Fatphobia – 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.

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

Written by Elizabeth Kiy as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

Most medical dramas draw from a common well of plots. There’s the amnesiac, the guy who wakes up from a coma after 10 years, the deadbeat dad who wants a transplant from his daughter, and the 600-pound (or thereabouts) man who has to be cut out of his house.

Of course, this man is treated like a monster, the rare patient not worthy of sympathy because it is assumed his condition is entirely his fault, and he has chosen to be unhealthy. Fat bodies on TV as well as in Western culture as seen as shameful and disgusting. The 600-pound man on TV is treated as a medical oddity and a living freakshow that doctors within the program and viewers at home are invited to gawk at, assured that as uncomfortable we may be with our own bodies, at least we’re not that.

On House, the 600-pound man is further Othered by the assumption that he is dead when he is first discovered. When he wakes up, groaning and thrashing around, unsure what is happening to him, he is doubly monstrous, both fat and “undead.”

The 600 pound man is treated as a monster on House — The 600-pound man is treated as a monster on *House*

Fat bodies also 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.

The appearance of the 600-pound man compounds on the subtle fatphobia within the medium of television, as all the lead actors, and so all the TV doctors, are attractive and fit.

Lexie Grey’s stress eating and weight gain are treated as cute quirks

Though Grey’s Anatomy stands out from the pack with its inclusion of several lead characters who are a larger size, and are treated as positive figures worthy of love, many episodes also contain fat jokes. In several episodes, Dr. Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh), one of the thinner characters, is experiencing extreme stress, and her way of coping with it is to binge eat junk food. When she gains a small amount of weight, other characters mock her for it, but it is never treated as a serious problem; the stress goes away and Lexi continues to be thin. The plot line was intended as an in-joke about the actress’s weight gain during her pregnancy, but it stinks of thin privilege that anyone though this was light-hearted comedy.

Fatphobia is the one acceptable prejudice on TV. Characters we are meant to continue to like and sympathize with can be exposed as fatphobic without thought of consequences, such as Dr. Chase (Jesse Spencer), House’s resident heartthrob. In the episode, Heavy, when an overweight 10-year-old girl is admitted to the hospital after having a heart attack during gym class, Chase, usually especially kind to kid patients, is incredibly cruel to her. He laughs at her and suggests that if she wants her health problems to go away, she should “stop shoving her face with food.” He also dismisses her symptoms of fatigue, muscle pain, and difficulty concentrating as due to clinical depression over her weight. The girl, Jessica, has been bullied and is isolated at school and has been abusing exercise and diet pills and the episode is very uncomfortable to watch, even triggering.

Jessica is an overweight 10 year old, treated cruelly by her doctor — Jessica is an overweight 10-year-old, treated cruelly by her doctor

When Chase’s coworker, Dr. Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) attempts to defend Jessica, he laughs at her as well, saying she is fatphobic as well, because she does everything she can to stay thin. She gets by on thin privilege and enjoys the benefits of others finding her attractive. Later in the episode, we learn that Chase himself used to be overweight and because he was able to lose weight and keep it off, believes everyone who can’t is ignorant and lazy. He continues to blame Jessica’s health problems on her weight, refusing to see that it might be a symptom.

However, the show goes on to suggest that Jessica is the rare fat person who is worthy of our sympathy because her weight is not her fault. She maintains a healthy diet and regularly exercises, but is unable to lose any weight. Because of this she is not a “real” fat person so negative stereotypes do not apply. It turns out that she has a pituitary tumor that was causing her to gain weight and the episode ends with a final triumphant shot of Jessica thin and smiling. This shot is notable as House episodes rarely ended with the “cured” patients returning to the hospital or of showing their recovery, its inclusion suggests that the writers though we needed to be reassured that Jessica eventually gets thin.

Jessica is triumphant over losing weight

In House’s 600-pound man episode, attempts are also made to deny him proper medical care as fat jokes are made about him, diagnoses are ruled out without proper consideration because of his weight and he is initially barred from their MRI machine because it is not strong enough to support him.

Grey’s Anatomy’s take on the same plot is handled with a bit more tact. The doctors, most of whom are interns and residents beginning their careers, are given a lecture about proper behavior and sensitivity before they interact with the patient and are warned that anyone who make rude comments will be taken off the case. This rule is strictly enforced, even when the doctors do not feel they’ve done anything wrong. Many of the doctors we are meant to continue to like make fat jokes throughout the episode, but are painted as being young and immature. We are meant to like them, but not support what they are doing.

Doctors are taught to be sensitive about the 600 pound man on Grey’s Anatomy — Doctors are taught to be sensitive about the 600-pound man on *Grey’s Anatomy*

Yet, the patient frequently makes jokes at his own expense and urges the doctors to lighten up, refusing to admit the seriousness of his condition. What gets through to him is the doctors joining him in making fat jokes. With this in mind, it’s difficult to tell whether the show is saying we need to be more sensitive or less sensitive about weight.

The show Nip/Tuck, focusing on plastic surgeons, already comes from a more superficial place than the typical medical drama, but contains some startling examples of fatphobia. Doctors frequently mock fat patients when they are off-screen and discuss acquaintances who need surgery to even be considered normal looking. In one early plot line, an overweight woman who wants to be thin for her high school reunion to show up her tormenters, is denied liposuction because she is also bipolar, commits suicide. This woman’s sad story is not revisited after the single episode and characters continue to exhibit incredible thin privilege. In another episode, anti-hero Dr. Troy (Julian McMahon) has sex with sex-positive, upbeat overweight woman and finds it incredibly enjoyable. He is horrified and after some soul searching, brutally drags her down into self-hatred, making her feel as unhealthy and unattractive as he believes she should feel.

