This detached character study is neither a feelgood story of empowerment, nor a grim look at a life on the margins and is more powerful for it
‘Muscle worship, domination, same-old same-old.” Tischa “The Tigress” Thomas is describing a recent session with a client, who pays for the privilege of submitting to her will. Thomas’s main gig is bodybuilding, but like many semi-professionals in the world of sports entertainment and performance, she engages in various side-hustles to make ends meet. One of the strengths of Philipp Fussenegger’s documentary portrait of her is that it is not wholly a feelgood story of uplifting empowerment, nor is it a relentlessly grim look at a life lived on the margins. Instead, it shows how for Thomas (as for most people), the highs and lows blend and overlap, and tend not to obey the neat narrative arcs of fiction.
In other respects though, this is a documentary that does feel rather like fiction. Fussenegger doesn’t make use of talking heads or a narrator, or have a stated agenda; it’s more of a character study. Fortunately, Thomas is a compelling subject, with multiple contrasting facets to her personality. When we meet her, she’s dancing on camera, joyfully delivering some inspirational chat around body image, which she defines simply and directly as “how you think and feel about how you look”. A little later, we see her bitterly upset that her expensive spray tan has run during a bodybuilding show.
