MovieChat Forums > Shallow Hal (2001) Discussion > Get rid of the pool scene!!!

Get rid of the pool scene!!!

posted 11 years ago by bookworm1-262-643168
26 replies | jump to latest

I am obese like Rosemary, and I am also a regular swimmer. I can do a respectable continuous length backstroke. True, there are not that many of us. So the pool scene here in this movie makes the movie offensive to me.

First, big people like Rosemary do NOT jump in swimming pools; the water pressure that goes up your nose HURTS LIKE HELL. The more you weigh, the worse it is. You actually won't see obese people doing cannonballs (unless they're drunk). We use the ladders, stairs, or slip in from the side.

Second, bikinis in our sizes are hard to find, and if you have stretch marks, you wear tankinis or one-piece suits anyway.

Third, if I wanted to jump in a pool, I do not have the force to send someone in a tree. If I jumped in a pool simultaneously with the entire Olympic swim team, we could not send someone into a tree.

If there is one thing that big people need, it is plenty of exercise. Swimming is one of the best to do for yourself. So why exaggerate a scenario to discourage people from getting this form of exercise?

[–] virgiltx 11 years ago

Swimming would be better than running or walking, even on a tread miil, because it gets the weight off of your skeleton, in particular your knees.

And positively, do not just replace the calories afterward. And my tip-top advice is: avoid refined carbohydrates always.

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[–] 11 years ago

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[–] Humphrey_Fish 11 years ago

First, big people like Rosemary do NOT jump in swimming pools; the water pressure that goes up your nose HURTS LIKE HELL. The more you weigh, the worse it is. You actually won't see obese people doing cannonballs (unless they're drunk). We use the ladders, stairs, or slip in from the side.

That's a rather broad characterization. I've never been pained to jump in the water in ANY manner(including cannonball), and I have NEVER been drunk in the water(we're talking not even drinking THAT DAY). When you say "we", try just speaking for yourself.

bikinis in our sizes are hard to find, and if you have stretch marks, you wear tankinis or one-piece suits anyway.

True...but is it "offensive" for a larger person to wear a bikini?

Third, if I wanted to jump in a pool, I do not have the force to send someone in a tree. If I jumped in a pool simultaneously with the entire Olympic swim team, we could not send someone into a tree.

...it's a joke. Don't bring your physics books to the movies, or you'll be sorely disappointed(writers and directors SUCK at physics, lol; always have, and always will).

If there is one thing that big people need, it is plenty of exercise. Swimming is one of the best to do for yourself. So why exaggerate a scenario to discourage people from getting this form of exercise?

It's just a joke. Do you really think anyone will be discouraged from going swimming after watching this? I'm pretty sure Jaws had about a 10,000,000,000% larger effect on that.

Quien es mas macho?

Benedict Cumberbatch

OR

Ricardo Montalban

[–] zenbudda 11 years ago

i wouldn't have been able to see ivy snitzer's ass. the pool scene was excellent!

[–] eholzapfel26 11 years ago

I realize the scene is silly (like most of the movie), but I agree that it seems strange that Roesmary would choose a bikini to wear to a public pool (or wherever it's supposed to be - they're obviously among strangers, not family or friends), especially when she is aware of and self-conscious about her weight & appearance.

[–] royal_blue 11 years ago

Agree. But the scene was a good excuse to show Gwyneth in a bikini.

[–] virgiltx 11 years ago

Not only do obese women wear bikinis http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/653357/, but she was being made to feel attractive by Hal's continual compliments. She apparently bought size XXL lingerie for him for the Houdini scene. She might have bought a bikini also.

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The story is king.

[–] bookworm1-262-643168 11 years ago

Then I would love to know just where she found a bikini in her size. At the retail level, I've been swimming for decades and I have never seen bikinis in our sizes. Maybe it is easier in the online shopping era, but that was not true in the 80s and probably the 90s. I tried to order a swimming once in a sporting goods shop over 20 years ago and I was blown off.

