Fatso: The Damning Codependency Of Betas

Fatso is a Norwegian movie, released in 2008, about a fat, ugly man who cannot get laid. I will use the movie and its plot and characters to analyze the narcissism of the beta male – as typified by the main character, Rino, in the movie. I will also draw on Dr. Robert Glover’s book “No More Mister Nice Guy,” to understand why these sorts of males exist.

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The movie opens with Rino in a grocery store. Already, we can tell he is fat, unattractive and tremendously awkward – especially with women. He clearly has a crush on the cute blond at the checkout line – but has negative game and even trips when leaving the store. Immediately, we are hit with a cartoon spiff. Rino makes and draws a series of cartoons in which his alter-ego – Captain Cock – either does things he won’t do in real life or is the scapegoat for the shame Rino feels about his sexual feelings and desires. In the initial cartoon, a bunch of cops show up and arrest him for having a hard-on. They interrogate him for watching tons of porn and visiting sex-chat sites. In a bit of foreshadowing, the cops solve his “problem” of having sexual impulses by castrating him.

Zooming back to real life, we see Rino illustrating the exact cartoon sketch he just laid out. There is a ring at the door and we see him hurrying through his house – porn on the computer screen, his living room littered with Coke bottles, beer cans and a pizza box. Then, in comes Rino’s clearly narcissistic best friend – skinny, ugly and looking like he stumbled out of a bad 1970’s porno. He comes in and immediately begins riffing about his tight game and banging asthmatic chicks. They go out to a bar and he brags about banging a 53 year-old woman.

Another important take-away from the movie is still in the first ten minutes. Rino’s dad comes in – with a kid- and is seemingly gay. Regardless, he has the air of a man who can’t understand why Rino is the way he is. He has the usual parental exhortations – why can’t you get a girlfriend? Why aren’t you ambitious? Rino’s horrible insecurities owe to this man’s influence. Still, he announces to Rino he will be getting a roommate, an attractive, young blond woman named Marlin.

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She moves in and the impression of a breezy, superficial party girl is made. She is bubbly and bright towards Rino, which catches him off guard because no woman has ever treated him that way.

However, two strands in the movie appear. One, is Marlin’s increasing reliance on Rino emotionally. Rino trys to the play simp “pity me game,” which gets her to hug him, gets her to confess feelings about stuff to him and gets her to cuddle with him and all that. For the moment, the male hamster is satisfied. The second is his relationship with his narcissistic best friend. He uses Rino as little more than some pathetic guy he can boast to about banging old women, hookers and selling dope to kids. His relationship with Rino hits a climax at a house party Marlin throws, which is a mini-climax.

In the lead-up to this party, Rino tries working out. However, one more of his cartoons pops up as he falsely thinks everybody is judging him at the gym, so he runs away, never to come back. He changes his look, wearing a suit coat to the party along with styling his hair. He still looks a little shabby, but much better than before. Marlin says he looks cute and he stares into the mirror after that compliment – a little too long. Regardless, Rino at least makes some fumbling gestures at women and they are not turned-on, but neither actively dissing him.

Once again, he flees to the balcony, where Marlin consoles him telling him drunkenly to not be depressed. Rino’s friend comes in, blazing mad Rino is throwing a party with cute girls and demands to be allowed to cook a few pounds of bacon on his stove. Rino’s friend remarks to him, “Is bacon too primitive for you now?” I laughed hard at that one.  However, this symbolizes what Rino is to the people in his life. To his dad, a failure and does nothing to understand Rino. To Marlin, an emotional tampon. To his best friend, a simp he can feel superior to. However, this blows up as expected.

Later on, Marlin is crying at the park and he inquires as to why. Long story short, the alpha male she was getting fucked by broke up with her. They take on one of the most beta pacts ever – she steps into celibacy, while he steps out. She decides to set him up with a date.

