The Fat Boy Chronicles
Rene Broussard– The Fat Boy Chronicles
Video Screening & Discussion
Monday, June 10; 8 pm
SF LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market @ Octavia (2nd Floor)
The Fat Boy Chronicles: An Appropriated Video Diary, by Rene Broussard
RENE, RENE, QU’EST-CE-QUE C’EST? dir Rene Broussard 1994 US 24 min video
THE BOY WITH THE BUGLE! dir Rene Broussard 1997 US 28 min video
NORMAN ROCKWELL NEVER PAINTED FAT KID! dir Rene Broussard 2001 US 47 min video. Total running time: 110 minutes. www.zeitgeistinc.org/videos
THE FATBOY CHRONICLES is an extremely personal view into the director’s “narcissistic masturbatory fantasy world” from kindergarten to present day. Fantasy yes, but all of the events and memories from that world are real. The names have not been changed, because no one (not even the artist or the sanctity of childhood) is innocent. The films in the chronicles are three distinct documents of truths tempered with hindsight and self-editing, exploring the origins of Broussard’s life-long attraction to other fat boys and men with side trips through the many incidents, feelings and fetishes that have sculpted his queer self-image. The work takes a rare look at body image from a perspective usually only explored in feminist works.
Although it is designed to be screened as a feature, each part can be screened separately. Not being able to cast young actors to recreate the traumas and ecstasies from his youth, Broussard uses the art of appropriation (“Fair use” of pre-existing media) to recast his life.
“Show us the little boys’ dicks! But under their pork bellies only little ones can be seen. In early childhood sexuality there is pleasure and pain, but there is also pain which is pleasurable…Paddles, belts, birchrods, switches, canes, and oars come crashing down on the poor young boys’ backsides…Director Rene Broussard has searched all of film history and found all of these lovely little butts and combined them with photos from his own childhood to create his autobiographical study THE FATBOY CHRONICLES.” – Anke Leweke, Die Tagezeitung, Berlin.