Avengers Endgame: THAT Thor TWIST is a 'human response to trauma' – SHAMING is the problem

Avengers: Endgame saw the surviving Avengers promise to do everything they could to bring back their fallen friends. In the wake of Thanos’ snap, many were left bereft at the loss of loved ones. How each Avenger dealt with this trauma was unique to them, but fans took issue with one character’s change as a result of the Snap. Warning: spoilers. 

Fat Thor isn’t in itself the problem, the fatphobia is.

Fans took to Twitter to express their disappointment and anger with Marvel’s fatphobia and the shaming that occurs throughout Endgame.

‘Fat Thor’ as he has been colloquially dubbed by the Internet at large was the butt of many a joke, all coming from his fellow superheroes.

Even Thor’s mother makes a passing ‘eat a salad’ jab in what was otherwise a heartfelt, bittersweet moment between mother and son.

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Yet despite the relentless jokes at his expense, Thor’s overall response – not just his bodily changes – are easy to relate to.

“Thor has the most human response to trauma,” said Mary Stephens, a PhD candidate in English at the University of Southern Mississippi who specialises in disability representation in media.

“Yet it’s wild to me that instead of asking about their friend or trying to help him, the rest of the Avengers just baulk at his weight gain.”

So what was it about Thor’s fatness that bothered so many people, and made them uncomfortable enough to laugh at him?

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“In contemporary Western society there’s this sense that if you’re okay, you’re ‘taking care’ of yourself through diet and exercise,” Stephens explained.

“That doesn’t just mean moving around and eating, it means maintaining a thin body and eating ‘clean’ or ‘healthy’ or whatever word is popular right now.

“If you gain weight, or if you’re fat to begin with, that must mean you aren’t taking care of yourself according to these unspoken societal ideals,” she said.

Thor, who was once the poster boy for this societal ideal with washboard abs and bulging biceps has ‘lost’ that body.

Chris Hemsworth alluded to Thor’s transformation prior to Endgame’s release, calling it ‘unexpected’.

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But, as Stephens said: “For many, fat isn’t a representation of something that was lost — a thin body that’s been lost — it’s a lived experience since childhood.”

And, ironically, Thor Ragnarok director Taika Waititi told MTV he had intended Thor to have been “a fat little kid.”

Waititi said: “Our idea was Thor and Valkyrie meet and he’s like, ‘Hey I know you,’ and she’s like ‘Ha I remember you,’ and then it cuts back to this thing and he’s just this pudgy little kid walking around with a mullet and being picked on by other kids.”

With this in mind, the constant fat shaming the other Avengers partake in has an even darker edge.

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Stephens added: “It’s clear that he has gone through something incredibly difficult – watching his friends die and being powerless to stop it – and while we can’t diagnose fictional characters, his actions in the movie seem to be in line with PTSD.

“It’s true that many people who experience depression gain weight.

“That being said, what’s happening with Thor in the film is something completely different.

“The filmmakers used weight gain as visual shorthand for ‘giving up,’ or ‘letting himself go.'”

As an audience, however, instead of feeling sympathy we are meant to laugh.

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Thor’s depression, isolation, drinking, and yes his physical changes become the butt of the joke everyone is in on.

Where the film slightly redeems itself is in the lack of a transformation montage – there is no moment in which Thor’s body reverts to its previously chiselled stage as an indication he is ‘better’.

Instead, Thor remains his fat-self and remains an undeniably powerful superhero.

Pointing this out, though, does not undo the harm of fatphobia and fat-shaming already past.

There is a small silver lining Stephens also pointed out: “Thor doesn’t talk rudely about his own body, even though everyone else does.

“It seems like the person who has the fewest issues with Thor’s body is Thor himself.”

Avengers: Endgame is now playing in cinemas.