Rino walks into the restaurant and immediately approaches an attractive blond at the bar with no fear. It shows much fear can impede a man, as the female wasn’t swooning but was at least entertaining his advances. It isn’t his date, however, as a chubby blond calls him over.

Rino loses it. He calls her a disgusting lard ass and pours his beer in sheer beta defiance over his head. She grabs his hand in an act of empathy, but he jerks away and leaves. He flees home and begins to draw one of cartoons in which Captain Cock takes control of his sexuality and fucks hot chicks.

He meets up with his best friend and decides to go to a strip club. Rino gets turned on and decides to go with his best friend to a brothel to finally get laid. When he goes into the dirty brothel, there are several fairly good-looking women there. He has serious jitters and the matron gives him a strong drink to help him relax. He chugs it and gets more nervous, so nervous he runs all the way home in the pouring rain. He finds Marlin, crying because her alpha came by, fucked her and then told her it was over again.

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He carries his fair maiden to the bedroom, where they sleep and cuddle together, with her pressing her almost naked body against his. In his sleep, he dreams of fucking her, but habits are habits and he begins stroking in his sleep. She wakes up and recoils in horror and calls him a disgusting pervert. Bad choice of words on her part because that triggers his deepest fear and he runs to the bathroom, grabs a blade and threatens to cut his dick off. She eggs him on at first, telling him he won’t do it because he is too big of a pussy. Well, he does it. We are presented with another cartoon montage where he gives up his cock and balls, much to cheering of a crowd. He gets to a hospital and is fixed up.

He comes home and Marlin is waiting for him. She comments on how sorry she is for egging him on and tells him she found his drawings and he is really good at drawing. She gives him a final exhortation – possibly the best advice he got the entire movie – and to leave the apartment. He is too trapped in his own mind there. At the end, he goes back to the market with the original girl. He buys some paints and asks her on a date – very badly. She politely declines and leaves; all the while pretending – in his mind- he has changed significantly.

What to make of this? Rino may appear to be a narcissist and he does have narcissistic qualities, as he is preoccupied with his false view of himself and ignores his true SMV. He displays nothing more than superficial changes in his life – his workout routine lasted all of one day. What he really displays is sometimes called “inverted narcissism” or, codependency.

Codependency is a common psychological issue that one develops as a child, with either a narcissistic parent or a drug-addicted parent. They are characterized as having a deep ability to understand other’s emotions, but only as so far as it relates to the given codependent’s ability to perform a particular role in a narcissist’s life.

In Fatso, Rino plays the regular simp who is psychologically used by those around him, but insofar that it allows him to act out certain roles. With his best friend, he gets to act out his failed relationship with his father, as he gets to the play the fascinated, idolizing inferior. With Malin, he plays the emotional tampon, the guy who gives her the emotional support she craves from the alpha male. With women in general, he gets to live out his fantasy of “Captain Cock” who not only saves women from the clutches of uncaring assholes, but who also gets his sexuality approved of. I noted only once did he actually fantasize about having sex – it was all about the ability to get sex in theory. That sounds like narcissism.

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Understand that deep down, Rino doesn’t want his sexual desires approved of. Codependents have a superficial desire for approval, as that is what they got from their self-absorbed parents. Any real displays of approval are almost always rejected, sometimes very strongly. This is reflected in Rino’s inability to come to grips with his sexuality. He craves superficial acceptance – for example, when he asks that women out at the end, she says she is engaged and “might” take go on a date with him if she was single. It was worded so that it was a very light rejection, but still could be taken as an acceptance. That is exactly what he wants – superficial approval from women so he can live out his fantasies in his head, while simultaneously avoiding any real, substantive contact with women. The closest he got to ever touching a female was after a serious psychological shock at the brothel, having run home half-drunk and presented with a great white-knighting situation. The best he coughs up is jacking off and then trying to slice off his dick.

