Fat Boys and Girls in Theaters This Month

From square jaws to round bellies, oh my!

Attention all Classic Hollywood heroes! Those of you sporting toned six packs, chiseled jaws, full arsenals of kung fu moves, and powers of invincibility -- step aside. There's a new breed of protagonist in town.

Coming out of the woodwork this fall are main characters refusing to accept their "side kick" designations. They might be fat. They might be gay. They might even be incredibly awkward or (gasp!) unattractive. In short, they will be absolutely relatable, which seems to be the soul requirement for this new brand of silver screen hero.

Smash hit summer blockbuster, Hairspray, promoted a feel-good message of acceptance, setting the perfect stage for what we should expect in the following months.

With titles like Run, Fatboy, Run (Rel Dt 10/26) headlining mainstream cinema, and the equally frank Fat Girls (Rel Dt 10/19) bombarding the indie scene, there's no escaping the humanity.

Though some may scoff at Simon Pegg's little paunch extending over his tiny shorts in the Fatboy trailers, Dennis, the character he portrays, has a great many more flaws under that little belly than the one he's trying to work off.

Will audiences root for a man who left his pregnant fiancé at the alter? Will they support his attempts to win her back? That's left to be seen, but the writers may be onto something by giving Dennis a quirk that is so very sympathetic -- a low body-image.

Pegg is no stranger to playing the unlikely hero. After all, he stormed into the mainstream spotlight in 2004 with the incredibly successful Indie wonder Shaun of the Dead, wherein we learned that even an aimless salesman and a lazy deadbeat can step to the plate when all hell breaks loose.

Indie films have never been adverse to glorifying the anti-hero. Perhaps Pegg is the perfect vessel to bring that standard to the mainstream.

Newcomer Ash Christian's premiere in both directing and starring in Fat Girls, however, has little to do with weight loss. His character, Rodney, calls himself a Fat Girl metaphorically, because he feels his sexual preference sets him inside the same taboo inflicted on his best friend, Sabrina, a girl who is indisputably overweight, think “fat.”

Set in the trying world of high school, audiences will watch Rodney and Sabrina deal with their differences in an environment that encourages them to be cookie-cutter "perfect," a theme most people will easily relate to.

Are the so-called Fat Girls and Fat Boys the role models of the new generation? Heroes that make huge mistakes, can't fit into designer jeans, and even resent their imperfections - yet still manage to be compelling enough to grip the spotlight for a two hour stretch?

Maybe they give us something more to look up to. After all, they're overcoming the odds just as well as those lantern-jawed action heroes, and they don't mind getting dirty in the process.

Heck, they even kind of remind us of ourselves.