History of obesity in the cinema: "the three fat men" (1963; 1966)

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the films "The Three Fat Men" (1963, 1966), as well as the homonymous literary work published in 1927 of these film adaptations, by the Soviet Yuri Olesha, as primary sources of the history of obesity. Methodologically, besides being a historical study, it was also characterized as a multiple case study. For the analysis of the material, the discursive analysis of the enunciation was used. For the data collection, the book was read and watched the movies, identifying excerpts that were considered relevant. After the analyzes, the results allowed to constitute statements that composed a discursive formation in which the fat ones are gluttons, rich, powerful and brave. Although it is a piece of Communist propaganda, this discursive formation diverges from the bourgeois-fat, identified in other historical sources, since the three fat men were more resemble to feudal lords than to bourgeois, in the restricted sense of this term in the Marxist doctrine. Thus, it was concluded that the materials are primary sources relevant to the history of obesity in both literature and cinema.