Daria – Bitch Flicks

Fatphobia and Fat Positivity: The Roundup

Fat, Black, and Desirable: Fat Positivity and Black Women by Chantell Monique

If these women aren’t seeing any positive images of themselves on screen, how are they able to construct an identity of truth? Even though they can rely on their community for positivity, if it’s not reinforced through media representation then it renders that support useless.

Invisible Fat Women on How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory by Stephanie Brown

Several sitcoms, however, rely not on the on-screen presence of a so-called “unruly body,” but rather on the imagined image on an off-screen one.

Fatphobia: What Daria Got Wrong by Maggie Slutzker

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.

Steven Universe: Many Dimensions of Fat Positivity by Stella DellaRosa

He is soft. He is round. He is squishy and loving and completely without pretense. There is no guarding wall around his heart, no desire to compete with other boys, no need to be seen as “cool” or “tough” or “edgy,” and no compulsion to become anything other than what he already is because he knows that “what he already is” has value.

What They Did Right in The Heat by Rhea Daniel

Her character may at first feed the stereotype that fat people are overbearing, belligerent and take up too much space, but the camera doesn’t make her body a joke (with accompanying thunder-thighs music). I like M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” as the song of choice, and they do look pretty believably badass, with a comic overtone.

16 and Healthy: My Mad Fat Diary Is Teen Girl Fat Positivity Gold by Ariana DiValentino

And therein lies what makes the show such a wonderful example of fat positivity and feminism—Rae is, per her own description, mad and fat, but it takes less than a single episode to make it abundantly clear that she is so much more than that.

Parks and Recreation: How Fatphobia Is Invisible by Ali Thompson

I don’t think it would be quite the same barrel of laughs if the motto of Pawnee were “First in Friendship, Fourth in Poverty.” Fat shaming and fat jokes like the People of Walmart photos are often a socially acceptable stand-in for the classist shaming of poor people. Poor people are more likely to be fat, after all. We get paid less and we’re more likely to be fired. Oh, the comedy!

Shallow Hal: The Unexpected Virtue of Mockery by Brigit McCone

Its challenge to fatphobia is covered in fat jokes and gross-out humor, tailored to trigger our prejudices. We can laugh, if prepared to question why. We can sympathize, if braced against an awkwardly half-choked, giggling snort. Humor strikes faster than self-censorship.

When Being Fat Isn’t A Big Deal: Jenny Gross on Winners and Losers by Ren Jender

The default body size also extends to actresses who are not meant to be “decorative.” In writer-director Andrea Arnold’s powerful, excellent Red Road, from the UK, star Kate Dickie has a nude scene which is neither meant to be nor is erotic, but her body has as little fat as that of a professional marathon runner. When women see these bodies as “the norm” in films and TV even those of us fortunate enough not to hate our bodies (and even those of us who are not habitually called slurs because of our size) have to fight against the tendency to ask, “What exactly did my body do wrong to be so unlike that of nearly every woman I see onscreen?”

The Foxy Merkins and the Uncharted Territory of the Fat, Lesbian Protagonist by Tessa Racked

That separation is reinforced by much of the film’s comedy, but Margaret isn’t positioned as an object of ridicule or disgust, as is often the case with fat and/or gender non-conforming characters. She is naive, gauche, and in over her head, but she is also the character with whom the audience empathizes most.

The Revolutionary Fatness of Steven Universe by Deborah Pless

It does my heart a lot of good to watch this show and imagine a world where no one gives two craps about my weight. But I can only dream of how much this must mean to the little kids watching it. I mean, bear in mind, this is a children’s show. It is meant to be consumed by children. And those children will be watching the wacky adventures, thinking to themselves, “These heroes look like me. That means I could be a hero too!”

The Fat Stardom of James Gandolfini by Sarah Smyth

What’s clear is that, in our contemporary society and culture, the male body is not invisible. Although the female body continues to be more heavily regulated and controlled, particularly in terms of weight and appearance, the male body is no longer removed from similar considerations. As we continue to look more intensely and critically at the male body, we can anticipate a time when new images of masculinity become not only realized but embodied.

Sophie in Don Bluth’s Anastasia by Jackson Adler

Sophie is still exceptional among animated characters, and even live action characters. Though a fantastic character, she should not be the exception. She should not be a rare case of fat-acceptance. It should not be rare that a fat woman loves herself and is loved.

Geraldine Granger, the Vicar at Large: Fat Positivity in The Vicar of Dibley by Rachel Wortherley

Because of their position in the church as a figure that facilitates human connection to a higher power, people usually disconnect priest, vicars, etc. from human emotions. Being sexless or promiscuous is also attributed to female characters in media who are fat, or overweight…One of the exciting things about The Vicar of Dibley is that Geraldine is not a sexless and humorless character—as a vicar and a woman with a fat body.

What Your Doctors Really Think About You: Fatphobia on Medical TV by Elizabeth Kiy

Fat bodies have a curious position in medical drama, reflecting the fatphobia existing within the medical profession. Doctors tend to assume weight always a cause rather than a symptom and overweight patients are either lazy, uneducated or poor. The wealthier we are, the more opportunity we have to strive for thinness. As a class, doctors are incredibly privileged, both highly educated and wealthy, they have the privilege of deciding to be thin that many of their patients do not.

