Ford told Vulture that he originally intended for the women to represent America - gluttonous, tired, and sad - however, something changed for him when he actually met these women. Was I right? Did Ford truly want these women on screen to make us laugh, to lighten the mood of an otherwise devastating story? Yes and no. They are either rendered irrelevant or the butt of the joke. With very few exceptions ( Kate from This Is Us, or Queenie from American Horror Story, to name recent examples), these women often don't get important story lines or the opportunity to show emotional complexity on screen. Hollywood not only by mocks women outwardly for being plus-size (see: Shallow Hal, Norbit, or even "Fat Amy" from Pitch Perfect), it also erases plus-size women from narratives completely. Film and television have been great teachers in that way. Society teaches us that the naked bodies of plus-size women are shameful, and it's a lesson we learn whether we want to believe it or not. It's merely how these bodies look that changed the message for me. I never accused Thicke's video of mocking these women - if anything, their nudity was being grossly ogled through the male gaze. I didn't feel uncomfortable watching that video - mostly just annoyed that a song with questionable ideas about consent would also feature nude models. I compared my reaction to this scene with how I felt watching Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" music video, in which models parade around the R & B artist sans clothes. It's hard for me to admit that I felt uncomfortable during this scene, because it's a reminder that I, someone who considers herself a body-positive person, have an intrinsic bias. My most overwhelming emotion, however, was sheer discomfort. I was horrified by the scene - surely, these bodies are meant to be gawked at and mocked. These women are later revealed to be part of an art installation that Susan has put together - but, for the first few minutes of the film, these naked bodies are displayed without a smidge of context. The reason? The opening scene of Nocturnal Animals features several plus-size, mostly naked women, moving in slow motion.
Yet the movie also made me uncomfortable from the jump - and guilty for feeling that way.
The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, Nocturnal Animals is haunting, devastating, and - unsurprisingly, given Ford's fashion design background -visually stunning. Nocturnal Animals tells the story of Susan (Amy Adams), a gallery curator whose upper-crust Los Angeles lifestyle is interrupted by the arrival of a violent, tragic manuscript from her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). But who is to blame for the shaming - the film itself, or the viewer? Tom Ford's new film, Nocturnal Animals, features an opening scene that some are calling body-shaming.