By Robert Scucci
| Published
When it comes to movies about body positivity and loving who you are, 1995’s Heavyweights sits on the top of the feel-good mountain for not only its vicious and borderline insensitive sense of humor, but for its teachable moments about getting out of your comfort zone with a positive attitude. Comedy at the expense of a bunch of overweight adolescents isn’t easy to execute with tact, and I’ll always have an appreciation for crude humor at the expense of others, but there’s a catch – you can’t just be crude for the sake of being crude, or mean for the sake of being mean.
Heavyweights is a perfect example of how tasteless jokes, especially when directed toward children, won’t come off as politically incorrect, even when its principal characters are the butt of too many fat jokes to count, because its humor never comes off as punching down.
From Camp Hope To Perkis Power
No kid who’s metabolically challenged ever wants to find out that their parents are sending them to fat camp, and Heavyweights begins with a gut punch to Gerry Garner (Aaron Schwartz) when he finds out he’s going to be shipped out to Camp Hope, a summer-long weight loss program, against his will. But it’s not all bad because Camp Hope is led by the warm and welcoming Harvey (Jerry Stiller) and Alice Bushkin (Anne Meara), has a great diet plan in place, and a number of attractions like go-kart racing and “the Blob” (a large inflatable water platform) that will make any kid go nuts for the sake of fun without realizing that they’re actually exercising.
Just as Gerry finds friends in Josh (Shaun Weiss), Roy (Kenan Thompson), and a whole bunk full of other horizontally challenged kids his age, the Bushkins break the news that they have to file for bankruptcy, and that Camp Hope has been purchased by fitness influencer Tony Perkis Jr. (Ben Stiller), who wants to spend the summer filming a weight-loss infomercial for his “Perkis Power” program, and rebrands the camp as such.
Heavyweights Wouldn’t Work Without Its Antagonist
Ben Stiller fires on all cylinders in Heavyweights as Tony Perkis Jr. with his brutal diet and fitness program, as well as his mean-spirited attitude towards overweight children, even though he claims that he used to be overweight himself. His first order of business is raiding the cabins for hidden junk-food stashes that actually make you want to root for him for a second because he’s not wrong about the lack of self-control that has become the modus operandi of Camp Hope over the past 18 years under the guidance of counselor Pat Finley (Tom McGowan). Think about it – these kid’s parents are spending a lot of money with the hope that their children will adopt healthy habits that will benefit them for the rest of their lives, and they’re treating it like a long vacation full of forbidden junk food without ever making any progress.
However, Tony Perkis Jr., who would be one of those fitness influencers on Instagram selling snake oil in the form of supplements that don’t work while fat-shaming anybody who comes across his feed if he existed in 2025, is such a jerk that you realize he doesn’t care about these kids improving their health at all, and will stop at nothing to make their summer as miserable as possible so he can sell his infomercial.
He also removes the motors from the go-karts and pops The Blob, squashing any notion of fun that the kids were looking forward to.
Though you’ve seen Ben Stiller play very similar character archetypes in films like Dodgeball, Tony Perkis Jr.’s over-the-top attitude and proclamation that he “eats success for breakfast, with skim milk” drives the point home that he’s a psychotic opportunist with no redeeming qualities, and a tremendous proof of concept for the kind of bully you see Stiller portray later in his career. Similar to Al Bundy from Married … with Children, Tony is unlikeable by design, which allows the humor in Heavyweights to land because at the end of the day, he’s the joke.
If you need a prime example of how much of a cringe-inducing loser Tony is, I’ll point you to the assembly scene when he runs from the stage with both arms outstretched to receive high-fives from the audience, who are so unenthused by his presentation that they all leave him hanging.
Lessons Are Learned After Everything Falls Apart
Heavyweights does teach a valuable lesson by the time it concludes, and it’s that even though the weight-loss camp was taken over by a tyrant whose unconventional methods are the stuff of nightmares, his presence leads to the catalyst that’s needed for each and every kid and counselor who’s trying to get rid of him. Learning that there are better ways to approach health and fitness, they also realize how the old way Camp Hope operated wasn’t doing anybody any favors either, and you have to thank Tony Perkis Jr. for being the extreme countermeasure that proves this point.
At the end of the day, Heavyweights is an effective feel-good comedy because not only is there a common goal to restore status quo at Camp Hope, everybody also learns that they need to change how they do things on a fundamental level, and still have fun in the process while being proud of who they are and setting goals for who they want to be.
As of this writing, you can stream Heavyweights on Disney+.