Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls (8 page)

The interesting thing is that since then he's started school again, found a girlfriend, started teaching little kids, and found fulfillment. He also no longer tries to inflict pain on others online. It's fascinating how this works. It just goes to show what everyone has known all along:
Happy people don't try to purposely hurt other people.

I mean, this isn't a well-kept secret, not by a long shot. You might even go so far as to assume this is common knowledge (and as indisputable as Ira Glass's example of the gray boxes in the podcast—OMG, go listen to the beginning, it's hilarious), but you'd be surprised at the number of people who argue this simple concept.
⁴
For example, one comment on a Prince Ea video about haters and their anger made me giggle: “I post a few vulgar comments . . . and people auto assume I'm some unhappy asshole in real life. How about people stop being so goddamn sensitive?”
⁵

Someone please give this guy a hug.

This concept applies to our appearance as well:
People who love their bodies don't try to purposely make other people hate their own.

Or as Meghan Tonjes puts it: “People who disrespect the bodies of others really don't think that much of their own. I promise.”
⁶

Unfortunately,
it's no wonder
we see hostility online. Why? Because so many in our country (and beyond) spend their time tirelessly attempting to run toward an empty dream. Because body currency is a frustrating farce. Because all of those people have learned to hate their current bodies, and most have
no idea
that they can think differently. But the fact of the matter is, you can. Body love isn't just for fat people, it's for every person imaginable. Everyone has the right to self-love. Skinny people. Fat people. Short people. Tall people. All abilities. All sizes. All shapes. All shades. All sexes. All genders. Haters and lovers alike.

After all, we're all in this bullshit together. Throughout my “travels” online and IRL, I have yet to meet a woman who doesn't have something she'd like to change about her body, and men are in a similar boat except they're absolutely
forbidden
to talk about it. We've all been fed the same lies, and while that doesn't give
anyone
the right to purposely hurt others, it does give us that crucial starting point for understanding.

2. Institutionalized Sexism

While “the race to thin” plays a huge and significant role in the negativity that is thrown toward body-lovin' peeps, there are also other factors at play, one of those being sexism that is heavily institutionalized. Yes, ma'am. And while this will definitely garner a few eye rolls, some body hate has a lot to do with a favorite word of
those scary feminists
: patriarchy.

That interview on
This American Life
continues:

Lindy West:
OK, so you found my writing. You found my writing, and you did not like it.

Man:
Certain aspects of it. . . . You used a lot of all caps. You're just a very—you almost have no fear when you write. . . . You know, it's like you stand on the desk and you say, I'm Lindy West, and this is what I believe in. Fuck you if you don't agree with me. And even though you don't say those words exactly, I'm like, who is this bitch who thinks she knows everything?

Lindy then questioned whether the reason for these strong feelings might be because she's a woman.

Man:
Oh, definitely. Definitely. Women are being more forthright in their writing. There isn't a sense of timidity to when they speak or when they write. They're saying it loud. And I think that—and I think, for me, as well, it's threatening at first.
⁷

This may have been a phone call with one man, but his opinions are ubiquitous. We hate watching women step out of line, speak up, and take up space. It instigates the fear Virgie talked about, which comes from not being able to control others, from not having the organized complacency that we need so desperately to feel safe. Paulo Freire said it best in one sentence: “Functionally, oppression is domesticating.”
⁸
Oppression certainly serves its purpose—it makes outspoken and confident women a threat to our comfortable system. Which means that outspoken and confident women who are also FAT? Well, they're another rule-breaking satanic breed altogether.

As women, we are disproportionately taught that our physical appearance is what makes us valuable, and that we must work toward becoming the perfect example of beauty in order to be worthwhile. As noted in many feminist texts, this includes taking up as little space as possible—not only physically, but emotionally, verbally, and on every other front as well.

In one Facebook conversation, some friends and I noted how it's
the fierce fatties that threaten everyone's paradigm; not necessarily those who are fat and apologetic. Gabi Gregg of
Gabifresh.com
(and the one who started the fatkini photo trend) nailed it when she said: “If there is a fat person on television trying super hard to lose weight, crying about how hard life is, and talking about how they eat to cope etc., then everyone is at home crying and cheering them on. Put that same person in a crop top while they smile, and the pitchforks come out.”
⁹

Preach, girl.

If a fat woman buys into the same mumbo jumbo as everyone else, we might feel empathy for her. We're ALL for her working toward her goal, just like us. Or maybe we just allow her to exist without acknowledgment until she has become our version of desirable. But if she shows any glimmer of happiness, self-esteem, or success without following the commandments? Well then, off with her head, and LET'S TELEVISE IT!

Fat women who deliberately take up space, speak out, and achieve the happiness we all desire are the perfect trifecta of terror. They represent a terror that we can't control, and so we throw our hate at them by the handful in hopes that they quiet down, shut up, and get back in line.

Jesus Christ, we've got so far to go.

