'Red One' Presents Calorie-Counting, Carb-Loading Santa
I'd argue that there's room for endless reinterpretations of the Christmas story, but none of them should involve Santa - a character beloved by children - talking about calories.
Red One, now streaming on Amazon Prime, swaps one of our only examples of positive plus-size representation with a calorie-counting, carb-loading version of Santa. This reimagining - and thinning - of the mythical hero feels like an eerily apt end to a year of being barraged with GLP-1 marketing and the news media's declaration that "thin is in."
When I started seeing the previews for Red One during the summer, I was genuinely excited to see the movie. I'd hoped to catch it in 4D at a local theater (which involves sitting in a seat that is synched with all of a movie's biggest scenes so it feels more immersive), but ended up queueing it up on Prime last week alongside 50 million others.
Within five minutes, the diet culture messaging began.
Calories.
Carbs.
Push-ups (we watch Mrs. Claus counting off 500).
Reps.
Following the year we've just had with the seemingly unceasing attack on and scapegoating of body positivity, it was frankly grating.
The message felt clear: not even make-believe fat people get to exist anymore.
I wondered how I might interpret this revamped Santa if I were a child, the target audience for this movie.
Growing up as a chubby girl, I can't say I necessarily related to Santa, but his belly "like a bowl full of jelly" represented comfort and a type of warmth that I understood intuitively. His fatness was part of his goodness and his magic. He stood in stark contrast to the plus-size villains that seemed to crowd movies and television shows of the 80s and 90s. Red One's version of Santa hinted at our culture's renewed fear of any positive associations being made with fat people.
In the end, I just couldn't get past it all. After two attempts to watch Red One, I realized I didn't have to try to push past the anti-fat undertones that bubbled just beneath the film's surface.
As a major holiday movie fan, I love when a film breathes new life into Christmas characters. In my opinion, there absolutely is an action-packed version of a magical world where Santa is ripped yet isn't modeling body or food moralizing. That's simply not the world that Red One created. I'd argue that there is room for endless reinterpretations of the Christmas story, but none of them should involve Santa - a character beloved by children - talking about calories.
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