Tons of the opposite of fun

Let me see if I can sum up the plot of Phat Girlz, the doubly-misspelled Mo'Nique vehicle that no one asked for, in three sentences:

1. Mo'Nique is fat.
2. Mo'Nique is also sassy.
3. African guys like their women fat.

Based on the trailer, this appears to be the entire plot. It's not clear to me that there is anything approximating the usual "unhappy person finds acceptance/love" trajectory going on; the one guy may like her, but where's the suggestion of some cathartic end scene where Mo'Nique's detractors either accept her or fall into a pool, and then if the film were made with white people a Smash Mouth song would play? Eh, it's probably in there. They just didn't want to spoil it.

I'm glad Mo'Nique has been able to find the humor in being a large woman in today's America, because really, the world of film hasn't adequately mined the fat-person comedy angle prior to now. It does seem kind of odd to me that Mo'Nique would be willing to take a role where the only time she's respected is when she meets some African guy... and he likes her because Africans objectify big asses. Girl power, sister! Though there's clearly a heartwarming ending where someone decides to use Mo'Nique's clothing designs, because this is a movie.

Two other things that bugged me about this trailer. One, here's a movie that supposedly wants to explode stereotypes - not that it does that, but bear with me - and yet Mo'Nique's girlfriend bemoans their lack of male attention, and why? Because she wears glasses! Horror of horrors! I'm sure there won't be a scene where she takes them off and is suddenly hot. Two, half the video is of such obvious low quality, it looks like it was taken from one of those videos on "Wheel of Fortune" where they show you a quick montage of the location where you'll go on your trip if you land on that space. Did they go back and shoot half the movie after returning their film cameras to Rent-a-Center? I realize that no one besides Mo'Nique's parents could possibly want to see this - take away all the most clichéd parts of the trailer and what's left is still inescapably unfunny - but if you're going to put a movie in actual theaters you might as well splurge. Plus, you wouldn't want anyone confusing this with the inevitable porn spinoff of the same name.

Phat Girlz trailer (Yahoo! Movies)