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This is where the book “No More Mister Nice Guy” comes in. Written by Robert Glover, it is a handbook for the beginning of changing a “nice guy” or beta male. Dr. Glover does lay some serious tips to help the codependent male. Understand, the narcissist is protected by narcissistic armor – their defenses against criticism. Telling a narcissist in therapy that he or she has value is worthless because they will laugh at you. Of course they believe that, their narcissistic armor ensures that at a superficial level. In my opinion, the most insecure people are narcissists. They hide behind serious defense mechanisms that make you think they are strong. They are not. However, one of the benefits of being a codependent comes in. Codependents already blame themselves – their self-hatred is just below the surface, that is why narcissists target them so shamelessly. They know they can get them to act out the roles they need them to.

This is why codependents are receptive to therapy – accepting blame for their actions is their nature. They don’t have the serious deflection armor narcissists have. While their self-blame is shamelessly self-centered, it is the first step of solving any problem – admitting a problem. Codependents are acutely aware of their deficiencies – look at Rino. He knew he was fat, ugly and sexually repulsive. His cartoons he drew reflected that realization. Marlin, at the end, remarks that he has a level of self-awareness. She recognized and empathized with the fact Rino knew on some level he was sexually worthless to most women.

In the book, Glover lays out nice guys. He characterizes them as guys, who think if they get everything “right,” that love, lust and all that jazz would flood into their lives. He positively cites Lasch’s “Culture of Narcissism” book near the beginning, signaling he notices that many men are suffering from narcissistic parents. However, his expose of the typical nice guy could literally be channeled through Rino.

In Glover’s words, nice guys operate on two axis’: the “I’m so bad” and “I’m so nice” nice guy. The “I’m so bad” nice guy is really a guy who has been convinced of his inferiority by a parent; he abuses alcohol, drugs and others in an attempt to prove his lack of worth. In other words, he attempts to paper over his own perceived worthlessness by pretending to be bad. He really isn’t anti-social, he just acts that way to get attention. The “I’m so nice” guy is a person who believes that they really are the nicest person around. They paper over anger, fear and sexuality by pretending it doesn’t exist. After all, they are the paradigm of the goodness. Any nice guy can vacillate between these two polar opposites given the right circumstances. Rino displays the “I’m so nice” guy outwardly. When confronted with this sexual desires, porn use, etc. he flips to the other end of the spectrum – “I’m so bad,” I’m sick, depraved and a loser. When Malin confronts him with his desire for her, he runs off in a tantrum to deny himself his very manhood. A playing up of the “I’m so bad,” while emphasizing the “I’m so good” – I will rid the world of my depraved sexuality.

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What causes these feelings of worthlessness? Two concepts: abandonment and shame. If you are raised by a narcissist, that person only cares about themselves. A baby would quickly realize that their needs and desires aren’t relevant. They would begin to act out in ways that would allow them to function with the paradigm of that relationship. Since narcissists need to feel superior, babies and children would most likely play the inferior to get attention.

Roberts provides a great breakdown of shame. Shame-based people are people who believe that is inherently dangerous to be who they are. It is a dichotomy that breaks down – “There must be something wrong with me because [fill in the blank],” and “I am lovable when [fill in the blank].” Analyzing Rino through this lenses, it becomes clear he was lovable as a child when he took care of female emotional needs, but he was in the wrong when he asserted himself. He was lovable when he listened to and praised a male superior, he was in the wrong when he expressed himself in a way that a female found inappropriate.

This is where Robert’s analysis of the social forces that lead to this comes in. Roberts comes down on a few forces: lack of fathers, a feminized education and feminism in general. He recognizes the lack of quality fathers impairs a male’s ability to grow into a confident man. Second, he comes out and says the early years of education isn’t about education but learning how to please the female superior (!). Third, is feminism; Roberts says that sayings like “All men are pigs” or “All men are rapists” do nothing but hurt vulnerable men; further, even sayings like “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” hurts men who were already conditioned in this female-centric to look for a woman’s approval first.

