Fat Chicks Rule

When a movie goes good and a book goes bad.

I finally saw Precious last Saturday. Mo'Nique deserved her Oscar and Gabourey Sidibe deserved to win one, too (no offense to Sandra Bullock who I also like.)  In the movie (which takes place around 1987 and is based on a book I haven't read yet), Precious is a fat illiterate teen who is pregnant for the second time by her father.  She is a girl that most people would give up on. She gets kicked out of school (which has less to do with academic issues and more to do with her pregnancy) and she ends up in an alternative program so she can get her GED. While Precious has issues different from most other women i.e. two very abusive parents and poverty, she has the same low self-esteem as many of us have. Whenever she looks in the mirror she sees a thin white woman.

Probably some might complain that this movie is insulting to African-Americans, where Mo'Nique's character Mary is the stereotypical fat, black, loud welfare queen. However Mary is despicable but not completely unsympathetic.  She has the same low self-esteem as her daughter. The father abuses Mary as well, and Mary in turn abuses Precious.  Precious on the other hand with assistance from a teacher, a journal, a kindly male nurse, and other students breaks free of the stereotype. At the end of the movie, she breaks free of her mother and welfare attitude.

 

It is the fat stereotype that I have a problem with. On one hand you have her mother who is fat, useless and abusive. But on the other hand, the people who help Precious recover a big chunk of her life--the teacher, the nurse, the other students—are all slender.

 

And as I complained in two previous blog posts, will either of these terrific actresses get more roles as good as this one or will Mo'Nique go back to sassy comedic roles and will Gabourey be the sassy black teen until she doesn't look like a teen anymore?  Both of them blew me away in this movie. They deserve high-quality acting work and lots of it. And not just in sassy comedies or ghetto dramas.  The best of course is Gabourey. She played a fat character who learns to live and be better than before not just for herself but for her kids. In the end she sees herself in the mirror, not the white thin woman. Roles for large women are small, microscopic. Mo'Nique at least can return to goofy comedies but supersize actresses will have trouble getting roles, (i.e Darlene Cates, a fab actress from What's eating Gilbert Grape.)

 

In my essay for the Fat Studies Reader (NYU Press, 2009), I wrote about fat heroines in Chick-lit and one of the things I mention is a size 16 glass ceiling. Very few fat characters in chick-lit (or most literature) go passed size 16. For them that is fat and anymore than that is unhealthy. One of the examples I use is Cannie from Jennifer Weiner's book Good in Bed who is a size 16.

 

Well, Jennifer Weiner's most recent book Best Friends Forever elegantly proves this point. The main character Addie weights 350+ pounds but that is unhealthy, unacceptable and less than human. Addie for the most part of the book is the stereotypical lonely fat woman. After getting stuck in a booth at diner (While being made fun of by a child), Addie runs home, tosses her junk food (even though she'd been a secret nighttime binger since she was about 10), goes to the doctor who gives her the same old diet sheet. But this time the diet magically works! (I call BS on that alone.) But that is apparently okay because she becomes not super thin, but not super fat either (she also miraculously doesn't have any loose skin except around her belly—which is nothing that a few panels of Cathy wouldn’t fix.)   So supersized ladies, please get yourself stuck in a booth, Jennifer Weiner promises you that—despite all evidence-based science and common sense—you will finally stick to the 1200 calories diet plan if you just try it one more time.

 

In previous books Jennifer Weiner had fat characters but they never too fat, never supersized. However at least these fat characters accepted themselves as human beings and knew that diets didn't work. In this book, Supersized people have no place in changing their lives unless they get thin first. 

Still human, last I checked.

Imagine a mother who has eating issues and disorders. If she were anorexic she might get sympathy and compassion but if she were fat and gaining weight, she would be told she was an unfit parent or wish she would die and stop using up everyone's health care.  This is exactly the reaction given to Donna Simpson when she revealed she wanted to break the world's record of being the fattest woman. 

I don't agree with anyone forcing themselves to gain or lose weight to please a partner or social pressure. (Although Donna herself says her being the fattest woman ever was twisted by the news, it was actually a fantasy she gives to her clients), I actually know her from an online group. She is a real human being with feelings.