Though it’s a comedy, The Mindy Project also has a conflicted relationship with fatphobia. Protagonist Dr. Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling) is a bright, bubbly woman who happens to be a bit larger that most actresses on TV, and for the most part she is comfortable with her body. She sees herself as sexy and attractive and is treated as such. Still, she refuses to tell people how much she weighs, describes herself as “anorexic” and as wearing an extra small. Mindy though, is not a character who is meant to be perfect or even entirely likeable. She is instead, an exaggerated example of how many of us feel about our bodies.

If I were to chose a TV doctor, I think Mindy would make me feel the best about my body. She reserves her fatphobia for herself and tells her patients they look awesome.

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

The Fat Stardom of James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini and his formidable body

Written by Sarah Smyth as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

Early in his career, James Gandolfini starred in Tony Scott’s blood-pumping, adrenaline-rushing military action film, Crimson Tide. Like Scott’s cult-classic, Top Gun, the construction and display of the male body within Crimson Tide symbolises the “masculine” tensions centralised within the narrative. Set in an American submarine, the film follows Captain Frank Ramsey (Gene Hackman) and Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter (Denzel Washington) who butt heads throughout a series of nuclear missiles crises. Particularly, through the racial dichotomy between the two lead characters, Crimson Tide explores the ideas and ideals of rationality, logic, nationalism, supremacy and power, inverting the traditional racist narrative of the irrational, brutal and animalistic black man through Lt. Commander Hunter triumphant ending. However, although the film challenges conventional depictions of racial embodiment, its investment in the young, slim, athletic body as the traditional symbol of (masculine) strength, restraint and power remains prevalent. Compared to Capt. Ramsey’s ageing and paunchy body, Lt. Commander Hunter remains slim and fit with key scenes depicting him running, skipping and boxing in the submarine. Despite the (literal) visibility of Gandolfini’s overweight body throughout his career, Gandolfini’s weight is not central to the role he plays in this film; another actor takes on the role of the “excessive” and “revolting” fat crewmember. Nevertheless, in this piece, I use the symbols of masculinity imbued in the male body, particularly the fat male body, suggested in Crimson Tide as the starting point for my analysis into Gandolfini’s stardom. Particularly, in the piece, I will look at the specificity and uniqueness of Gandolfini’s fat stardom, asking what his literal fleshy embodiment reveals about the masculine image portrayed on screen.

In his most famous role, playing Tony Soprano in the hit HBO series, The Sopranos, Gandolfini embodies the complex relationship contemporary Western culture has with male fatness. One the one hand, Tony’s fatness most obviously represents his over-indulgence and lack of control. He constantly eats, smokes, drinks and sleeps with numerous women. His body, therefore, is a reflection or extension of the excessive bodily desires in which he continually indulges. Gandolfini’s body was particularly used to represent this in the 2012 film, Killing Them Softly. He plays Mickey, an ineffectual hitman to Brad Pitt’s partner-in-crime, who spends the film a slave to his bodily desires, smoking, drinking and sleeping with prostitutes throughout. He fails to complete a single hit and make any money. He’s lazy, stupid and a slob – and the film represents this through Gandolfini’s body.

Mickey (James Gandolfini) enjoys a drink or three with Jackie (Brad Pitt) in Killing Them Softly — Mickey (James Gandolfini) enjoys a drink or three with Jackie (Brad Pitt) in *Killing Them Softly*

In contrast, Brad Pitt’s character, Jackie Cogan, touches neither drink nor women. He’s an effective and successful hitman who maintains his authority within the Mafia throughout the film. Although Pitt doesn’t display the slimness and athleticism of his body in the same way as Washington in Crimson Tide, Pitt’s stardom or, more specifically, the stardom derived from Pitt’s much desired and desirable body imbues the character with the symbols of power and authority. At its most ambitious, Killing Them Softly attempts to link this to the American dream. At the end of the film, Jackie claims, “[Barack Obama] wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America, you’re on your own. America is not a country; it’s just a business. Now fucking pay me.” The ultimate self-made man, Jackie/Pitt literally and figuratively embody the ideal of the American dream. In the twentieth and twenty-first century, fatness symbolises defiance against the middle-class interest in constraint, discipline and moderation; as consumerism became the site of approved indulgence, fatness became the site of necessary restraint. Within this indulgence/restraint paradigm, then, Pitt/Jackie represent the successful image of masculinity through the very slimness of his body.

Yet, male fatness is not always disempowering. As the gangster genre demonstrates, the fat cats really do get rich. Although Mickey may not exploit his potential monetary earnings, Tony certainly does. Throughout the show, Tony maintains a powerful position because of, rather than despite of, his fat body. This is done in two ways. Firstly, through the figure of Bobby Bacala, The Soprano transfers any of the disempowering features of fatness away from Tony. A carer to Tony’s uncle, Bacala is domesticated, feminised and removed from the main action of the mobster activities. In contrast, Tony looks aggressive, powerful and masculine. Secondly, like other fat figures in the gangster genre, which was epitomised by Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, The Soprano’s foregrounds Tony’s body as a crucial indication of his excessive financial greed and the violent measures he will take to pursue them, enabling him to maintain control over the mob.

