, or a source of marginalization for, other characters.  This talk will examine these texts in an effort to articulate the contrasting manners in which John Goodman’s obese body functions on television and in film

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Still from O Brother Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen, 2000)

Andrew J. Douglas is Director of Education at Bryn Mawr Film Institute. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University, Department of Radio/Television/Film. His areas of focus were American film history, film theory and genre theory. He has presented papers to the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the International Association of Media and History and has written for The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and The Business History Review, published by Harvard Business School.

Heidi Schlipphacke is Associate Professor of German and European Studies at Old Dominion University. She is currently a visiting associate professor of German at Haverford College. She has published on the Frankfurt School and contemporary German and Austrian film and literature as well as on constructions of gender and family in the European Enlightenment. In 2006 she co-directed the Old Dominion University Film Festival which focused on the topic of cinephilia. She recently completed a book on nostalgia in post-war German literature and film, and her current project is concerned with post-fascist masculinities in German cinema.