Why hasn’t A24 released a trailer for “The Whale”? I’m pretty sure it’s the only big awards player that hasn’t done so yet. Hell, even “Emancipation” has one. Part of me wants to believe that the people over at A24 are absolutely frightened by the reaction Brendan Fraser’s “fat suit” might garner once a trailer is released.
For a performance that is said to be an Oscar frontrunner, there has been just a single photo released of Brendan Fraser’s character. RogerEbert.com writer Kayleigh Donaldson adds, “It seems pretty interesting that A24 have yet to release a poster or trailer for The Whale, and are instead using the buzz from film festivals and Fraser fandom to promote it for as long as possible”.
A piece from Gawker certainly raised eyebrows in some circles. We already knew Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” was going to provoke many reactions, just from the title alone. In case you didn’t know, the film is about a 600-pound gay man who decides to eat himself to death. Gawker writer Olivia Craighead is pointing to certain red flags that might irk critics and audiences to no end.
I’m certainly not one of the people offended by the “fat shaming” or “queer blind casting.” However, she does have a point, the Samuel D. Hunter stage play the film is based on was already the target of certain critics, receiving four different write-ups from the New York Times.
Film critic Katie Rife also went viral for tweet storming how disgusted she was by the fat phobia in “The Whale.”
That being said, plenty of film critics have already found issue with the fat suit. Polygon called it an "act of hate disguised as tough love." Vanity Fair wrote that the film's depiction of Charlie's body was one of "leering horror" rather than empathy. Slant wrote "Considering how Libatique’s camera leeringly treats Charlie as an unsightly object of pity throughout, it’s difficult to deny the film’s fatphobia."
Whatever trailer A24 releases, it’ll have be a smartly edited one that will need to deviate attention away from the 600-pound man narrative and straight into the performance itself, which is quite good. I’m not sure how that can be achieved, but I’m absolutely looking forward to A24’s game plan. They need to release something, right? “The Whale is being released 7 weeks from now. The clock is ticking.
Cory Finley, a talented filmmaker, has directed three films so far: "Thoroughbreds" (2017), "Bad Education” (2020), and "Landscape with Invisible Hand.”