The Sopranos plays into the tradition of the fat gangster figure as epitomised by Don Vito Corleone in "The Godfather" — *The Sopranos* plays into the tradition of the fat gangster figure as epitomised by Don Vito Corleone in *The Godfather*

Throughout the show, Tony’s embodiment of financial greed becomes embroiled with the complexities of class politics. Whereas Jackie’s embodiment of the American dream in Killing Them Softly was warped, Tony’s embodiment of the American dream in The Sopranos is completely corrupted. In the pilot episode, as Tony collects his newspaper at the end of his drive, his sloppy appearance – all dishevelled dressing gown and protruding belly – contrast hugely with the wealthy middle-class neighbourhood in which he lives. Tony may have the money to afford such a house, but his illegal and immoral mobster activities and the excess of his consumer consumption continually place him outside of this social order. The Sopranos makes clear that, rather than failing to embody the successful image of the self-made man, Tony, in fact, embodies it too much. Through the excesses of his fat body, Tony embodies the extremes of consumer and capitalist culture.

Tony Soprano's "excessive" body contrasts with the social values of restraint and moderation — Tony Soprano’s “excessive” body contrasts with the social values of restraint and moderation

The Sopranos also makes clear that, despite Tony’s fat body, he’s never considered undesirable by women. He never fails to get laid by women inside or outside of his marriage, and, in this way, never “fails” as a heterosexual man. Furthermore, when on display, the slim and athletic man has to deal with the potential feminizing and queering repercussions of his body; within traditional structures of on-screen looking, the heterosexual male body looks but is never looked at. The Soprano’s undermines this potential emasculation by refusing to position Tony’s fat body as something to-be-looked-at. Instead, through his fatness and male privilege, he has full autonomy over his body and sexuality.

In contrast, in Enough Said, the relationship between Gandolfini’s weight and desirability is centralised and discussed primarily by women. In a very different role, Gandolfini plays Albert, a divorcee who starts dating Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Eva. During the film, we see Albert’s body through Julia’s eyes as she starts off uncertain about him, claiming “he’s kind of fat,” to discovering she enjoys sex with him. Nevertheless, the problems that arise in their developing relationship are consistently linked to Albert’s weight. As Julia (unknowingly) befriends Albert’s ex-wife, Marianne (Catherine Keener), she lets Marianne’s fat-phobic opinions influence her attitude toward Albert and his body. Marianne was always repulsed by Albert’s weight, calling him a slob. Similarly, Julia jokes about buying Albert a calorie book which deeply upsets him. Likewise, Marianne always hated the way Albert picked the onions out the guacamole. When Julia sees Albert doing this, she can’t help but comment on it and remind him that guacamole has a lot of calories in it. By opening up a new space of (heterosexual) female desire and looking and by consistently linking Albert’s flaws to his weight, Enough Said refuses to excuse the male body, particularly the fat male body, as some thing not to be examined, as something not to be looked at.

James Gandolfini's body becomes subject to female scrutiny in Enough Said — James Gandolfini’s body becomes subject to female scrutiny in *Enough Said*

The representation of Gandolfini’s body on-screen continues to reveal and contribute towards the hugely complex and often contradictory image of masculinity within our contemporary culture. He is as much powerful as powerless, effectual as ineffectual, desirable as undesirable. His untimely death in 2013 demonstrated just how polarizing his body is. For every fat shaming response to his death, another person celebrated him for being an inspiration and an icon. What’s clear, however, 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 realised but embodied.

Invisible Fat Women on ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory’

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.

The casts of CBS’s How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory — The casts of CBS’s *How I Met Your Mother* and *The Big Bang Theory*

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

Trevor Noah, heir to The Daily Show throne, recently came under fire for some fat jokes, (among others) that he made on Twitter, demonstrating once again that fat jokes, especially about women, have long been a staple of the comedy writer’s toolbox. Critics of Noah seem to forget that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been making jokes about Chris Christie’s weight for years, a disturbing trend that NPR’s Linda Holmes beautifully addressed in an essay last year. You would think Christie’s policies and actions as governor would provide more than enough material for satire, but comics have found that using fatness as a punch line is a reliable way to get cheap laughs.

Sitcoms, too, have frequently been guilty of using “fat” as a punch line. From Monica’s fat-suit flashbacks on Friends, to Mike and Molly’s poking fun at its main characters, to the Seavers’ constant ribbing of Carol about her weight on Growing Pains (made more disturbing by the fact that Tracy Gold suffered from a serious eating disorder), sitcoms have long made fun of characters for taking up too much space on screen. Often characterized as a moral failing, fatness is policed through ridicule. Such jokes tend to rely on the mere presence of an overweight character to generate laughs.

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. For instance, on NBC’s Will and Grace, Grace’s sidekick Karen consistently rattles off one-liners about her obese husband Stan. CBS’s The Big Bang Theory (2007-) continues in this tradition with its recurring jokes and storylines about Howard Wolowitz’s mother.

