BEFORE: It's post-Mother's Day but here's the third of my three planned films on the topic of mothers and children, and the interactions therein. Danielle Macdonald carries over from "French Exit", where she played Madeleine the Medium.
This one's been on the list for a while - released on Netflix in December 2018, I'm kind of amazed it's still there. I thought the average release on Netflix was two years, but I guess it's true, they keep their own "exclusive" films on the service much longer, perhaps indefinitely.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Miss Firecracker" (Movie #3,888)
THE PLOT: Willowdean (Dumplin'), the plus-size teen daughter of a former beauty queen, signs up for the Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant as a protest that escalates when other contestants follow, revolutionizing the pageant and their small Texas town.
AFTER: Of course, I think we're overdue for a film like this, something that really takes down the world of beauty pageants and irresponsible, outdated perceptions about what constitutes "beauty" in the first place. Every so often one of those clothing companies runs a campaign with plus-size models or hires somebody like Aidy Bryant to be in a "body-positive" campaign, but then in fairly short order the whole system kind of forgets about the message and advertising reverts to skinny supermodels once again, and it feels a bit like no progress was made.
The fact is, as Americans our diets are generally horrible, I'd rather eat a burger than a salad, how about you? So there tend to be a lot more plus-sized people out there than skinny people, who's got time to go work out in a gym? Not me. I accidentally sort of lost weight during the pandemic, I got no exercise but who can eat when the news is so stressful? My weight at my most recent annual physical was less than it was two years before, so from my doctor's POV, I'm doing well. I come from a long line of obese Germanic people, so I figure that as long as I'm able to walk around without a cane or a wheelchair, as long as I'm skinny enough to get out of bed, then I'm doing better than the previous generations - though I admit that's a low standard to set for myself.
The truth is, dietary science still can't say for sure why THIS person finds it easy to lose weight and THAT person doesn't, though of course we strongly suspect it's got something to do with diet and exercise or the lack thereof, genetics must play a part too, right? "Dumplin'" shows us a plus-size teen whose mother's managed to stay relatively thin, though the flashbacks of her aunt (mother's sister) show a larger woman - why such a big size difference between two sisters? I don't know, maybe one knew how to enjoy life, and the other one hated herself? Look, it's a great, big, beautiful world out there, and it's got a lot of great, big, beautiful people of all sizes, variety is the spice of life and everybody's got to work out their own relationship with food. The more you chastise someone for being overweight, the more stress that's going to cause, not to mention the related self-loathing, and all that's going to make it more difficult for that person to drop a few pounds and get healthier, it's like the guy who's drinking to forget his problems, and one of those problems is his alcoholism.
So Willowdean comes from a pageant family, but she doesn't have the traditional figure one sees in the pageants - BUT when she learns her Aunt Judy once filled out an application for the Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant, she gets motivated to enter the pageant herself, to prove a point to the world, I guess. There's a line cook at the restaurant where she works who seems very interested in her, but she keeps telling herself that couldn't possibly work out, he probably only wants to be friends with her to connect with other women, or something like that. You can probably see where this is going, maybe if she does well in the pageant she can gain the self-confidence to see herself as a person of value, someone worthy of being loved.
Other girls are motivated by her entry to join in, one who's clueless and one who's challenging the patriarchal system, and one who's doing it ironically and/or to support Willowdean. This loose foursome of the underserved can't quite all get on the same page, and narratively that's a bit of a problem. Also, one girl, Millie, is larger than "Dumplin'" herself, and that kind of dilutes the message here - I'm assuming the message is that women don't have to conform to an outdated beauty standard, but honestly, it's not that clear or precise. It feels a bit like some screenwriter started out to make a point, but then realized that pointing out all the horrible things about beauty pageants might turn off more people than it might attract, and that would be bad when trying to get an audience to tune in.
The participant who wants to take down the patriarchy, for example, has the shaved head and wears the Doc Martens and the leather jacket, and clearly we're supposed to assume that this is someone who identifies as non-binary, or lesbian or trans or something like that. But the movie doesn't even get into that as an issue, there's a whole other movie there, or at least a decent sub-plot, but again it feels like some screenwriter couldn't be bothered, or maybe felt that America's not ready for that, or it would turn off more people than it would turn on. Or maybe it would have taken the focus off of Willowdean, and that might be a valid point - still, it's a glaring omission to not know the backstory and motivation of this character, why THEY chose to enter this beauty pageant and maybe try to burn it to the ground from the inside.
Instead, Willowdean finds a flyer in her aunt's scrapbook for Dolly Parton Night at a nearby bar, and so the "loser brigade" of high-school girls talks their way into the bar, despite the fact that none of them have a fake ID, and they find a whole cadre of drag queens who lip-sync to Dolly's hits once a week, and this somehow turns out to be the answer to all of their problems. After befriending the drag performers, they pick up knowledge of fashion, make-up, style and confidence and then apply all of this to their pageant experience. Umm, OK, I guess that's one way to go - I think some people may find all of their answers in the world of drag, but then again, it may not be for everybody. Well, drag queens and Dolly Parton combine to sort of save the day here, but only part of that is likely to happen in rural (red-state) Texas.
Did the girls (sorry, three girls and one non-binary human) end up changing the pageant, or did being in the pageant change them? It's kind of hard to tell, and therefore I think the underlying message here got very muddled. Are beauty pageants good or bad? It might have been nice if the film had taken a stronger stance on this issue - at first it seems like pageants are bad, because they tend to be exclusive and make some people feel bad about themselves, but then I guess if those people could just get over their inhibitions and participate, then they'll find their inner beauty queen and learn to make peace with themselves and others? i don't know, I think I'd rather have seen them burn the pageant to the ground.
Progress is a very tricky thing - once in a while I'll see something like a baseball pitcher missing a hand or a woman goalie in a hockey game, and I'll think, "Wow, good for them!" and maybe there's some hope for humanity, that we're not just going to get stuck in our traditional lock-step ideas over capability and standards of perfection, but in fairly short order it seems like the system finds a way to reset itself, forgets about the message and then after it seems like no progress was made.
Also starring Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "Life of Crime"), Odeya Rush (last seen in "Almost Friends"), Maddie Baillio, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Luke Benward (last seen in "Life of the Party"), Georgie Flores, Dove Cameron (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Harold Perinneau (last seen in "I'm Not Here"), Kathy Najimy (last seen in "The Wedding Planner"), Dan Finnerty (ditto), Ginger Minj, Hilliary Begley, Sam Pancake (last seen in "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde"), Molly McNearney (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), Tian Richards (last seen in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"), Ryan Dinning (last seen in "The Best of Enemies"), Andrew Fletcher, Ariana Guerra, Julia Denton (last seen in "Geostorm"), Kaye Singleton, Grace Junot, Maya Reid, Brooke Hartzog (last seen in "Hot Pursuit"), Taegen Burns.
RATING: 5 out of 10 affirmations from a Magic 8-Ball
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