What’s With the Weird Fat Jokes in ‘Wonka?’

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | December 22, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | December 22, 2023 |

Wonka opened in theatres to stronger reviews than expected and a solid first weekend of pre-Christmas grosses. The Timothée Chalamet-starring prequel centred on the iconic Roald Dahl chocolatier has done well given that much of the tone of its pre-release discourse was pure bemusement rather than anticipation. It’s part of a recent increase in Roald Dahl adaptations, although it’d be fair to say that the late children’s author’s work has never truly gone out of style. For decades, Dahl’s books have been a mainstay of many a kid’s bookshelf, my own included. His work is very easy to devour, as delicious as it is naughty. It’s no wonder the likes of Wes Anderson and Paul King are drawn to it. Loving Dahl, however, comes with a lot of baggage, and not even a sanitized and softened version of his work can avoid his notorious pitfalls.

In Wonka, Keegan-Michael Key plays a corrupt chief of police in a town with a curiously powerful cabal of corrupt chocolatiers. He strikes a deal with this group to keep competition like young Willy Wonka off their patch, and he takes his payment in sweets. Starting the film as Key’s regular size, he gets larger as the effect of his chocolate bribes kicks in. Key puts on a fat suit for this, and yes, it’s played for laughs. In one scene, the ground practically groans under the pressure of his body.

Many critics have noted that the fat suit and fat jokes are, to put it mildly, in bad taste. Even those who otherwise enjoyed Wonka felt the need to call out these moments. It certainly feels like a strangely retrograde choice, albeit an extremely predictable one given the source material. Still, it’s not as though they kept any of the other weirdly icky moments from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (seriously, have you read the description of the original Oompa Loompas?)

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s read a Dahl book that he really hated fat people, especially fat kids. One could argue that he didn’t much like children as a concept, although he tended to leave his most dastardly fates to their parents. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, arguably his most famous book, the kids really get put through the wringer. Charlie Bucket is the good boy, the poverty-stricken child who never complains and only wants good things for his loved ones. He is the fifth golden ticket winner who gains access to the enigmatic Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, which nobody has seen inside for decades. His fellow victors are various levels of bratty. Veruca is spoiled and petulant, getting whatever she wants if she whines enough for it. Violet is a gum-chewing loudmouth, while Mike is a TV addict. They’re all minor crimes, if they can even be called that, but when you’re a child, it’s fun to watch the representation of those classmates you dislike get their just desserts.

But Augustus Gloop? He’s just fat. He’s a fat German kid who likes chocolate, and the idea of inviting a fat kid to your CHOCOLATE FACTORY to eat A LIFETIME SUPPLY OF CHOCOLATE is so horrendous to Dahl that Augustus is the first to go. Augustus is meant to represent greed, similar to Veruca, but he doesn’t really do much in the book beyond eat. In the first adaptation of the book, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, he’s not as ‘enormously fat’ as he’s described on the page, and is relatively polite and easy-going. Tim Burton’s version, however, is far worse. Young German actor Philip Wiegratz is in a fatsuit and is shown with food smeared across his face almost constantly. He’s a bully but also a binge-eater, and when he is allowed to go wild in the factory like the other kids, Burton shoots him like he’s a monster in a horror film. Yikes.

It’s interesting, if nothing else, that Wonka decided to keep Dahl’s penchant for fat jokes in its adaptation. At least they cut out the Oompa Loompa racism? Dahl adaptations in the 21st century must contend with the author’s, to put it mildly, problematic statements. This is the guy, after all, who once said ‘even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on’ Jewish people ‘for no reason.’ The Witches, one of his scarier books, has been criticized for its misogyny and portrayal of the eponymous witches as hook-nosed monsters who prey on children (also hello to another fat kid who gets treated weirdly in Dahl’s books, little Bruno.) Many adaptations swerve around these issues or avoid them altogether, regardless of how heavily ingrained they are into the source material.

In 2020, Dahl’s family and the Roald Dahl Story Company released a statement apologizing ‘for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl’s statements.’ It was a vague statement discreetly hidden on the website and did not seem to be motivated by any particular event or discourse. Certainly, better late than never, but it felt like an obligation by an estate eager to keep the money rolling in. The same cynicism permeated a recent decision to release censored versions of Dahl’s books, especially when the backlash that inspired led to an obviously planned announcement that they would also offer up the original versions for sale. I’m sure they sold many a copy of Dahl’s books that week.

The BBC noted that the Dahl estate posted annual pre-tax profits of £12.7m in 2018, which mostly came from film and TV deals. Netflix recently put down a hefty chunk of change to acquire the Roald Dahl Story Company. For all the whining about cancel culture that Dahl tends to elicit from the usual bad-faith suspects, there is still a lot of money to be made in his work. And for good reason. Despite it all, I still love so much of his work because it takes kids’ fears seriously and offers up a world where they have power, imagination, and soul.

But why keep in the fat jokes? They’re not very funny. They’re not even mean or bleakly moralizing in a way that would at least feel faithful to Dahl’s dark humour. It just feels… well, cheap. There’s no imagination in those Key scenes. If you’re going to make those kind of gags, it makes more sense to be as cruel as the original book was. That was what made it feel so naughty, especially for kids who wanted to indulge their weird streak. Wonka aims for heartwarming and welcoming, and fat jokes, shockingly, do not jibe with that. Just let us have our chocolate in peace.