Is Max Payne fat?

[AlexanderPeregrine]

There's a chapter in Max Payne 3 called "A Fat Bald Dude with a Bad Temper" and he makes several references to being a mess because of it throughout the game. This piqued my interest because while he's definitely chunkier than the other generically thin characters around him, I'm not sure if I would call him genuinely fat. He's obviously in good shape if he's able to dive around while shooting about a thousand guys and his arms and chest are pretty ripped for somebody that "let himself go". If anything, he looks like an off-season athlete; not like somebody that has been an alcoholic pill-popper for several years.

Anyone else think the game is off-point in this description of him? Is it really fair to men's body image to declare even this to be undesirable? Also, are there other games with protagonists in that middle ground between rail-thin/cartoonishly-muscled and cartoonishly-fat?

 

[XMark]

Nah, Max just has a major self-image problem. Always talking himself down when he self-narrates.

 

[Zhukov]

Heh, I remember thinking the same thing. He isn't even close to being fat.

I think it's just a case of male character visual design just sort of defaulting to muscular and burly. Essentially the flipside of the female characters having perfect figures. Video game guys are almost always strong looking, unless their character specifically requires them to be otherwise.

 

[hazabaza1]

He's got a little bit of chub. That's about it.
Hell, he just looks like a middle age dude who doesn't exercise much.

 

[lechat]

there are a couple of scenes where he is a bit flabby round the middle but when you look back on payne 1 and 2 he was a pretty skinny guy

 

[Smertnik]

He does have a slightly protruding belly. That counts as fat in Hollywood terms.

 

[josemlopes]

He was a skinny dude in MP1 and 2, so him being now like this...

...it makes sense that he thinks that he got fat

 

[Pulse]

No he's just big boned!

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

He isn't fat, but he does not have the physique he did in the first 2 Max Payne games, where he was younger. Really though, when he talks about being overweight, it's mostly that he's depressed and kind of hates himself and blames himself for everything that has gone wrong in his life. The fact that he gained a couple of pounds doesn't make him fat, but in his own mind it does.

 

[Prince Regent]

Well the point is that he let himself go. He used to be in great shape and now he's a bit chubby and has a drugs/alcohol problem. It isnt so much that he's fat, but that he's fatter than he used/wants to be

 

[Cavan]

Well he does have a beer belly from all that drinking but I would'nt say he was actually fat.

He really doesn't, his stomach is completely and quite obviously flat during the whole bald headed vest part of the game :/

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I think he has bigger health problems than an expanding waistline, such as bullets flying past his face, his severe alcoholism, and his suicidal depression. At worst he is out of shape, but he can still fight with the best of them. I would call it refreshing to see a protagonist who isn't exactly the picture of health.

 

[Spikethebloody]

he's not fat, put on some pounds yes.

now this is what i call fat

 

[lunavixen]

Payne does have a very negative self image, while he certainly has let himself go a bit in comparison to the previous games (not to mention he's older and it's hard to maintain a slim figure as you get older) he is not fat as i see it, out of shape, yeah, but not fat

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'd say he's got unhealthy habits and a crummy self-image. "Fat" in the sense he seems to want to suggest isn't really an epithet that goes with him too well. I hear "fat" and I think "a hundred pounds overweight". Overhang, jelly belly and all. He's no Adonis, but he's certainly no Chief Wiggum either.

If anything, his shape fits with his role. He's crummy enough to look like a louse, but still reasonably fit to go about dodging bullets in slow-motion out of sheer, dogged persistence and desperation.

 

[Woodsey]

Muscular arms, but I'd say he certainly gains something of a paunch in 3. It's certainly more of a Big Meat-Head look, and it's not like he looks particularly healthy.

 

[Nouw]

Hilarious thread-title OP.

Nah, Max just has a major self-image problem. Always talking himself down when he self-narrates.

I'd say it's a bit of both. Max is indeed always moping however he has gained a bit of weight so it can be justified, as far as justification of talking yourself down can go.