Guest Column: ‘The Whale’ Writer Samuel D. Hunter Says the Film Is an Invitation to Experience Humanity

Thirteen years ago, when I began working on a play that eventually became The Whale, I didn’t think I was writing a story about a man who was, among other things, living with obesity. All I knew is that I wanted to write about an English teacher struggling to connect with a young person, just as I was struggling to connect with my own students as an expository writing teacher at a public university in New Jersey.

Ten or so years earlier, I had been an overweight gay kid in northern Idaho attending a fundamentalist Christian school — a school which taught that people like me shouldn’t exist. After I was outed by a few supposed friends to the school’s administration, and consequently my family, I was told I could remain only if I did not identify as gay and underwent “counseling” with the head pastor. I then made the decision to leave and enroll in public school. For a time, I convinced myself that I had thrown off the shackles of that dogma, moved past the injury, and successfully left it all behind. But that myth of closure masked a festering wound, one that eventually manifested in depression and years of self-medication with food.

This personal history wasn’t something I wanted to access in my writing before making the very vulnerable decision to write The Whale. Even though I had found eventual off-ramps from my depression and weight gain through the love of my family and my then-boyfriend, now-husband, I hadn’t processed it to the extent that I was comfortable speaking about it, let alone writing about it. And for many people, for many obvious reasons, this conversation is still deeply uncomfortable.

The history of portraying people with obesity in cinema is, in a word, troubling. Traditionally, thin actors are put into entirely unrealistic bodysuits in order to be the subject of derision or the butt of a joke. Even as obesity has become one of the major public health crises in the United States, it also remains one of the last socially acceptable prejudices of our time. Even the quickest glances at Twitter (I wouldn’t recommend it) reveal the judgment and vitriol that are casually lobbed around at people who live with obesity, a group of people who are big for countless different reasons, some of whom are suffering and some of whom are perfectly happy. So when I chose to write this play, and eventually the screen adaptation for director Darren Aronofsky, I knew I would be pushing against a huge cultural boulder, one that I hope this movie chips away at a bit. I also knew that people, after reading a one-sentence surface-level synopsis, would have their guards firmly up. And for good reason.

My own experience with weight is a specific one and does not represent everyone who has dealt with obesity. Many people out there are big and doing just fine, and they should be left the hell alone. But that wasn’t me. It’s not Charlie, the protagonist of The Whale, either. And it’s not the experience of thousands and thousands of Americans who turn to food for solace in a deeply cynical world that routinely dehumanizes them.

This is the kind of cynicism that The Whale seeks to push against. Charlie believes in the inherent worth and goodness of human beings, even as the world gives him so many reasons to believe otherwise. I wrote Charlie from a deeply personal place but also — at the risk of being rosy-eyed — from a place rooted in love and hope. Charlie believes that cynicism is easy and perversely comforting — a belief that became etched in marble for me when my husband and I became dads to a little girl five years ago. Today, even more so than when I first wrote the play, cynicism has become the law of the land, often masquerading as intelligence or dry sophistication. Ultimately, this movie is a collective effort by a group of people onscreen and off who came together in the middle of the pandemic to tell a story that pushes against that brand of cynicism.

At its core, The Whale is an invitation to spend time with this person. To truly see him, to see his whole heart, to witness his keen mind and — for some people — to let go of outdated prejudices. If that invitation is met with a furrowed brow, we’re unfortunately at an impasse. But for those who accept the invitation with open heart and open mind, you’ll be met with a story that is fundamentally rooted in love, compassion and hard-won hope.

Samuel D. Hunter is a playwright, screenwriter and recipient of a 2014 MacArthur Fellowship.

This story first appeared in the Dec. 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.