Documentary ‘Fitgirl’ shows one-sided picture

Geschatte leestijd: 3 minuten In the documentary ‘Fitgirl’, we see the preparation of a bikini fitness athlete for the Dutch Bodyfitness Championship. It’s a portrayal of a ‘fitgirl’. One of many.

‘Fitgirl’

It’s already March. So, it’s not surprising that we’re served the annual one-sided documentary about fitness fanatics. In the theme of ‘strange guys those Romans’, it’s popular to delve into the world of people with a passion for fitness. I say ‘passion’, but ‘obsession’ scores better. That’s why we often see a fixed recipe for such documentaries. A recipe that results in a meal that should taste strange above all. Perhaps this doesn’t always happen consciously. Perhaps it’s sometimes an inevitable outcome of two (other) choices by the documentary maker: When you as a documentary maker decide to delve into a subject of which you have little knowledge and choose a single storyline. The great danger then is that you fail to provide the right context. That doesn’t have to be a problem if your main characters provide this context in different storylines. With one main character, the chance of a complete picture is considerably smaller. Insiders can then expect the necessary criticism in advance. Outsiders don’t know any better and now have a one-sided view which will henceforth be their frame of reference. By telling a single storyline, it becomes more difficult for these viewers to determine to what extent certain behavior can be attributed to the character or the environment. Translated to the subject: Is this fitgirl obsessive or is the entire fitness scene obsessive?”

Documentary ‘Fitgirl’

With the chosen setup, it’s not strange that my Facebook timeline quickly showed the first negative reactions to the documentary. Especially other bikini fitness athletes who didn’t recognize themselves in the portrayed image. That feeling of misrepresentation was expressed last year as well. We didn’t have to wait until March for that. Vrouw magazine felt the need to ask Sonja Bakker for her opinion on ‘the Fitgirl’. My opinion on Sonja’s response I have therapeutically written away in an article where I explain, among other things, that ‘the fitgirl’ doesn’t exist. With bikini fitness athletes, you have at most a subcategory of ‘fitgirls’, consisting of many completely different individuals.

Obsessive

So, the setup of the documentary is rather risky and the title covers much more than the content. Let me finally talk about the content. The main character, Robin Molenaar, says at the beginning that she wants to show ‘that you don’t just do this’. Followed by the familiar story about the required discipline and perseverance. ‘So you don’t look at those girls on social media and think it’s easy’. Where we men have to rely on Chiel and Filemon, at least the ladies now hear it from someone who’s not a novice. I think there’s little to criticize about Robin’s story. In my opinion, the viewer can forgive summarizing it as months of sacrifice and self-flagellation to shine on stage for a few moments. But this is Robin’s story. The story of the women who stood next to her on stage may be different. In fact, one of the commenters on Facebook was one of those women. She certainly didn’t recognize herself in this image.

Born on a Shoestring

I think I know where the shoe pinches. Fitness and bodybuilding have one very important philosophy. You could call it their raison d’être. This is the thought that everyone can change themselves into the desired image. In fitness and bodybuilding, you don’t have to accept that you were born as a dime if you want to be a quarter. That philosophy is responsible for all the great successes among fitness fanatics and for the great disappointments. Based on her physique seven months before the competition, my suspicion is that Robin ‘was born as a dime’. She shows that with hard work and complete dedication, she can change herself into a quarter. But next to Robin, there may have been someone on stage who ‘was born as a 20 euro cent coin’. She also had to work hard to become a quarter. But that hard work doesn’t come close to the feeling of complete self-sacrifice and self-flagellation. Someone whose body reacts differently to nutrition and training. Or someone who has a less emotional relationship with food. As a fitness photographer, I work with many of the type of women on social media that Robin probably refers to. There are women among them who compete at the same level, but apparently don’t have to go as deep (some were on the same stage in the documentary). There are also women among them who do go that deep, but are now competing at an international level. They may have been born as a quarter and are well on their way to 50 cents. I missed such nuances now, although I honestly didn’t expect them either. These kinds of documentaries ‘about fitgirls’ are not for fitgirls. They are for the colleagues who look at you shaking their heads when you’re sitting with your Tupperware container during lunch again.