It’s hard over here in the United States, with the constant pressure of magazine models and movie stars portraying an impossible body image. Our daughters can’t live up to it. Our sons can’t live up to it. Our giant monsters can’t live up to it, as has become sadly apparent from the recent spat of reviews from Japan, where the newest Godzilla movie has already opened to very positive reviews—outside of the fact that our giant monster is being asked to live up to an oppressive and arbitrary cultural standard. “He’s so fat, I laughed,” wrote one critic on the 2ch forum. “That’s what happens when all you do is eat and lay around,” replied another, unfortunately without a thought to how his careless words might affect Godzilla himself.
Inadvertently or not, these harmful stereotypes being perpetuated by insensitive Japanese bloggers needs to stop, as it perpetuates dangerous ideas about what monsters should look like. Add that to the fact that nobody mentions that this Godzilla, at 350 feet, in the tallest Godzilla monster ever, so his weight is perfectly normal for a giant monster of his body type. But good luck telling that to a sizeist culture …