Howard is an engineer turned astronaut who lives for a majority of the series with his overbearing mother. The difference between Stan and Mrs. Wolowitz is, of course, that we hear Howard’s mother, played by the recently deceased actress Carol Ann Susi. Howard obviously loves his mother, despite their constant bickering, and the show deals with the death of both the actress and the character very poignantly. Regardless of any underlying affection toward Mrs. Wolowitz, though, the show generally mines humor from descriptions of her unseen obesity.

Throughout the course of the The Big Bang Theory, Mrs. Wolowitz’s weight provides an easy punch line for Howard and his friends. In “The Hawking Excitation” (5.21), Sheldon apparently sprains his wrist helping Howard’s mom into a dress when he takes her clothes shopping. Earlier in the series in “The Engagement Reaction”(4.23), Penny reacts with disbelief to Howard’s story of lifting his mother in order to take her to the hospital, joking that Mrs. Wolowitz’s own legs could barely lift her up. Not only is Mrs. Wolowitz characterized by her weight, she is also described as an overbearing, gluttonous nag. In her character we see the ways in which obesity is tied to morality and humanity, or rather, a lack thereof. And, because she never appears on screen, the audience is free to imagine an even more extreme version of this stereotypical character.

Notably, Mrs. Wolowitz appears briefly on screen during “The Spoiler Alert Segmentation” (6.15), walking back and forth through a doorway behind Raj while he sits in the dining room. Her appearance is meant to work as a sight gag not only because the audience has never seen her, but also because the mere presence of an overweight body is reason enough to laugh.

A faceless Mrs. Wolowitz appears behind Raj as he eats dinner.

While CBS’s How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) doesn’t have a defined invisible fat character to use as a punching bag, the show is similarly permeated by fatphobia. The series, centering on a group of five friends in New York City navigating their late 20s and early 30s, is told from the perspective of the show’s main character, Ted Mosby. For a show that was often wonderfully smart, funny, and sweet, the writers’ strange obsession with making fun of fat women was often infuriating and frequently baffling, as others have noticed and written at length about.

While most of the show’s characters get in a “fat chick” joke at some point during the show’s run, most of the fat panic stems from Barney, the show’s resident bro-y bachelor. While the audience was likely originally meant to read Barney as an entitled, misogynist jerk, because he’s played by likeable human Neil Patrick Harris, the argument that we’re meant to be disgusted by Barney’s behavior rings hollow. Indeed, this site has previously written about the show’s unsettling misogynistic streak.

Barney demonstrates his notoriously icky “Crazy/Hot” Scale.

Like his misogyny, Barney’s fat jokes span the entirely of the series. He feels the need to constantly assert that he doesn’t have sex with fat women, in one instance making his friends swear a “broath” not to interfere with his life unless “unless it is a matter of health, national security or I’m about to get up on a fattie” (“The Broath,” 7.19). He also feels the need to warn his friends not to have sex with fat women. In the season three episode “Third Wheel” (3.3), he makes sure the combined weight of the ladies Ted is about to have a threesome with is “under 400 pounds.” If that weren’t enough, he frequently makes proclamations that no one should have sex with fat women:

Minister: If you want to get married in my church, you’ll stop breaking the ninth commandment.

Barney: Uh, no fat chicks?

Minister: Thou shalt not lie!

Barney: With fat chicks?

(“Knight Vision, “ 9.06)

Rather than punish him for his sociopathic, misogynistic conduct, the show rewards Barney with clever one-liners and fancy suits.

Just one of Barney’s many proclamations of his own awesomeness.

His friends make half-hearted attempts at condemning his behavior, but even they join in on the show’s the panoply of fatphobia, like when Marshall tells Barney that he “sounds like a fat girl on Valentine’s Day” (“Not Father’s Day,” 4.7). Even Lily and Robin often join in gleefully mocking other women. This includes, of course, making fun of the mere idea of fat women. Robin joins in with Marshall and Barney in this lovely exchange after Ted tells them about a wealthy architecture client:

Marshall: He’s rich? Please tell me he wrote you a big, fat check. A check so fat, it doesn’t its shirt off when it goes swimming.

Barney: That is a big, fat check. A check so fat, after you have sex with it, you don’t tell your buddies about it.

Robin: A check so fat, when it sits next to you on an airplane, you ask yourself if it should have bought two seats.

(“Fast As She Can,” 4.23).

Like the characters in The Big Bang Theory, Barney and his friends don’t direct their cruelty at a visible person. They don’t direct their jokes at any specific person at all, but rather at all fat women. Their jokes construct fat women not as people with feelings let alone family, friends, or lovers. They’re either a joke or a disembodied threat to the main characters’ sexual pride. Nameless, faceless, and bodiless, these imagined, invisible women are, like Mrs. Wolowitz, treated as less than human.

An addendum to this point is the way the show treats one of the only fat characters, Robin’s co-worker Patrice. Patrice’s main function on the show was to be yelled at by Robin for no reason and, eventually, to act as Barney’s fake girlfriend so he can convince Robin that he has changed his philandering ways and is now marriage material.

Barney talks to Patrice as Robin, Ted, and Lily try to discern the true nature of their relationship.

This particular storyline shows us, once again, that a fat character’s only function is to act as comic relief and to help the traditionally attractive main characters find love. She may be visible, but her visibility is conditional on performing the one-dimensional supportive friend that so many underdeveloped, potentially interesting fat characters have before been relegated. As Michael Arbieter of Hollywood.com noted about the storyline:

“We can’t be left to forgive Barney and How I Met Your Mother, to subjugate and marginalize Patrice. The fact that we’re asked to do this so cavalierly is frightening.”