[–] whitespirit26 11 years ago

Yeah, but ehol, she kind of gave up on that.

[–] Hanz-Willhelm 11 years ago

I'm sorry it bothered you but we aren't promised in this life getting to go through it never being offended and the fact that you feel the world should be stripped away of everything that offends anyone offends me.

Somewhere, somehow someone is always offended by something and then everyone bends over backwards to yank that thing from the world to please this person is just overboard.

I'm reminded of a news story I read not to far back where a school held a yearly father/daughter dance.......until someone got offended, then the entire dance was cancelled, never to be held again. Why? Someone got offended and had to throw a stink. A single mom didn't feel it was right to have a father/daughter dance night at the school because she wasn't a father so no one else should get to enjoy the night because SHE and HER ONE daughter didn't quite fit in so NO ONE ELSE should get to do it and the school caved in and just cancelled the whole thing.

How about you just deal with not getting to do this one thing. How about you talk to the school and let you and your daughter go as an exception since there was no father, how about you just show up anyway and dance whether the school said you could or not? Nope, instead just get it cancelled for everyone.

This is silly comedy with slapstick humor. It didn't offend me, so you think they should cut the scene just for you? I guess we should cut the dog/tail scene because I'm sure somewhere someone has a similar problem, I guess we should cut the fake hair scene because someone with thinning hair will get offended. I guess we should cut the scene with her ex boyfriend because he had dandruff and someone with that could be offended. I guess we should cut the guy out with spinal bifida because someone with that will get offended, let's cut out the little girl who was burned because a parent with a burned child will get offended. Hey let's just not have the movie at all, someone, somewhere may get offended with something.

I'm sorry it offended you but why the hell should the scene be cut????????? Did you read a different constitution then I did? A different Bill of Rights, one that said we all have the right to never be offended anywhere by anything????

[–] bookworm1-262-643168 11 years ago

I wonder if you'd feel the same way about offensive material if you were the target of the joke, and not the jokester. And as for being super-offended, I have been late to respond to other posts, so this topic is not clearly keeping me up nights. You've written more than I have; move on!!!

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] neko-neko-1 9 years ago

Maybe if you lost some weight then you won't be the target of the joke anymore?

[–] BigRich 9 years ago

I wonder if you'd feel the same way about offensive material if you were the target of the joke, and not the jokester.

This is something you can totally change...if you want to. It's not like it's a ethnic joke, or a gay joke, or a handicap joke. It's obesity. I've been dealing with it probably just as long as you, before I went in the Marines, and definitely afterwards. Hell, this is motivating me to go work out now.

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Every person that served can be called a veteran, but not every veteran can be called a Marine.

[–] yerffej 11 years ago

Amen Hanz-Willhelm, I seriously could not have said that better myself. If people want to get personally offended that's fine, no one can take that way from them, but it doesn't mean they have a right to force a drastic change to someone else's creative work or cause an event to be cancelled just because THEY couldn't attend. Such a mentality is being self-centered at its utmost.

I remember not too long ago when I was playing God of War Ascension, they had to change a trophy name from "Bros Before Hos" to "Bros Before Foes" because SOME woman/women happened to get offended. Really? A *beep* TROPHY in the game? People really need to stop getting so butt-hurt and just move on with their lives if something bothers them.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] 11 years ago

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[–] HowYaLikeDemApplesWill 10 years ago

Funny, when I saw the headline "Get rid of the pool scene!!!" on the main message board screen, I guessed to myself that you were a chunky swimmer who was offended....and yes, you have validated this.

But just as an aside: a scene in a Farrelly Brothers movie, will neither encourage nor discourage, any right-thinking person, to do anything.

Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

[–] xstrym 10 years ago

I'm with you. The other thing about the pool scene is that Billy's dad is grilling right at the poolside! We were never allowed to grill at the poolside. These offensive hollywood a-holes don't know dick about real life, pshhhh.