Black Fatherhood – Bitch Flicks

Fatphobia: What ‘Daria’ Got Wrong

She tells the girls she isn’t supposed to eat chocolate, but she’d like to buy some anyway. Then, she faints as a result of hypoglycemia and possibly exhaustion, the results of her being so large. Daria and Jane stand still for a moment, startled and clueless, and then Jane takes a picture.

This guest post by Maggie Slutzker appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

Daria might be my favorite show in the entire world. In the last two years, I’ve watched the series straight through at least four times. I love almost everything about it— the way Quinn pimps high school boys, Ms. Barch’s misandry, Mr. DiMartino’s dry sarcasm, and everything about Jodie Landon. Helen Morgendorffer is my idol, and I long to spend a weekend with the Lane family. Most of all though, I love Daria and Jane’s friendship and how it survives every obstacle it encounters. Daria is the only show that makes me laugh, motivates me, and reminds me to appreciate my friends and family, all at the same time. But, since the very first time I viewed the series, there has always been one thing that made me uncomfortable. Through its five seasons, Daria was able to tackle so many issues with grace—being ditched by your best friend, alienation by your peers, sexism, racism, elitism, marriage, the true tedium of high school, and douchebag boyfriends. So what isn’t on this list? Fatphobia.

There is one notably fat character on the show, but if you aren’t an obsessive watcher like I am, you may not remember her. Her name is Mrs. Johanssen, and she’s probably diabetic.

Mrs. Johansen never appears for very long, but she’s always a source of comic relief. We first meet her in a season one episode (“Cafe Disaffecto”) in which Daria and Jane are selling chocolate bars for a school fundraiser. She tells the girls she isn’t supposed to eat chocolate, but she’d like to buy some anyway. Then, she faints as a result of hypoglycemia and possibly exhaustion, the results of her being so large. Daria and Jane stand still for a moment, startled and clueless, and then Jane takes a picture. Mrs. Johansen wakes up and insists on buying every single chocolate bar they have. When Daria and Jane leave without selling them to her, Mrs. Johansen calls up legendary principal Angela Li and complains. When Ms. Li suggests that maybe Mrs. Johansen wanted the chocolate for her family, Jane says, “She has no family. She ate them.”

In her handful of appearances throughout the series, Mrs. Johansen is always depicted in a very specific way: short, messy hair; usually panting, sweating or having some sort of physical trouble; always wearing a muumuu; and of course, always obsessively pursuing some sort of food, whether chocolate bars or cheese logs. This is briefly explained in the episode “Psycho Therapy,” in which she is speaking with a psychologist about using food for comfort her parents didn’t provide. There is emotional trauma behind her fatness.

One of the great things about cartoons is that they have a unique opportunity to make characters of literally all shapes, sizes, and colors, and treat every single difference, no matter how bizarre, as completely normal. The fact that Skeeter from Doug was blue or that Arnold and Gerald from Hey Arnold! had some non-standard head-shapes were acknowledged, but in the end these features were only background to the real problems characters dealt with. Daria too never ignored a character’s appearance, from Brittany’s chest, to Trent’s tattoos, to Jodie’s Blackness and related struggle. The show was excellent at revealing new sides and dimensions to characters, and seemed to take pleasure in showing hidden strengths and weaknesses. Mr. DiMartino had a gambling addiction and a sensitive side, and vain Quinn turned out to be pretty clever and even kind. Daria was excellent at showing that there was always more to a person than an image or stereotype. So why make the only fat character utterly one-dimensional, more a device than a person?

It’s also interesting to me that a show so centered around teenage-hood barely seems to mention fatness, something most teen girls hear about constantly. Among Daria’s own struggles with body image, weight is never mentioned, though a lack of curvaceousness is. The only other characters who discuss weight and fatness in detail are, of course, the Fashion Club. The Fashion Club quartet are beloved to me, especially Quinn, whose developmental arc in the series is one of my favorites. But they are— and of course, they’re intended to be— problematic and ridiculously, hilariously superficial, and the episode about weight gain is no exception. The episode in question, “Fat Like Me,” begins with the Fashion Club deciding whether to set a weight limit for its members. Just minutes after the topic is introduced, club president Sandi Griffin falls down a flight of stairs and breaks her leg. She manages to stay out of school for several weeks, and when she returns…she is “fat.” (If we assume all members of the Fashion Club are under a size four, then I’m guessing “fat” means maybe a size seven or eight?) At Daria’s thinly veiled advisement, Quinn becomes Sandi’s coach after the weight gain threatens to destroy the Fashion Club, and Sandi loses the weight. For Sandi, a fat body is an obstacle to overcome.