Indeed, the casualness and frequency with which the characters make fat jokes on The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, two series that frequently deal with themes of friendship and belonging, imbues them both with an unnecessary cruelty. While fat jokes are often wielded as a way police on-screen bodies, the ridiculing of absent bodies even further objectifies fat people. By not even giving the audience a chance to identify with the character or characters being ridiculed, all subjectivity is, in essence, taken away. Such erasure tells the audience, yet again, that thinness is the price of admission to our television sets. Not only are these characters deserving of ridicule based on their appearance, their appearance is so distasteful as to be banished from the screen.

As we’re reminded by anonymous online harassment or something as simple as talking badly about an absent friend, distance and invisibility often enable cruelty.

While film and television have historically mistreated and relegated fat characters to supporting status, How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory push their fat characters completely off screen. Such distancing brings the process of dehumanization to its natural conclusion, allowing fat-phobia to rage unchallenged.

As Lily once tells Ted, “If there’s one thing you never do, it’s call a woman fat right to her face!” (“The Mermaid Theory,” 6.11). Otherwise, you might actually have to take responsibility for those words.

Stephanie Brown is a television, comedy, and podcast enthusiaist working on her doctorate in media studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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.

‘Parks and Recreation’: How Fatphobia Is Invisible

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

I’ve been binge watching Parks and Recreation episodes on Netflix over the past few weeks, and I really wanted to love it. But every time I am about to decide that I do, Parks and Rec makes a fat “joke.” I have to put the word joke in quotes because the punch line seems to be that fat people exist.

It’s weird that a show that is renowned for its kindness and feminism would rely so heavily on fat jokes, but it also isn’t. The discrimination and microaggressions that fat people endure are invisible to the wider culture, and Parks and Rec is a good example of this.

Fatphobia is a consistent presence in the show. In the “Sweetums” episode Ann Perkins says, “Pawnee is the fourth most obese city in America. The kids here are beefy. They’re just beefy, big-boned, chunk monsters. I call ’em like I see ’em.”

This happens in the second season, and apparently the writers found the existence of fat people so hilarious that they never let up after. Pawnee’s motto is “First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity.” NBC is still selling shirts and bumper stickers featuring it.

There are plenty of times that Amy Poehler will say the word “obesity” as the supposed punch line of a joke, and then smirk at the camera slightly, like—“See? Fatties! Amirite??” The joke here seems to be that just the word “obesity” is funny.

I don’t accept the idea that this mockery is ironic or satirical. The assumption here is that the very existence of fat people is funny. That’s not subversive in any way. It’s “What’s the deal with airplane food” of making fun of what people look like. It is tired and lazy and hacky. And it causes real damage.

The word obesity refers to the mere existence of a fat body as a disease that must be cured. This medicalization of fat bodies has led to an increase in the stigma against fat people. Fat people are constantly confronted with microaggressions related to inaccurate assumptions about our health, even—and especially—at the doctor’s office.

Multiple studies have shown that the majority of medical personnel have negative attitudes about their fat patients and are more likely to see them as lazy and noncompliant.

Parks and Recreation seems to find this stigma hilarious. I don’t. If you had to wade through the never-ending cesspool that is being a fat woman in public and online, you probably wouldn’t either.

Parks and Rec also makes the tired old claim that all fat people have diabetes, which is not only fatphobic but is ableist because it frames diabetes as a punishment for being fat.

In the “Telethon” episode, the telethon is supposedly a fundraiser to end diabetes, but what they really seem to want to get rid of is fat people. The show repeatedly conflates diabetes and fatness and seems to find this incorrect and ableist conflation a source of high hilarity.

“Tonight we’re hoping the people of Pawnee will dip their big chubby hands into their plus size pockets and donate generously… Coming up, a very special video presentation called Even My Tongue is Fat: The Story of Pawnee.”

The existence of the Sweetums factory, which makes high fructose corn syrup, is supposed to be the reason the characters are concerned about diabetes, but here’s the thing: you don’t get diabetes from eating sugar.

Framing diabetes as the punishment fat people get for their laziness and lack of self-control drains the empathy out of any conversation about the disease. It actively harms people with diabetes because everyone, even their doctors, think they have the disease because they did something wrong. It’s hard to get decent health care when even your doctor blames you for being sick.

The “Soda Tax” episode is an example of some of the worst fatphobia and ableism of the show. It uses what Dr. Charlotte Cooper calls “the headless fatty”- images that show fat people as symbols of fear and disgust, removing their humanity so that they can be more easily turned into objects—because bodies without heads are bodies without minds or voices.

“Soda Tax” also continues to conflate fatness and diabetes and to present both as problems to be solved, proposing that a tax on soda could get rid of diabetes, which is wrong and also ableist victim blaming. The reality is that diabetes existed before soda did. It existed before refined sugar did. The idea that getting rid of a source of sugar will get rid of diabetes is profoundly ignorant.

What it does demonstrate is the current trend of the government increasing revenues by targeting taxes at despised groups. We can’t raise taxes on businesses or the wealthy anymore because that option has been removed by anti-tax partisans, but the government needs money, so who can they get it from?

Why not fat people? Or people who smoke or drink? No one will complain about targeting those people. If you really wanted to offset the harm you believe soda manufacturers are doing, why not target them for taxes, at the point of manufacturer? But politicians know they could never challenge large corporations that way. So they pick an easy target.

