The Only Frame From 'The Whale'

About

The Only Frame From The Whale refers to a series of memes that claim that the entire movie The Whale only has one frame in it. Spawned by a promotional image of Brendan Fraser as the main character Charlie being overused for news articles about the film, the joke gained popularity in mid-March 2023.

Origin

Prior to the release of the 2022 film The Whale which stars Brendan Fraser as morbidly obese recluse Charlie, film studio A24 released^[1] a promotional image of the character (shown below, left). The image was then used in various promotional materials, including the official trailer^[2] for the film (shown below, right), as well as the cover for multiple news articles about the movie.

On March 12th, 2023, film news Twitter^[3] account @FilmUpdates tweeted the news about Brendan Fraser winning the Best Actor in a Leading Role award for the film, again using the frame to illustrate the tweet. On March 13th, 2023, Twitter^[4] user @williamwannaw quote tweeted the post, commenting, "Does this movie only have one frame in it." The tweet (shown below) garnered over 11,700 retweets and 270,400 likes in eight days.

Spread

On March 14th, 2023, iFunny^[5] user YaraFlor posted a screenshot of the tweet, with the post gaining over 5,600 smiles in one week.

In the following week, more jokes about the image constituting the entire content of the film were made on social media, with the image also being referred to as a jumpscare. For example, on March 18th, 2023, Twitter^[6] user @mailprivilege tweeted the image, paired with a VLC player UI, commenting, "the entire .mp4 file is just a still frame of Brendan Fraser making that stupid fucking face." The tweet gained over 2,500 retweets and 27,700 likes in three days (shown below, left). On March 20th, 2023, Twitter^[7] user @tippity posted a Family Guy gif with the frame edited into the clip in several places, earning 6,742 likes and 1,183 retweets in two days.

More memes based on the joke appeared on Twitter, iFunny and other social media platforms in March 2023.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References