Ultimately, men like Rino really don’t have a chance. Born into a system and a world that does little to understand boys and men, men like Rino simply don’t slip through the cracks, but fall right through the massive holes society affords these men.

Regardless, men like Fatso will still be jacking off watching the flickering screen of their TV.

Read More: Archer On The Importance Of Mothering

43 thoughts on “Fatso: The Damning Codependency Of Betas”

  1. It’s scary how much you just described me…
    Im just starting on a path to self improvement. I’m starting to realize that I’m not the man I want to be, but I could be that man if I didn’t get in my own way.
    So far ive cut sweets and soda out of my diet, no eating after 7. In hoping these small changes will make it easier to turn them into habits. I then plan to build on those habits.
    Good article.

    1. Congrats. I totally recommend juicing (fruits and veggies). Buy yourself a decent juicer and begin incorporating more raw fruits and veggies into your diet…it’ll go a long way. Also, read red pill blogs…aside from ROK, I like Rational Male and Alpha Game Plan. Progress is a slow process indeed…but you’ll reach your destination. Stay Focused!! Never mind the Haters!!

      1. This. Gym makes a HUGE difference. Despite all the bullshit about “what’s inside counts” women regularly are attracted to a man with a good figure/nice shoulders and arms. FACT!

        1. They only appreciate that stuff on a superficial level. And don’t be surprised even if you do look like Hercules, you’ll get more than several ladies scornfully telling you to “put a shirt on!” or calling you “gay!” should they catch you showing off that glorious upper body you’ve worked so hard for.
          Lots of luck to you, good sir.

        2. the good part is that it will change him inside too. the endorphins will be flowing. his mind will feel sharper. he’ll be a new man.

      2. Or play a sport. Even if you play in a crappy social league your team mates will be infuriated by a lack of physical fitness.

    2. Welcome to the journey. That’s a nice start so far.
      And indeed, start going to the gym, not only for your health but also self-discipline.

    3. Don’t feel bad. I’ll just say I wasn’t exactly the same but in other regards you’re not alone.
      Dropping those habits is a TREMENDOUS step in the right direction. Why? Because you’re getting off your ass and actually doing something about your problems. Eating healthy will make a huge difference in your life.
      I can’t even begin to describe the many benefits of working out. I only wish I had done so sooner. I’m not a “big” buy but apparently in good enough shape that women regularly notice me an in some cases much more than that. Let’s just say working out hard (not half-assing it) will separate you from 90% of other guys and your confidence will get a huge boost.
      One more tip: Improve your style. I frequently get called “handsome” and “good looking” as I now gave up sloppy T-shirts and “feel comfortable” lazy-guy clothes for stylish Express long-sleeves, sport coasts, and tight shirts that complement my athletic physique. The result has been GREAT.

    4. Good for you Orgavin. It is never too late to change your destiny. Getting in shape, and looking physically desirable in the eyes of females is a huge ordeal for a young (or older )man. However the greatest advantage that looking good will give to you i is Confidence.
      Confidence is a magical attribute. In fact there is nothing that makes a female more wet than Confidence. In fact outright cockiness is even better if you can master it without looking foolish. Anyway, good luck on your attempt to transform yourself. With dedication, perseverance, and a refusal to lose, you will undoubtedly become the man you were always meant to be.

  2. “No More Mr. Nice Guy” is a great book. I’ve handed it off to a couple of friends in need, but I don’t think they read it or took it to heart. The guys who need the most help are the least likely to accept the way they really are.