Fat people are the easiest target. We are framed as deserving of every bad thing. We are always available to scapegoat and target.

And then there’s Jerry—the ultimate target.

Jerry Gergich is fat, and he portrayed as stupid and clumsy. He is constantly the butt of mean jokes around the office, bullied by people he considers friends, but who openly talk about how much they hate him.

He is constantly farting. His pants rip when he bends over. He’s so stupid that he will eat anything placed in front of him, including a bowl of glue substituted for his soup. He lies about being mugged in the park, but he really fell into a creek because he was trying to retrieve a breakfast burrito he dropped.

You know fat people! They go WILD over food. Why, they’ll even try to eat food that fell into a dirty creek! Har har har.

Jerry’s wife Gayle is played by supermodel Christie Brinkley. The “joke” is how could a good-looking person could find something lovable in fat, unattractive Jerry? Fat people are only supposed to be partnered with other fat people. How could someone so low status and of such little value as Jerry be married to a conventionally beautiful woman?

Comedy!

It makes no sense to me that a show that uses imagery like this, and refers to fat children as beefy monsters, can still be lauded as the “comedy of super niceness.”

The perception of Parks and Rec as super nice, which ignores the show’s constant, mean-spirited mockery of fat people and people with diabetes, is consistent with the media’s general unwillingness to engage with actual fat people. Reporters are obsessed with getting the other side on some topics, but when it comes to publishing the most recent press release from the Fat People are Terrible Monsters Think Tank (funded by Weight Watchers and diet pills), they just copy and paste whatever and call it a day.

I am a fat woman and the constant positioning of the existence of my body as a huge problem for the entire world to butt in and have a say in solving is insulting and exhausting. My body is not a disease or a problem.

When was the last time you saw someone advocating for the rights of fat people and fat kids? Probably never. What about our right to not be bullied, discriminated against, and shamed by an entire culture?

Everyone talks about fat people, but no one talks to us.

To be fat is to be invisible. Most of the time, I won’t see anyone who looks like me anywhere in the media. And if I do, that person is the subject of mockery. I believe this contributes to the hatred of fat people and the discrimination against us. We are not considered people. We appear nowhere, except as a mean joke or as a decapitated image of a body—another fat body to be used as an object in the cultural panic that is the Obesity Plague.

The invisible fatphobia of Parks and Recreation is just a symptom of a wider cultural problem. And that problem is that fat people are not treated like people who have feelings and thoughts just like everyone else.

Ali Thompson is an artist, a writer, a fat activist, and an unapologetic weirdo. She is the creator of ok2befat.com.

‘Shallow Hal’: The Unexpected Virtue of Discomfort

"Only a man this shallow could fall in love this deep." — “Only a man this shallow could fall in love this deep.”

Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

We are bad at multitasking empathy. When moved by Colin Firth’s Oscar-winning struggle with his stammer in The King’s Speech, you don’t want to recall cackling at Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda. As you congratulate yourself for noticing the rather obvious sexiness of Emmy-winning Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones, you’d prefer to forget laughing at Verne Troyer in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. It’s more comfortable having your heart warmed by the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind, if you ignore that your ribs were tickled by Me, Myself and Irene. It’s easier to feel good about sympathizing with Jared Leto’s Oscar-winning trans heroine in Dallas Buyers Club, if you blank the comedy stripping of Sean Young’s trans villain in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. The result is that neither gross-out comedy nor award-winning pathos seriously challenges its audience’s comfort; the comedy, because we’re never asked to sympathize, and the Oscar-bait, because we’re never tempted to mock. In 2001’s Shallow Hal, the Farrelly Brothers took Oscar-winning Gwyneth Paltrow, dressed her in a comical fat suit and demanded sympathy. The result was downright uncomfortable, and I loved it.

Shallow Hal comes with no genre cues or award endorsements to aid in compartmentalizing our empathy. 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. The film has the boundless bad taste to remind viewers of their shallowness while daring to make them feel bad about it. The result can be a jarring viewing experience, provoking Rolling Stones‘ critic Peter Travers to declare “something condescending, not to mention hypocritical, about asking an audience to laugh uproariously at the spectacle of a fat person being sneered at and dissed as “rhino” or “hippo” or “holy cow,” and then to justify those laughs by saying it’s society’s fault.” Yet, is it truly hypocritical to remind an audience that they’re hypocritical?

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMLZnY2nLcw”]

The moment we see Jack Black’s Hal and Jason Alexander’s Mauricio hitting on “hotties,” the audience’s instinctive reaction is that they are too short and overweight to be justified in their shallowness. Hal is hypnotized into seeing inner beauty, and the hotties in fat suits and ugly cosmetics are utterly transformed into hotties without fat suits and ugly cosmetics. This premise allows Shallow Hal to become a forensic deconstruction of the fat joke. Do crushed chairs and giant meals remain funny, if acted by slim Gwyneth Paltrow? Or is it only the fat body that’s funny?

