The Fat Slags

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sandra Burke & Tracey Tunstall - The Fat Slags
Sandra Burke & Tracey Tunstall - The Fat Slags

The Fat Slags is a comic strip appearing in the "alternative" British comic Viz. The eponymous slags are Sandra Burke and Tracey Tunstall (known to everyone as San and Tray); two enormous women whose dual purpose in life is to eat as much as possible (mainly chips) while also having vast amounts of casual sex. As with other Viz strips, the Slags' authors use a brash writing style, avoiding political correctness.

The slags' eating frequently follows a night of binge drinking, and the circumstances of the sex or the partner in question are rarely an issue - they have been known to leap on delivery men or workmen for gratification (that usually being the sole reason for calling them over in the first place); with the targeted man rarely given an opportunity to resist, refuse, or escape. Both slags regularly enjoy carnal relations with Baz, a local jobless dropout who divides his time between drinking, committing crime, and having sex with San and Tray (even though Baz is already married). Baz's good-natured wife, Thelma, quite often finds out that Baz is cheating on her, but invariably forgives him. The other major character in the strip is Baz's slightly more successful friend, Dave, who works as a refuse collector (binman), but earns most of his income through massive benefit fraud.

Whilst most Viz characters are recognisably from North East England (the comic is largely written in Geordie dialect), Sandra and Tracey are said to come from Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. Despite their questionable antics and priorities, both characters are noticeably warm-hearted and easy-going, and their friendship is never undermined by their conquests. Their excessive lifestyle is a parody of British ladette culture. Viz creator Chris Donald refers to this in his book, where he mentions that at the time of these criticisms the Fat Slags had not appeared in the magazine for more than a year, but as a direct response to the criticism they were immediately resurrected for the next issue, in which they had a humorous run-in with the feminist Millie Tant. Donald later questioned why the Guardian had slated the portrayals of the Slags, but hadn't mentioned that the two male characters were portrayed as a cheating layabout and a fraudster, and that the strip's only "well-behaved" (although behaving like a doormat) character (Thelma) was a woman.

In 1992, a Fat Slags single was released, a cover of the 1963 Cliff Richard hit Summer Holiday. The b-side was a track called Dance of the Handbags (Oh Lordy! It's The Fat Slags). Both tracks were produced by Mike Stock and Pete Watermen, two of the PWL Hit Factory producers Stock Aitken Waterman. It was a monumental flop though, and failed to enter the music charts.

Although both of the Slags are stupid - albeit good-natured - nymphomaniacs, Tray is marginally more intelligent (and literate) than San, who is marginally more nymphomaniac than Tray. These factors, combined with Tray's more dominant personality, make Tray the leader and San the follower in their adventures. One strip parodying the Batman films featured Tray as Batman (the leader) and San as Robin (the sidekick). In another strip, San got pregnant and brought the baby (a girl) to term, tearfully vowing that she was prepared to make any sacrifice for her daughter's happiness. In the very next panel, realising that motherhood would conflict with her pub-crawling, she gave up the baby for adoption.

Tray normally wears tight-fitting Capri pants whilst San normally wears a too-small skirt; since the latter garment (leaving her 'naughty bits' unprotected) has more potential for jokes, San tends to get involved in more slapstick than Tray does. Although neither Slag has ever refused alcoholic refreshment in any setting, their favourite place to tipple is a pub somewhere in Fulchester with the enchanting name the Dog and Hammer.

They once appeared in a UK Lucozade advert, saying "Get it out of our fridge!" in unison.

[edit] Fat Slags: The Film

In 2004, a feature film version (titled Fat Slags) was released. It received extremely poor reviews, and it was reported that the strip's artist, Mr. Shiels was so demoralised by the treatment of his creations that he announced that he was dropping them from the comic altogether. This was actually a misquote by an over-enthusiastic press officer and Shiels had no intention of dropping the characters. For a short while the strip was drawn by Mrs. Crocker but Shiels started drawing them again a few months later. (Shiels strips have often had various artists drawing them, depending who's available at the time.)

The film received a slightly better reaction from the 'F.A.' (Fat Admirer) community. Not for an accurate or complimentary depiction of large women, nor for being a well-adapted version of the comic. The good reaction came from the fact that one of the long standing fantasies of most F.A.s is that of an attractive thin woman gaining a lot of weight when she finds out that the person she has a crush on is an F.A. Not only that, but the woman who gains weight is Geri Halliwell. She also happens to be the only person to wear a fat suit designed, apparently, to make her look attractive rather than comical. The speed at which she gains weight is also surprisingly accurate.

[edit] Trivia

Their real names are Tracey Tunstall and Sandra Burke. This is how they were addressed by a priest whilst attending the baptism of Baz's daughter (Viz, March 2006). This was also noted in the Fat Slags video.

[edit] External links