3. Limited Media Representation

Another reason we find ourselves “in hate” with fat people has to do a lot with how they are represented (and are NOT represented) in the media. When fat bodies
do
appear (significantly less often than slender bodies do) in television shows, movies, political comics, literature, and animation, they are consciously presented in highly curated ways, all of which are meant to initiate knee-jerk reactions. They give us a limited way of processing fat people and none of the presentations are particularly positive.

Lindsey Averill, co-producer of
Fattitude: A Body Positive Documentary,
has done extensive research regarding the problematic
portrayal of fat figures in pop culture. She shared her findings in an interview with
Refinery 29
: “There are 10 to 15 archetypes for fat characters. But, they tend to be problematic, meaning outside the normal sphere of culture. Fat characters don't have average experiences or stories. They don't have their own stories at all. They're the subplot.”
¹⁰

These canned archetypes are not actual people, like Melissa McCarthy (for example), but rather characters Melissa McCarthy
plays
. The fat archetype can range from the Best Friend, to the Hypersexual or the Asexual (as Averill mentions), to the Slovenly Roommate and beyond, but there are three very general fat person tropes that I personally find to be very present and harmful: the Stupid Fat Person, the Funny Fat Person, and the Evil Fat Person. Allow me to illustrate:

  
•
   
The Stupid Fat Person:
One of my favorite examples of this character is perfectly demonstrated through the comedy duo Abbott and Costello. There is a thin person and a fat person . . . and when it comes down to intelligence, guess who's the idiot? You guessed it! Other examples of stupid fat characters include Patrick Star from
SpongeBob SquarePants
, Peter Griffin from
Family Guy
, Curly from
The Three Stooges
, Augustus Gloop from
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
, Dudley from
Harry Potter
, Eric Cartman from
South Park
, and Homer Simpson of
The Simpsons
. Nodding your head yet?

  
•
   
The Funny Fat Person:
Oh, how we
love
to laugh at fat people. Thousands of memes have been created just for this form of entertainment. Comedians often play off of this archetype, something found in even the earliest comics. A perfect example of the funny fat archetype can be found in another classic duo: Laurel and Hardy. One thin, one fat. The fat guy often becomes the main butt of the jokes. Other fat and funny characters include Fat Bastard from
Austin Powers
, Chunk from
The Goonies
, Harold from
Hey Arnold
, Peter and Meg from
Family Guy
(many MANY
fat characters appear in multiple categories), Mikey from
Recess
, Eric Cartman from
South Park
, Homer Simpson of
The Simpsons
, and Miss Piggy from
The Muppet Show
.

  
•
   
The Evil Fat Person:
And last but certainly not least is our evil fat villain. Some of these characters provoke moral outrage, some laughs, and others sheer disgust. It's always easy to hate the nefarious fat person: Ursula from
The Little Mermaid
, Penguin from
Batman
, Slug from Marvel Comics, the Queen of Hearts from
Alice in Wonderland
, Oogie Boogie from
The Nightmare Before Christmas
, Big Dan Teague from
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
, Eric Cartman from
South Park
(the trifecta!), countless mob bosses, fat cats, and of course, the most gluttonous of them all, Jabba the Hut.

It's important to note that not all stupid, funny, and evil characters are fat; many are thin or fall somewhere in between. What is problematic is when we see fat characters, they fall into these negative stereotypes more often than not.

Thanks to these common and prevailing tropes, we are repulsed/humored/angered by fat people because our reality has no other frame of reference in which to sort them out. For the most part they are not positively represented in the media, so when we see fat people happy, in love, feeling worthy, achieving success, or engaging in any positive activity . . . our brains break. A FAT PERSON WHO ISN'T MISERABLE OR TRYING TO BECOME UN-FAT?
We don't know how to process this information.
We don't understand. The unfamiliarity is uncomfortable. We feel confused . . . and this often leads to mockery, anger, and yes, hate.

One of my FAVORITE (sarcasm) things I've run across on the Internet comes from the University of Connecticut Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity (
uconnruddcenter.org
). The Rudd Center focused on “reducing weight stigma” within journalistic coverage. This
gallery, created to “humanize” fat bodies, contains 451 images of fatties doing elementary exercise (they can do wha?); gardening, shopping for, and cooking raw fruits and vegetables (how
healthy
of you, fat people!); wearing business casual clothing; and talking on cell phones (they hold jobs too!); and three images of a fat couple holding hands.

While I appreciate that the Rudd Center is
attempting
to change the lens in which the world views fat people, not much is solved by encouraging the use of images that show fat people doing mostly things that are supposedly going to make them less fat, which has always been the ultimate goal. Do you see where I'm coming from here? I'm SO glad to
not
see the kind of degrading “headless fatty” images that are ubiquitous among stock photo galleries and other corners of the Internet, or pictures of fat people crying while holding their love handles. But even those who are committed to portraying fat people in a positive light have galleries where the majority of images shows them in the same tired and insensitive way. Instead of those 451 images of fat bodies doing limited activities, I want to see fat people holding hands with lovers of all sizes, enjoying coffee with friends, smiling, and maybe even one à la Julie Andrews singing in the fields and spinning while singing at the top of her lungs. You know, fat people doing a range of normal happy things, like they very often do.