#even the NAME 'Fak' I'm pretty sure is a blend of 'fat fuck'

[undead-moth]

Okay I thought I could let this go and just leave it at this post I wrote a bit ago but I can't.

Everything about how the Faks were written this season, including how much screentime they got, can be attributed to fatphobia.

The Faks exemplify a really common fatphobic stereotype that gets heavily relied on in comedy shows. I call it The Lovably Childish Fat Man trope, though there's much more to it than that. Some examples are Scully and Hitchcock from Brooklyn 99, Teddy from Bob's Burgers, Andy from Parks and Rec, and Kevin from The Office.

These characters are dopey, incompetent, clumsy, dumb, sloppy, childish and self-unaware. All of these attributes are used for comedic affect within the story. While these characters are lovable, they are lovable in a, "Isn't it just so endearing how dumb and clumsy and gross they are?" way. It is in the most condescending way possible. These are characters who aren't allowed to be serious and are required to play into the comedy of their fatness, often wearing ill-fitting clothes, overeating, or having their weight become an obstacle in a setting. This is how fat characters can still be made into a joke, and not just a joke, but THE joke, without a single comment ever being made about their weight from any of the thin characters in the story.

Now, when it comes to The Bear, Neil Fak was always an example of this trope - but in the first two seasons it wasn't as egregious. Neil was incompetent in general, but when it came to his job as a maintenance man, he was very competent. He was childish in general, but he was allowed to participate in conversations like any other adult without the sole purpose of his presence being that he was going to say something childish or dumb.

On top of that, all of his incompetence and childishness was balanced out by Richie, who was also immature, incompetent, and self-unaware.

But in the third season, a lot changes.

The biggest change is that the restaurant opens, and so now there is no need for a regular maintenance man who is going to take mold seriously, insist on moving the lockers before painting, and figure out that Michael fucked with the fire alert system to prevent it from going off when he tried to burn The Beef down.

Now, instead, Neil becomes a server in the restaurant, which is something he's woefully incapable of doing, and his incompetency in serving is highlighted for comedic affect.

At the same time, Richie has gone through real character development, and he's no longer unprofessionally dressed. He doesn't lack self-awareness. He's not as outspoken or willfully rude. When he is angry or immature, it is not comparable to a teenager's anger, much less a child. He no longer balances Neil out as a thin character with a lot of the same flaws.

What's worse, is that another Fak was introduced as a character, and he's also fat. Ted Fak becomes a regular rather than someone who's made an appearance or two, and his personality is virtually indistinguishable from Neil's. The only real difference that I can tell between them is that Ted's maturity is closer to on par with a thirteen or fourteen-year-old, while this season especially, Neil's maturity was more on par with a nine or ten-year-old.

When I say they're childish, I mean they are literally portrayed like children. They engage in the same conversations you could expect from children. Neil routinely refers to Carmy as his best friend unnecessarily, which is something a child would do, but on top of that the joke is, "Ha ha - can you believe Neil thinks he's Carmy's best friend?" even though Carmy outright admitted that Neil was probably his best friend in season one (which was also intended to be a ha ha funny joke). Ted and Neil also talk about Neil's wall of food critics, and Neil asserts that he would have already been able to tell whether or not one of the food critics had come in, and insists that he's memorized all their faces in a very child-like way. Any time the two of them are engaging in conversation, it's made apparent that the two of them both think they're geniuses exchanging profound wisdom, when in reality everything they say is stupid and uses the logic of children who don't yet understand how complicated everything is.

