200 Pound Beauty

1346013 Heerim Suh

The movie 200 Pound Beauty, which was a huge box-office success at that time,

conveys a social message on challenging lookism in both humorous and serious way. In this

romantic comedy movie, an overweight ugly woman turns into a thin gorgeous lady through

extreme plastic surgeries. Even though Han-na, the protagonist, has an amazing vocal talent,

she hides behind a singer’s performance stage because of her unsuitable looks. The appearance-

based discrimination Han-na suffers does not end backstage. She gets humiliated in front of

many people and her talent is manipulated in the world of singers. A male character of the

movie is a musician who used to judge women by their looks. However, as he goes through

several incidents with Han-na, he starts to look into people’s internal beauty. This is a big

change in a man. Through this story here is what the movie is trying to say.

“Whatever our indignities and resolve, we can neither avoid lookism nor eliminate it

from society.” This is a quote from Gordon L. Patzer criticizing lookism in our society. Like

Patzer said, lookism is a well-established stereotype that confines people by focusing on a

certain frame of look. 200 Pound Beauty tries to overcome this stereotype. The director of the

movie is Yong-hwa Kim. ‘Take off’ is one of his well-known works in which unknown skiers

are the main characters. The movies made by Yong-hwa Kim mainly focus on narrating about

social minorities who are generally held in contempt. In the movie, 200 Pound Beauty, the

social minorities are overweight women. The director directly challenges lookism by

describing the struggles the protagonist goes through and gives new direction toward sincere

equality. For example, the change in social attitude of the male character implies some

possibility that our society is not difficult to change.

In addition, 200 Pound Beauty provided a good stage for a talented actress, Ah-joong

Kim to receive attention from the public. The movie put Ah-joong Kim on stardom. It is all

thanks to the casting of the most suitable actress in accordance with the character of the movie.

Ah-joong Kim played her role as a clumsy, naive but professional woman in a natural way. She

devoted herself in portraying Han-na by dressing up and doing makeup as a fat ugly woman.

This is the last thing actresses want to do in their works. Besides, she is a good singer as well.

The theme song she sang in the movie became popular and she released her own album of the

song. This implies that her voice went well with the theme song. 200 Pound Beauty is such a

big impact on Ah-joong Kim’s career that even today, after seven years 200 Pound Beauty was

released, it is still considered the representative work of Ah-joong Kim.

In conclusion, 200 Pound Beauty shows different factors in the movie compared to

other movies. It suggested a good example of new cultural reform in people’s perception in

lookism and a wider insight into their decent ability. Also, it gave opportunities to rediscover

an actress’s ability, which can be a remarkable progress not only in movie industry but also in

her career. 200 Pound Beauty proposed a new genuine role of a movie and put it into practice.