At first glance, I wouldn't think there would be much of a relationship between the land and the perceptions about weight that are present in a movie. After reading Kate Flynn's piece "Fat and the Land: Size Stereotyping in Pixar's Up," this sentiment is unfortunately still true. Due to a lack of logical reasoning and connecting points with good evidence by Flynn, her argument of linking the two simply did not make sense. For lack of a better word, it was, well, weird.
This isn't to say that Flynn's article didn't have some redeeming qualities. The references to Wall-E, for example, were apropos, as Wall-E quite obviously provides a commentary on over-consumption and weight. However, just because one Disney movie has this theme doesn't mean that another must, and I found myself not fully seeing Flynn's connection between the two. This was one flaw in her argument.
Additionally, I found myself disagreeing with Flynn on a number of points. For one, she often draws attention to Russell's ironic lack of competence in the wilderness (after all, he is a Wilderness Explorer) and blames it on his portly body type. By doing this, Flynn affirms that Disney suggests being overweight is a hindrance to important activities, and, therefore uses the movie to discourage obesity. However, with this point, Flynn doesn't take into account that Russell's lack of "outdoorsiness" is almost certainly because he is nine years old, which would completely contradict her argument.
In addition to this, the whole idea of the rugid South American landscape contrasting with the soft, round nature of the characters, while technically true, wasn't that convincing. When quoting Immanuel Kant in a work about Up, there better be an obvious point to be made. Unfortunately, there was no such point here.
In short, everything in this text was off, from the strange points to the stating that fat is a connotation-less word, and Flynn wasn't convincing as a result.
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