I really hit my limit when they went to see Claire to tell her Carmy says he's sorry - an act that no two grown ass men would ever decide to do, nor think was appropriate to do, nor helpful to do, nor would they fucking think it's their business, or if they did decide to talk to Claire, they wouldn't bombard the E.R without permission and wander into an operating room in the process. On top of this, they speak too loudly for the indoors, and Neil stammers through saying Carmy is sorry in very simple words, no different than a child saying sorry on the playground, and Claire even responds to them like children, trying to quiet them down, lecturing them about going places they shouldn't, talking them down from apologizing for Carmy because she recognizes it's not as simple as these children think it is, and she even explains it in simple terms to them, while routinely saying, "My love," and, "I love you," and trying to manage their excitement and expectations again - the exact same way you would with a hyper, overly enthusiastic child. With Ted she implies that he gave one of her friends an STD, and gives him a very maternal look and a, "You know what I'm talking about," comment while Ted continues to act obliviously (Ha ha the gross fat man has an std funny joke.)

Literally, you could easily replace these characters with a ten-year-old and a teenager and you wouldn't have to change anything. In fact, it would work better. It would make more sense.

It is possibly the most egregious example of this trope that I have ever seen. It turned a show that was previously actually better than the average TV show when it comes to fatphobia into a show that's actually more fatphobic than most shows I've watched.

And as for why the Faks were so heavily relied on, why they got so much screentime despite there being so many other characters they could have chosen to develop or focus on instead - I think the writers chose to do that because they knew this season was going to be heavier than past seasons.

They knew that the A Plots (Primarily Carmy's worsening behavior in the restaurant, but also Natalie giving birth, and Tina's search for a job after being let go) were all going to be really heavy, serious storylines. But they knew that even if this season was going to be more serious, this show was still a comedy. Not only do they need to keep it in line with its category, but they also had to try to keep the tone consistent with past seasons even though the plots in the past two seasons were not as serious. And particularly with the main storyline, with Carmy's character arc, I don't think Storer wanted to make that comedic at all. Previously, even really heavy moments could be humorous. The humor was dark, sure, but it was there, and so the comedy was threaded seamlessly throughout episodes, and no one character was more responsible for comedy than any other, even in heavy moments. But with this season, it was crucial that Carmy's state of mind feel as serious as it was. It was crucial that the alienation the other characters felt was palpable to us. In order for that to be the case, they couldn't be the ones providing comedic relief. Those moments had to remain incredibly tense, and awkward, and uncomfortable.

So - enter The Faks as Shakespearian-esque Fools.

In order to keep the A Plots properly serious, The Faks provided comic relief in between A Plot scenes. They're fools in intermissions. That's all. This works because Ted and Neil aren't supposed to be real characters. They don't have character arcs. They aren't ever going to be developed in any meaningful way, and so Storer can afford to include numerous empty scenes with them that do nothing to complicate them or reveal anything about them - and this isn't true of most other reoccurring characters in the show.

It's also worth noting that relying on this trope, using this trope as a crutch really, provides endless low-hanging fruit. Most people who had problems with The Faks this season had a problem with them in part because even though they were given so much screentime, and even though they were always being used comically - they were never funny.

This is where Storer fucked up - you know, beyond being a huge fatphobe. Storer was relying on the fact that most people find fatphobia hilarious. It is an easy way to get some laughs. It requires almost no thought. And okay - I understand that there are scenes in which something more is clearly meant to be getting through, particularly with the discussions of "the haunt" - but the Faks are so annoying that whatever was meant to get through doesn't anyway, or if it does, we don't fucking care anymore.

I'm not going to argue that The Bear fandom isn't fatphobic, because they very much are - However - That is not the kind of humor that first drew them to The Bear. The humor in this show previously was dry, dark, clever, absurd - many things, but all very sophisticated and often subtle. That is not only the humor we expected to return this season, it's obviously the humor we like! Since we're returning for season three!

But Storer didn't understand this about his own audience, and so he didn't think it would matter if he relied on a fatphobic stereotype for comedic effect. Honestly, I think it was probably a blind-spot for him, because he doesn't even know that's what he was doing - he just genuinely thinks this fatphobic trope is hilarious, and so do the other writers. It didn't occur to them that the audience wouldn't too. As a result, it is possibly the weakest part, and most universally hated parts of this season.