Waubonsee Community College

Beautiful piggies, produced and directed by Barbara Bader

eng

videorecording

For College; Adult audiences

Beautiful piggies

electronic resource

747798171

produced and directed by Barbara Bader

29

This revealing self portrait of an overeater will strike a chord with most Americans who are concerned with weight and body image. It follows Barbara, the video maker, from seeming to be an attractive, cheerful young child through her metamorphosis into a five foot tall, one hundred and seventy-five pound conflicted woman. Mixing old photos and reminiscences of family members, the film creates an amusing vision of the survival of a compulsive eater and the trials of family members who love and live with her. Who are these family members who speculate on where Barbara went astray? A well -groomed mother who laments Barbara s inability to dress with chic. A fat father who gives the geneaology of his family's portliness. A loving husband who admires her beautiful eyes if not her shape. And then there s Barbara herself who describes the compulsion and shame of binging. She may be looking for the comfort food of her youth. She may be avoiding her sexuality. She may be wanting to "drop out." Beautiful Piggies is not a clinical study of an eating disorder. But no one who sees it will ever blame a fat person for being that way

general