Many critics have pointed out that Shallow Hal uses tired, conventional fat jokes, without acknowledging how deliberately it targets thin bodies with those jokes. Left to imagine the fat body of Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) only from bystander reactions and glimpsed body parts, we build a mental image of something hyperbolically monstrous. When Rosemary’s fat self is finally revealed, it is not to be mocked, but to relieve Hal and expose society’s dysmorphia. Of course, the Farrellys can’t control the audience’s response, only confront it. As Katherine Murray says of Chasing Amy and Dollhouse: “the power and relevance of both of these stories comes from the fact that objectifying women is a popular pastime in real life, and not everyone sees the problem with that – the discomfort and uncertainty of these stories comes from the fact that objectifying women is a popular pastime in real life, and not everyone sees the problem with that.”

Paltrow’s sympathetic performance blends spiky defensiveness and vulnerability. Seeing such low self-esteem in a slim, blonde “hottie,” Hal perceives it as “cuckoo.” Of course, it should be equally cuckoo for a fat woman to suffer pointlessly lower quality of life because of irrational stigma. Separating the body and the stigma raises interesting questions. Would it still be a dream to date Paltrow’s slender blonde, if onlookers reacted with the same judging, mocking and disbelieving scrutiny applied to obese girlfriends? Where Louie‘s “So Did The Fat Lady” wallows in the pathos of a fat lady that men won’t hold hands with in public, Shallow Hal questions whether men would feel comfortable publicly holding hands with Gwyneth Paltrow, if she were associated with lower status rather than higher. Or are they, actually, more shallow than Shallow Hal?

Hal progresses through each hurdle of deconstructed shallowness, from defying public judgment to accepting Rosemary’s body in its real form, with “love grows where my Rosemary goes, and nobody knows but me” becoming his anthem of social defiance. Shallow assumptions that short, overweight Hal is ridiculous for chasing girls “out of his league” are equally challenged. Hal can attract conventional “hotties” once his desire is proved more than superficial; it’s just that then he doesn’t want them. Shallow Hal joins gross-out classic There’s Something About Mary, and the non-Farrelly Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, as a romcom that dares to demand of men: “what is it about you that makes you deserve the girl?” It puts its hero through a trial of worth, without the usual, unquestioned entitlement to date whatever hottie the script provides (*cough* Forgetting Sarah Marshall). In There’s Something About Mary, a range of men try to seduce Cameron Diaz’s “hottie” using farcical exaggerations of classic wooing tactics: Matt Dillon’s sleazy Healy eavesdrops to discover and embody all her fantasies, Lee Evans’ emotionally blackmailing Tucker fakes a disability and an English accent to out-vulnerable the most vulnerable Hugh Grant fop, Chris Elliott’s stalking Dom manifests a passion so intense and persistent that it brings him out in hives, and hunky Brett Favre combines athleticism, wealth and fame. But it is only Ben Stiller’s continually humiliated Ted who, while making every technical error imaginable, loves Mary enough to place her happiness above his own desires, meaning he alone passes the film’s trial.

Conversely, the clients of Deuce Bigalow are farcical exaggerations of female anxieties: the narcoleptic fails society’s demand for women to be attentive; Amy Poehler’s Tourette’s violates expectations of ladylike behavior; the giantess is manly and intimidating; Fluisa is obese and unfit. Only by honoring the humanity and femininity of each of these extreme archetypes, and passing the final test of fully accepting his “hottie” girlfriend’s prosthetic limb, can Deuce prove himself worthy to be accepted and loved in his turn, as a flawed being. The shockingly honest self-scrutiny in gross-out comedy is one of the genre’s central pleasures. Farrelly Brothers movies are elevated above mean-spirited imitators (*cough* Norbit) by their dedication to conjuring and confronting anxieties on a path to purification. Though I didn’t include the Farrellys’ crude and absurdist Me, Myself And Irene in my survey of cinematic portraits of psychosis, and though it was slammed by mental health organizations, I must admit the film recognizes the psychosis of Jim Carrey’s Charlie Baileygates as his own responsibility, while allowing him to be a romantic and sexual being, which is as rare as it is refreshing. Since my psychotic break was flamboyant, I appreciate the Farrelly Brothers’ defiance of the respectability politics that plague mental health activism, just as Shallow Hal acknowledges and even exaggerates Rosemary’s overeating, while still challenging her dehumanization.

Crucially, Shallow Hal does not confine itself to the hypothetical thought experiment of imagining conventionally attractive actors as obese or cosmetically ugly, but introduces genuinely nonconforming bodies, including launching the acting career of Rene Kirby in a prominent supporting role. This tactic confronts viewers with the humanity behind the metaphor. Think of the audiences who empathized with Boris Karloff’s cosmetic monster in Frankenstein, but were appalled by the genuinely nonconforming bodies of Tod Browning’s career-destroying Freaks. Shallow Hal dares to sit Frankenstein and the real “freaks” at the same table, where all are celebrated as “one of us.” Does its casual conflation of fatphobia and ableism disturb some fat acceptance activists? The intense identification with nonconforming bodies that gay director James Whale showed in Frankenstein, or Oscar Wilde showed in “The Birthday of the Infanta,” faded from the camp aesthetic as gay rights advanced. The identification with Frankenstein shown by crossdressing director/star Ed Wood in Glen or Glenda, and transgender creator/star Richard O’Brien in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is fading from today’s trans* rights movement. Is the fat acceptance movement fighting to end body stigma, or merely to separate fat bodies from that stigma? Must every step of progress be accompanied by an act of exclusion?

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G2X8QBt5m4″]

Fat acceptance?