In writing this, I don’t mean to say that you’re a bad person if you laughed when Mrs. Johansen and Mr. DiMartino faced off over free sample cheese logs. Nor do I mean to claim that there aren’t fat people who are unhealthy or even whose lives are threatened by a condition related to their weight. What I’m saying is that this is not the only way fat people exist. There are plenty of of healthy, happy, stylish people who are also overweight or obese. There are fat people who exercise, and there are fat people who aren’t obsessed with food. To put it plainly, fatness isn’t automatically a problem. But Mrs. Johansen embodies every negative fat stereotype there is. Her fatness is a medical condition, a consequence of excessive and unhealthy living as well as possible abuse. When Sandi gets fat, it is a result of forced inactivity and again, something that she and Quinn have to solve. When, at the end of the episode, Quinn suggests the Fashion Club ease up on weight limits, it is another suggestion that weight gain is a consequence of unfortunate circumstances, another implication that fatness is a problem to be pitied.

For Daria to indicate that fatness comes solely from inactivity and junk food is particularly frustrating because Daria herself adores junk food. There are frequent mentions of cheese fries, and pizza plays a pivotal role. She drinks soda. Quinn chides her for eating hamburgers, chocolate cake (for breakfast), and a cartoon version of Pop Tarts. Quinn herself is an embodiment of popular beauty standards— one of her first priorities is “bouncy hair,” and though boys are constantly fetching her soda, we’re pretty sure that it’s diet. The show repeatedly uses Quinn and the Fashion Club to poke fun at all things superficial, and Daria to expose the hypocrisy behind the messages we send teenagers and consumers. But while Daria doesn’t diet, rarely puts on makeup, and never lets fashion dictate her wardrobe, she also never gets fat. So why the automatic connection between fat and food when the TV show itself acknowledges that skinny people can easily love and eat junk food?

Now, Daria may be a slightly older program, but its narrow depiction of fat characters is part of a problem we’re still dealing with today. It is rare to see a fat character whose fatness isn’t made into comic relief (think Bridesmaids), an embarrassing history (Schmidt from New Girl), or some sort of terrible consequence (Precious). It is nearly always a negative, something to be pitied. Daria strived to point out that nothing is perfect, not all is as it seems, and everyone is vulnerable. But sadly, for a show so determined to point out the absurdities of societal expectation, Daria really didn’t shed any light on fatphobia other than to contribute to it.

Maggie Slutzker is a writer, feminist, and fervent Daria fan. You can follow her on Twitter @SuchaSlutzker.

Debunking the Missing Father Myth in ‘Happyness’

While many of the film’s events differ from Gardner’s memoir, the film compensates for this with its extremely authentic and loving portrait of a Black father/son relationship that is rarely seen in mainstream media.

This guest post by Rhianna Shaheen appears as part of our theme week on Black Families.

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) is a film based on the true story of Chris Gardner, an on-and-off homeless father turned self-made millionaire. While many of the film’s events differ from Gardner’s memoir, the film compensates for this with its extremely authentic and loving portrait of a Black father/son relationship that is rarely seen in mainstream media.

In 1965, Senator Moynihan employed the stereotype of the absent Black father in a report on Black poverty in America called The Negro Family: The Case For National Action. In it, he blamed absent Black fathers for the socioeconomic inequalities faced by Black communities. Although his racist, sexist, and classist arguments have been debunked again and again, this myth is still just as pervasive in today’s media. On the news, film, and TV, Black men continue to be criticized and scrutinized for being violent, abusive, or missing. It is therefore very rare that blockbuster films like The Pursuit of Happyness are ever made.

Set in San Francisco in 1981, we follow Chris Gardner (Will Smith) as he struggles to balance fatherhood with his contract business selling bone-density scanners. While he’s sold most of them the business no longer make ends meet for rent or daycare, creating added stress for his wife Linda (Thandie Newton) who works as a hotel maid. When Chris meets a stockbroker one day he decides to look into the job opportunities at Dean Witter.

While Chris sells scanners he must also jump through a ridiculous number of hoops just to impress the manager, Jay Twistle (Brian Howe). After personally delivering his resume, Chris only manages to get Jay’s undivided attention (and a job interview) when he solves a Rubik’s Cube in a short cab ride home. How messed up is that?

In fact, his search for the American Dream becomes more and more like a nightmare: hippie girls steal his scanners, parking tickets get him arrested, the IRS seizes his earnings, and cars hit him in the street.

But these are the sacrifices Chris will make to protect his son’s happiness.

When he lands the internship at Dean Witter and finds out it’s unpaid, Linda reaches her breaking point. She leaves him and their 5-year-old son Christopher (Jaden Smith) for better opportunities in New York. It’s not an idealized fatherhood, but his actions are always validated in the film, no matter how drastic. While Chris may not be able to provide financially for his son, he is able to give him the emotional support that he needs.

