Potbelly is a performance-based video essay that deconstructs the motel scene in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) in which the coquettish baby talking Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) describes to her boyfriend Butch (Bruce Willis) how she wishes she had a potbelly. In this video essay, I place my body in relation to this scene to speak back to Tarantino’s representations of cisheteronormative desire that depends on Western beauty standards of thinness, youth, non-disability, and whiteness. My intention is to reveal the absurdity of the scene through its distortion on my body and offer critique of its presentation of normative values that ultimately focuses our attention on how women (should) dress, weigh, and look through Tarantino’s pseudo-feminist dialogue. I queer the film’s projection by revelling in the light of the projector as an intervention. I use long takes to stay with this headless fat body and reframe it for myself and my viewers as a body worthy of celebration, joy, and desire.

Published in a special issue with an accompanying Creator’s Statement of ASAP Review about Personal Mediascapes edited by Joel Burges and Allison Cooper (December 16, 2024).