Fatphobia: What ‘Daria’ Got Wrong

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.

More than Just a Monotone: How Well Do You Remember ‘Daria’?

It’s been more than 12 years since ‘Daria’ ended and it’s still in public consciousness. The beloved MTV series and its heroine frequently end up lists of best TV shows, cult shows, favourite female characters and 90s nostalgia. Music licensing issues that held up home video releases for years, ended in 2010, when a DVD set with the series’ entire run of 65 episodes and two TV movies was released. And last year, College Humor produced a fake trailer for a live-action movie starring Aubrey Plaza. In today’s media landscape, where cancelation no longer means the end of a series, Daria is often one internet commentators beg for more of. And yet, the memory most people seem to have of Daria as a character isn’t quite right.

A memorable shot of an uncaring Daria from the show’s theme song

It’s been more than 12 years since Daria ended and it’s still in public consciousness. The beloved MTV series and its heroine frequently end up on lists of best TV shows , cult shows, favourite female characters and 90s nostalgia.
Music licensing issues that held up home video releases for years ended in 2010, when a DVD set with the series’ entire run of 65 episodes and two TV movies was released. And last year, College Humor produced a fake trailer for a live-action movie starring Aubrey Plaza. In today’s media landscape, where cancellation no longer means the end of a series (as seen in recent resurrections like Arrested Development, 24 and Veronica Mars), internet commentators often beg for more Daria. In the comments section for College Humor’s video, many implored the website to find a way to make the movie for real.

And yet, the memory most people seem to have of Daria as a character isn’t quite right.

On the internet, as in real life, the Daria Morgendorffer people remember is a misanthrope with a monotone voice. An uncaring, almost comatose girl, wandering through the world and hating it indiscriminately.

Aubrey Plaza plays Daria in College Humor’s fake trailer

Plaza plays her this way, never excited, never caring, never attached to anyone or insecure. Several articles about the College Humor video even praised her performance as a perfect Daria impression. But Daria, though often monotone, was much more than that. While she did wander around uncaring through the theme song, in the series proper, she was always running into walls- the people and institutions around her, her world’s expectation of what she should be, and most crucially, her view of herself.

More than anything, Daria wanted to be the girl we remember as unfazed by anything, but instead, kept disappointing herself with her insecurities and the inadvertent connections to people she formed. She was like so many of us as teenagers, deciding what kind of person we were supposed to be while killing ourselves to fit the mold.

But did she cared. Perhaps she cared about things more than anyone else around her. Through five seasons, she fought against fake sincerity, commercialization, and the power and respect given to those with status, money and good looks. She refused to lie about herself for a college scholarship, fake enthusiasm for a part-time job and challenged authorities who threatened the quality of her education, her integrity and her artistic expression. While she scoffed at false values like school spirit, popularity and edginess (a word adults use to sell things to teenagers), she hated them for robbing her generation of meaning and for talking down to youth.

There was a sour taste in her mouth when consuming media directed at youth but written by adults attempting to remain cool. She rejected media directed at teen girls in favor of Conrad, Camus and many political, philosophical and feminist texts, giving 90s teens perhaps their first exposure to classic writers and important ideas. That Daria read these kind of things on her own without a teacher assigning them shows how much she valued learning and encouraged many viewers, myself included, to revisit things we’d been assigned in school and written off as boring.

In her spare time, Daria wrote short stories, acted out No Exit with dolls, made anatomical models, learned about art history from her artist best friend, Jane, and music history from her crush, Trent, and enjoyed watching trash TV–all ways of developing an intelligent mind and broadening her conception of the world outside Lawndale High: her personal idea of hell.

Daria feels contempt for her peers, dismissing them as idiots

I think you can best understand Daria as a character by seeing her as the type of girl who suffers through high school, assuring herself that in college everyone will magically understand her and speak to her on her level. Sadly, when she visits a local college, she realizes that the people there are the same ones she knew in high school; they’re just older.

Like many of us, Daria looks down on her peers, believing she is more intelligent, sophisticated and mature than them. Though in many cases she’s right, as her classmates, particularly the jocks and cheerleaders are often cartoonishly stupid (even for a cartoon). The popular crowd can’t even spell their own names, and they view being a “brain” like Daria as a fate worse than death. She’s different from her peers, and that difference stands out, as in one episode, she and Jane are the target of a witch hunt.

But Daria is often shown that her assumptions of people’s character and her contempt for them are unwarranted. Her vain sister Quinn is capable of writing a vaguely intelligent poem, ditzy cheerleader Britney has moments of insight and a brilliant tactical mind, and infrequently Daria meets intelligent boys who understand her and her weird sarcastic humor. It’s even painted as a character flaw that Daria clings to first impressions and judges everyone around her. She’s never surprised when someone disappoints her, displaying their true self as self-centered, calculating or dense; she’s only surprised when they go along with her joke or give her an intelligent argument. For example, when she finds out Andrea, a would-be friend from summer camp, idolized her, she can only respect Andrea when she stands up to her.