One of my favorite scenes (and the most heartbreaking) comes when Chris and his son find themselves homeless, forced to sleep on the subway floor. It’s a traumatic experience. How does any parent even begin to explain that to their child? Instead, Chris turns the dirty subway into his son’s imaginative playground where dinosaurs roam and the restroom is their prehistoric cave.

Never revealing his circumstances to his colleagues, he continues to work tirelessly at his internship until one day they offer him the coveted full-time position. He has finally achieved happiness.

It’s a sympathetic portrayal of Black fatherhood that also demonstrates the severely limited life opportunities that poor Black people faced in the 80s and continue to face today. But does the film know that?

While Hollywood can sometimes surprise us with these positive representations, they never quite gauge the complexities of race and class in these narratives.

Chris is often the only Black man on screen, and in a room full of white corporate businessmen his Blackness is never acknowledged.

As Diane Shipley from Bitch Media writes:

“The movie shies away from any exploration of intersectionality and the fact that Gardner is black isn’t acknowledged (he’s much poorer than the Huxtables, but he lives in a similarly ‘post-racial’ world).”

This isn’t too surprising when you consider that the real Chris Gardner blames “place-ism” rather than racism for his early hardships. In an interview he says, “He didn’t have a college degree or parents who were professionals. He didn’t play golf or have a network of well-to-do friends who could be prospective clients.” While all of this may be true, Happyness suggests that these were the only obstacles in his way.

Even producer and star Will Smith admits, “In this film, racism is conspicuously avoided.” It’s a conservative pursuit to happiness that feeds the harmful myth used by many GOPers that poor Black people don’t work as hard as white people. And if only they did then maybe they would be just like Chris Gardner and not unemployed, incarcerated, or uneducated at higher rates.

While Chris is poor, Black, and a good father, the film also does nothing to address the crippling socioeconomic disparities that affect other Black men like him. From the beginning, Chris says:

“I met my father for the first time when I was 28 years old. I made up my mind that when I had children, my children were going to know who their father was.”

Chris may debunk the missing father myth in his own individual story, but he does little to hold the system behind it accountable. According to Donna Peberdy’s Masculinity and Film Performance the film stresses:

“that the power of the individual is limited and that change is also necessary on a political level. […] Despite personal sacrifices, Chris ultimately relies on the brokerage firm to help him achieve the American Dream. Foregrounding individual responsibility can be seen as a political manoeuvre to take the emphasis away from government accountability.”

This can be seen quite literally when the film diverts all social anxieties with a clip of President Reagan delivering bad news about the struggling economy.

Yes, this is a film for all audiences, but it was made especially accessible for white audiences. The first time I saw The Pursuit of Happyness I was 15 years old. I sat in a theater with a mostly white audience in a conservative military town. As a young white girl, I laughed, cried, cheered with the audience through my then “colorblind” lens.

I remember the film’s marketing hook banking on Will Smith’s new persona as the “family man” and his real son Jaden Smith playing his movie son. Even in many of the interviews, Will stressed the Smith family values of “communication, education, and truth,” as if to sell the film on the authenticity of his own fatherhood.

Another issue is the negative portrait of the mother (the film’s only female character). The mom has her shit together. When things get tough she provides for the family by pulling double shifts for four months. Chris, on the other hand, does not work overtime. Instead, he has invested all his life savings into the risky enterprise of overpriced bone-density scanners. When Linda leaves the picture, the filmmakers and Chris seem glad to be rid of her:

Chris: “Get the hell out of here. Christopher is staying with me.”

Linda: “You’re the one that dragged us down. You hear me?”

Chris: “You are so weak.

Linda: “No. I am not happy anymore. I’m just not happy!

Chris: “Go get happy, Linda! Just go get happy.”

I’m sorry, isn’t happiness what this whole film is about? Why must the Black mother be the villain? Why must one positive representation of Black fatherhood forgo that of the mother? And why on Earth would you make the white savior stockbroker more likable than her? Even when his son asks about his mother’s absence, Chris says, “mom left because of mom” omitting himself from any blame. I understand that the focus of this film is a father/son relationship, but a film should not need to reinforce the “patriarchal order of things” in order to achieve that.

While The Pursuit of Happyness is an extremely rare and accomplished narrative, it’s important not to overlook its flaws. Its powerful portrayal of a father/son relationship both on film and in life is extremely valuable in shaping future media. However, with Black films still struggling to break Hollywood barriers–both at the box office and the Oscars–it becomes imperative that we get these stories right, even if they aren’t deemed popular by the mainstream.

Rhianna Shaheen is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a BA in Fine Arts and Minor in Film Studies and Art History. Check her out on twitter!