Abstract

This article explores cinematic and televisual representations of fat male sexuality; rare in mainstream culture, the few depictions foreground abject embodiment to monstrous effect. From tabloid accounts of the Fatty Arbuckle rape trial to the grotesque Highlander Fat Bastard, fat male sexuality paradoxically doesn't exist and in existing, pollutes. This over-determined representation as monstrous and threatening yet simultaneously failed and incapable points to the semiotic threat of fat masculinity: in a system where fat embodiment is marked as feminine, the fat maleness that refuses to occupy the position of feminized, passive quasi-male, reveals the simplicity of gender categories as cultural fictions.