Rating
With the support of love and understanding,
we can make us better,
not change ourselves or others.
Because we are all beautiful
while walking with someone
in the park
with bright and confident smiles.
Why I Watched PAM
From the snapshot, I knew what Omeleto might want to deliver in this less than 14-minute short film because in such a short span, how could a producer shine up the miserable shot but only emphasize the cruel side of a superficial reality?
I clicked on it since that snapshot was my life for three decades. I was never pretty, never fit into any clothes I wanted to wear, never liked to see myself in a picture, and never ‘cared’ (oversensitive aware of) about how people looked at me.
It was a horrible and twisting mentality to see others suffering the same misery and trying to make a change. I waited to see a hopeless result. I knew it would fail since I had been a failure.
One after another motivational stickers on the mirror in the bathroom, countless notebooks of recording the diets (and I tore up the page of me overeating, and then I was soon out of pages), apps for calculating the calories, only liquid diets two days a week, brands of diet pills, a shelf of workout DVDs and books, yoga mat, dumbbells, treadmill…, yeah, I’d tried anything to break out the ‘curse’ alone.
I knew the unease of walking into a gym alone, the oppressive terror of changing into a swimsuit, and the petrified of the coming of summer, a time to wear a skirt in school uniforms. I was once addicted to all the weight shows on TLC, binge-watching them while indulging in all the sweets, drinks, and fried stuff.
I barely watched any challenger’s transformative journey to the end. I focused on their cheating day, lashing out at the trainers, families, and doctors, and self-humiliating. Once they moved through all the difficulties, I moved on to watch how ‘fucked-up’ the next ‘case’ was.
I was Wrong in Bliss.
I was wrong. Dead wrong. I thanked my stupidity of watching it out of sinister expectation. The cleansing water ended up circulating inside me and I saw a significant change in a normal family.
I Didn’t Know It Was Horrible
In the comments of PAM, so many people shared that the most disturbing part was when PAM was asked to remove the clothes. I was beyond surprised since that is what I was required to do when I underwent the surgery of liposuction.
The skinny nurse with heavy makeup made me only wear one-use underwear and a male doctor drew big and small circles on my belly, thighs, arms, and accessory breasts with a marker.
I was led to a shooting room to take the before picture to show how obese I was, how tragic I was, and how ugly a 25-year-old could be. It was like a mugshot- I committed the crime of being overweight and came here for a makeover.
I woke up from the surgery, and the nurse pointed to three plastic bottles filled with yellowish-red liquid beside my bed, and said, “See, that’s how much fat the doctor had tried so hard to extract from your body. It was beyond the limit we expected!”
I felt like a warrior who finally fought a victory battle. I appreciated all the help of doctors and nurses. I was a changed person and would never go back to the gross past.
Thank You, PAM by Omeleto
I didn’t post this article to talk about the before and after of liposuction or how many weight loss clinics I had been to. My heart was filled with compassionate love, positive energy, and admiration for PAM’s persistence and solid bonding with her mom.
I guess PAM’s mother was a single mom who raised PAM by herself, so she was independent, invincible, and strong-minded. She lived the way she wanted and ate whatever she wanted. The moment of her being out of control when PAM threw the food in the trash can was understandable, and I loved what she said about how she wouldn’t change her life to look like some kind of model and told PAM that she was already beautiful.
It was a masterpiece of expressing confidence in being yourself while making an effort to be better,
instead of wanting to ‘change’ yourself to become somebody else;
a profound directing of portraying the solid bonding between a mother and a daughter;
an incredible script of telling a story with such a positive power.
The climax was the simple interaction between the mother and daughter at the dining table, each of them taking a piece of food from the other’s plate/bowl, indicating PAM accepts her mom’s way of living, instead of blaming her for not doing the same to support her. Meanwhile, her mom respected her daughter’s decision to pursue her goal without condemning her.
The ending part was so beautiful that I was enthralled by these two women’s smiles, and desired to join their walk, feeling the venerable love they building up within each other.
Learn from It, TLC
As for the trainer, he would become a celebrity mentor with superhero music, folding up his masculine arms, and being shot from down to up angle with authoritarian introduction. Here we would have a mini TLC version of the body transformation video.
Must Watch
A kind of short film I will remember in this chaotic era. PAM by Omeleto