The 1948 “race film” (that is, a Jim Crow era film with an African American cast, targeting African American audiences), Boarding House Blues, opens with Dusty Fletcher bringing a capering monkey into the boarding house to join his act. The monkey claims Dusty’s bed and forces him to sleep on the floor. It also bears a remarkable resemblance to King Louie, who would be talking jive and aping Louis Armstrong as the beloved “King of the Swingers” in Disney’s 1967 The Jungle Book, fully 42 years before 2009’s The Princess and the Frog introduced Disney’s first Black princess (and, despite its jazz-age New Orleans setting, had less of Armstrong’s sound in its Randy Newman score than the ape did in 1967). It is uncomfortable to watch “King Louie” side by side with Dusty Fletcher, as it is uncomfortable to see Gwyneth Paltrow’s fake stigma side by side with Rene Kirby. It becomes even more uncomfortable when “King Louie” removes his head and reveals that he is another African American man, forced into a monkey suit to hustle a living. Good. Let’s be uncomfortable about that.

Erasure is too often the politically correct alternative to discomfort. By cutting blackface and Stepin Fetchit routines from classic films, we retain the sentimentalized self-image of racists, while erasing uncomfortably visible reminders of their racism (and groundbreaking African American stars, as collateral damage). Boarding House Blues also stars Moms Mabley, a middle-aged woman (and the major pioneer of stand-up comedy, whose taboo-busting routines were tamed for film). Today, her role would be played by Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence or Tyler Perry in drag and a rubber fat suit. How would Murphy’s Rasputia hold the screen against Mabley’s real deal? Doesn’t the safety of our laughter at Rasputia depend on Mabley’s substitution? One more star of Boarding House Blues deserves attention: Crip Heard. Crip is a dancer with one arm and one leg. Entering on a crutch, he tosses that crutch aside with a flourish and dances unaided. It is hard to imagine this celebration of Crip’s resilient body appearing in even the blaxploitation film of the 1970s, let alone the modern mainstream. Where could Crip dance today? If you’re honest, you know the answer: in a Farrelly Brothers movie.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qSklDMBnQM”]

There is no question that fatphobia is a vile, irrational and bullying stigma. But the commonly repeated mantra that it is the “last acceptable prejudice” is demonstrably untrue. From physical disability to mental illness to trans* status, there are numerous acceptable prejudices in today’s comedies. As Kathleen LeBesco points out, the Farrelly Brothers have “more than any mainstream moviemakers working today, fought hard against the devices of concealment, cosmetic action, and motivated forgetting, and as a result thrown into question the reassurance that public bodies are flawless bodies.” The runner-up? Jackass, of course. So, are we ready to embrace the anarchic Farrelly vision of squirming confrontation and broad-based solidarity? Or must our body politics become respectability politics?

See also at Bitch Flicks: When It Seems Like The Movie You’re Watching Might Hate You

Brigit McCone admits to having a thing for Jack Black and Rob Schneider. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and terrible dancing in the privacy of her own home.

Call for Writers: Fatphobia/Fat Positivity

Negative depictions of fat people are the norm throughout all of pop culture. Though fatphobia crosses racial, gender, and class lines, audiences judge women the most harshly. Fat characters are frequently shown as disgusting, sad, or unlovable. In the horror genre, fatness is frequently represented as terrifying and unnatural. In comedies, fat bodies are often the source of humor. Though few and far between, there are a growing number of fat positive representations popping up throughout TV and film.

Our theme week for April 2015 will be Fatphobia/Fat Positivity.

Negative depictions of fat people are the norm throughout all of pop culture. Though fatphobia crosses racial, gender, and class lines, audiences judge women the most harshly. Fat characters are frequently shown as disgusting, sad, or unlovable like Chrissy Metz’s Barbara/”The Fat Lady” in American Horror Story: Freak Show or Darlene Cates’ Bonnie from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Fat people are often cast as the villains, their bodies being a symbol of excess, shame, and/or nonconformity–examples being Ursula from The Little Mermaid or Miss Trunchbull from Matilda. In the horror genre, fatness is frequently represented as terrifying and unnatural (Slither and Crazy Fat Ethel II). In some cases, fatness is a punishment like in Drop Dead Diva or Mean Girls.

In comedies, fat bodies are often the source of humor, such as Melissa McCarthy’s character Megan in Bridesmaids or pretty much anything starring Chris Farley. The deplorable practice of donning a fatsuit to get some laughs (Shallow Hal, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and all The Nutty Professor movies) seems to be on the rise.

Though few and far between, there are a growing number of fat positive representations popping up throughout TV and film. Though sometimes problematic, these examples show fat people as multifaceted human beings (Girls), sympathetic (Louie), heroines/heroes (Precious), sexy (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency), and/or funny because of who they are and not their bodies (Roseanne). Are these samples of fat positivity the beginning of a movement? Are they enough to change the prejudice and fatphobia inherent in Hollywood and our culture?

Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which film you’d like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, April 24 by midnight.

Shallow Hal

Gilmore Girls

American Horror Story

Matilda

Bridget Jones’ Diary

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

Tammy

Game of Thrones

Precious

South Park

Crazy Fat Ethel II

Louie

Tommy Boy

Roseanne

Drop Dead Diva

Bridesmaids

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Austin Powers: Goldmember

Enough Said

The Nutty Professor

Death Becomes Her

Broad City

Girls

The Little Mermaid

Mean Girls

Shrek