Remember Buzz, the obnoxious older brother from Home Alone who bullies little Kevin remorselessly?
Here he is:
Remember how at one point we see a picture of his girlfriend, and we're meant to laugh because she's kind of homely? "Buzz, your girlfriend… WOOF!"
We always thought that was a bit of a cruel gag, frankly. Who cares what she looks like? Buzz likes her, and that's all that matters. Girls (and women) have to deal with being judged by their appearance all their lives, so there's no reason for Hollywood to start the fat-shaming so early.
But we were wrong about Buzz's girlfriend.
Not because fat shaming isn't bad, but because Buzz's girlfriend isn't, in fact, a girl.
According to Devin Ratray the actor who played Buzz, the producers of the film had the same misgivings that we did:
"[They] decided it would be unkind to put a girl in that role of just being funny-looking. The art director had a son who was more than willing to volunteer for the part. I think if he had known it would become the highest-grossing family comedy of all time, he might have had second thoughts about it."
So there you have it: Buzz's girlfriend was actually a young chap who was happy to make fun of himself for looking like a less-than-desirable girl, because he was in fact not a girl at all.
So we can all laugh with a clean conscience. Even though it's kind of problematic that a boy in drag is meant to be funny, too, so maybe we should all just pass over the whole thing in silence and get to the bit where Daniel Stern stops a flying paint-can with his face.