  3. Excellent story of the classic beta male
    Beta’s rarely see the errors of their ways with woman. Brainwashed into being unconditionally nice to all woman, while suppressing their natural masculinity.
    Todays pycho-sexual intergender relations
    Woman=Narcissists
    Male=codependent

  4. Got bored after the first paragraph. Couldnt make it any further than that. Dont think I missed much to be honest..

  5. Got bored after the first paragraph. Couldnt make it any further than that. Dont think I missed much to be honest..

  6. Even in a narrative such as this, the beta cannot capitalise on proximity to a thirsty girl.
    How depressing.

    1. This movie is very real. Most beta men have no idea how to escalate and ruin perfect opportunities to get laid.

  7. Just reading the description of that movie made me tense and angry. Think I’ll skip Fatso.

  8. Great article. Fatso is a hard movie to watch. It does do a good job of exemplifying the so called nice guy.

  9. NMMNG was the first book I read about this time last year. Now this was after about 6 months of working out – but really doing it for the wrong reasons (at least for a NG) – you have to get beyond all the crap around the external – and really start to focus on internal. They why should be about getting laid (although that can be a great side benefit) is should be about about doing something GOOD for YOURSELF. Most NGs have a hard time doing anything specifically for themselves that does not have a “better” benefit for someone else. They “joy” they have in their lives is centered around other people – and never themselves.
    I highly suggest most Men should read the book – regardless of whether they believe they are a NG or not. And then if you believe you are – then get active the NMMNG Forum – and start working on yourself for yourself.

    1. To quote Chris Jones, that V-taper, will make them hoes wanna rape ya. You should workout for yourself and your own health though. I’ve gotten sidetracked from the extra attention that women have been giving me now that my physique is on point, but I get the best results (mentally and physically) from my workouts when I’m doing it for me and me alone.

  10. I definitely see part of myself in Rhino and it is very interesting to read the theories behind it. I spent most of my life being ashamed of who I was as a man … ashamed of my desires for emotional and physical connections. Old habits die hard, but sites like ROK have opened my eyes like never before.

  11. I decided to check the movie out. Just wanted to say that the guy playing Rino should be the guy that plays Christian Weston Chandler if they ever make a movie about him. That is all.

  12. I am a foreign film buff fanatic, but even I avoid movies from Norway like the plague! They are depressing and dismal and NEVER fail to show men as decrepit, pathetic, or depraved creatures. Just watch the movie trailers to almost every Norwegian film over this past decade, and you will see an unmistakeable pattern. Ugh!

    1. There is a movie about a WWII Norwegian saboteur Max Manus that does this exact thing. Guy was daring and unreal, but at the end of the movie he is crying in an increasingly disgusted girl’s lap as the crowd outside is rabidly cheering for him to make an appearance.

  13. I watched this movie for the simple reason that the girl, Josefin Ljungman, is incredibly attractive.

  14. “Zooming back to real life, we see Rino illustrating the exact cartoon
    sketch he just laid out. There is a ring at the door and we see him
    hurrying through his house – porn on the computer screen, his living
    room littered with Coke bottles, beer cans and a pizza box.”
    You mean its not just Americans who live like filthy pigs? Norwegians do too?!
    Western Civilization is rotten to the core, and across continents.

  15. Is anyone else sick of the whole alpha/beta crap. Like there’s only 2 types of men in the world?

  16. this is an incredibly insightful review. i’m new to this sight and i hope to find that you have done more reviews here. 5+

  17. Find a hero and study how to become like him. Growing up my heroes were Bruce Lee and Arnold.
    It took a many years of hard work, training at the dojo and the gym, and developing good eating habits to grow up into my own hero. Develop your mind too and create lofty life goals to reach for. Become more than you are by working hard for your future. Develop self-discipline through continuous practice and diligence.
    Women love a strong, smart, confident man. Become one.
    Remember self-improvement never stops. Live the dream.

  18. I actually think this guy in the movie looks kinda cute. But I myself am a beta female so it could just be that I have a realistic idea of the kind of guy I could get, even subconsciously.

  19. Shit…. this article hit home way too hard. It’s great I just found out about these communities/sites. The drug addicted parent. Just… the everything, it’s like a biography

  20. Fine analysis.You need to get a job critiquing movies.There must be at least one mainstream publication prepared to hear a brutal and honest and excellent overview.

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