Daria has a crush on Trent, her best friends older brother — Daria has a crush on Trent, her best friend’s older brother

Even Daria herself doesn’t always measure up to her ideals. Though she is a a teenage girl, Daria wants to be so much more than that. Along with her dismissal of her peers and of the media they enjoy, she views being a teenage girl as a weakness and refuses to allow herself to be human. She has a hopeless crush on an older “bad boy” who rarely notices her, even though she’s smart enough to know he’s irresponsible and totally wrong for her. If she’s being logical, she knows he’s not an option for her and the type of life she wants to live, but still she finds him irresistible and even gets a navel piercing to please him; something she would never do otherwise.

She feels ashamed when she realizes she really wants a romantic celebration for her anniversary (like 30 Rock‘s Liz Lemon and her wedding), as she views sentimentality as pathetic. In several episodes, she struggles with her own sense of vanity, attempting to hide a rash across her face and attempting to wear contacts even though they hurt her eyes because she likes how she looks with them. She disappoints herself with her desire for contacts as she feels there is no reason to want them besides vanity.

Within her school, Daria is known as “the brain” and “the misery chick,” identities she never chose for herself, doesn’t completely like but feels entirely lost without. Within her family she’s the smart one, and Quinn is the pretty one. When that balance is disturbed and Quinn is praised for her intelligence, Daria feels threatened. If she isn’t a brain and smarter than everyone else, she doesn’t know who she is. In another episode, she struggles with her peers’ view of her as someone who is always miserable and thinking about death.

Daria briefly gives herself a makeover to look like her sister, Quinn

Though when people meet Daria, they frequently gasp (to an exaggerated degree) in disgust at her appearance, it is frequently suggested that she could easily fit in and be popular if she wanted to. Modeling scouts at the school first zero in on Daria over supposedly more attractive classmates, and in one episode, she dresses like Quinn and her appearance threatens her sister. Through she sees herself as far above her peers, she clearly understands them and knows how to appeal to them, once inciting a riot by manipulating them with a short story.

Daria’s friendship with Jane Lane is one of the greatest things about the show as it portrays them as two people with similar interests and a shared sense of humor, while managing to make them distinctive people with different reactions to the same events. Their relationship also humanizes Daria, as Jane challenges her and forces her to confront her flaws and figure out why she feels certain ways. Without Jane, Daria could easily be that silent girl, observing and judging a world she is unattached to, but Jane gives her reasons to care. Jane also worries less about fitting into a certain image; instead she wants to experience every opportunity she can, believing it will make her a better artist and drags Daria along to house parties, school dances and other parts of teen life she would otherwise ignore. Moreover, Jane doesn’t see being intelligent and sarcastic and joining the track team, getting a boyfriend or auditioning for the cheerleading squad as mutually exclusive. Her attempts to get involved force Daria to attempt to reconcile her contempt for their peers as a group with the existence of Jane, one of her peers who she really likes and respects. It is perhaps Jane’s humanizing influence that make Daria feel guilty about making a video that paints Quinn in the worst possible light and so edits it to be more flattering.

Daria’s best friend Jane is a humanizing influence

Certainly Daria is someone that needs humanizing. In one episode, she confesses to Jane that she often feels superior to other people, sometimes thinking to herself, “You can see things that other people can’t. You can see better than other people.” This reminded me of the first episode of Girls, where Hannah Horvath memorably told her parents she thinks of herself as the voice of her generation. It was an audacious statement, that led many to hate the character, but it was also really unique for a young woman to express grandiose thoughts, to think of herself as great and significant, rather than suppress herself with (often false) modesty as many of us have been taught to. Jane is a great friend for Daria because she takes her confession seriously, values Daria’s opinions, and disarms her, joking (though with a kernel of truth). That this is why she’s proud to be Daria’s friend. It’s great to see characters who are allowed to be audacious.

As she grows up, Daria is able to recognize how difficult she was as a child and how much her parents struggled to raise her. She learns that when she was in elementary school her parents’ marriage was strained as they were frequently called in by the principal to talk about her lack of friends, her refusal to participate and her depressive nature. Toward the end of the series, when she volunteers at a summer camp, she meets a young boy who reminds her of her younger self and is able to see some of her character flaws for herself. She quickly becomes invested in his growth, realizing that she really cares whether she gets through to him. She helps him avoid some of her mistakes, particularly missing out on life by pretending to be uninterested. It’s plain that Daria as she was when the show began would never have been able to see herself so clearly and to connect on this level.

Using a short story Daria imagines the future for her family

We see a glimpse of the future Daria expects (and most will most likely get) when she writes a short story imagining herself and Quinn as adults visiting their parents. Both are happy and have learned to get along and step out of their comfort zones. The story makes Daria’s mother cry and reveals she is more sentimental than even she realizes.

If you’ve never seen Daria, or you haven’t seen it in years, it’s worth a watch to see one of the most memorable and realistic teenage girls I’ve ever seen on TV.

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Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.