But I am not just here to talk about Donna. I am here to talk about prejudice against fat people. Where a woman starving herself either gets compassion or kudos and a 600 lbs woman is scum of the earth and not worthy enough to even be considered human. We are constantly told via poor health care, job prospects, and cruelty that we are worth nothing unless we lose weight, even though no weight loss method has been proved to work in the long run.

Harriet Brown recently wrote an article in the NY Times, which deals with the prejudice against fat people. How we are blamed for everything. Global warming, fattie, health care crisis, fatties. Fat people are told we are ill, sick, need help, but then we get rebuked by doctors and the insurance companies. 

Or we get treated with contempt.  Good manners are based on kindness, respect, and consideration for every human being. They often depend on our ability to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and always, on our belief in the dignity of individuals.

It's time to realize that people of all sizes need to be treated with dignity and respect. 

Gabourey Sidibe still got an Academy award nomination, what do you have?

Radio talk show host Howard Stern made fun of Oscar Nominatee Gabourey Sidibe calling her the fattest black woman he had ever seen, and that she'll never make another movie. I could talk about Stern's objectification of women on his show, I could talk about his miscontruded views of fatness, I could pointed out he should "get a life" like Gabourey's mother recommended, but instead I will talk about how much he has in common with her.

Stern has done very well in radio but has failed to expand in visual media other than Private Parts, which is years old. Why?  Is it because he has a nice voice--one of the most recognizable voices on the air as things now stand. Is it because he's just playing to his strength? Or Is it because Hollywood doesn't want to see a tall, gangly, unattractive man on their screens and he knows it?  Stern himself is a victim of the Hollywood cookie cutter. Gabourey and other fantastic fat actors like Kathy Bates, Mo'Nique, John Goodman are trapped as "Character actors", and are often stuck with stereotype roles.  We don't see tall gangly men with scary faces, fat women, or plus sized men except maybe as the conventionally good looking lead's best friend.  So we lose out on talented people.

Stern is wrong that Gabourey will never land another role.  What she might never do is land the role as a lead in a mainstream Hollywood movie.  In fact she did get a reoccuring role as a "sassy" (groan) student in the Showtime series The Big C and in an indy movie Yelling to the Sky.

Fat Taxes

One of MeMe Roth's favorite thing to bring up in "debates" is why should she pay for our "unhealthy lifestyle"? (Meanwhile I will be happy to chip in when she finally decides to see a mental health and/or eating disorders professional). The only person supporting me is myself (and my darling husband). By luck, I am a fat woman with a job that has health insurance and I PAY for it out of each pay check. And when I go to the doctor, I PAY for the co-payments.

It might be the conspiracy theorist in me.  But isn't it a whole lot easier for Insurance companies (who make record profits) to make sure fatties are to blame for the US health care crisis (Where we pay more for the same services than most other countries) than it might be for them to admit that they are a primary cause of that crisis? 

A citizen of the United States is supposed to have certain rights and freedoms. In theory of course, but it's perfectly okay to deny health care, clothes, airline seats, jobs to someone if they are fat as pointed out by Paul Campos and Marilyn Wann in a recent Daily News op ed.  

Now New York has been pushing their "Fat Tax" more than ever (At least they are calling it a soda tax now). And this tax is not to benefit NY's horrendous budget issues (I live in NYC, where school children are about to lose their free metro cards, where three hospitals have closed just in my borough and this summer several state parks will close)  So for a penny per 8 oz of soda you too can fund the corrupt New York State government.  (Where two governors and several state senators are or have been under investigation.)   I prefer that I don't have to pay the whole $1 I spend on soda (Mostly on yearly xmas party and my thin nephew). 

Kids don't need the food police, they don't need fat taxes, they don't need Michelle Obama or MeMe Roth, what they need is people with common sense around them. For example, my thin nephew would drink pepsi like water if we allowed him. We don't. He can have it on occasion, usually eating out or on vacation, or a celebration.  

Fat Bitch vs. The Biggest Loser

First off: The Nightline show where I was in the audience is now available on Hulu and the entire thing (in several parts) is on the Nightline site.  I don't know how long it will be up, so watch it soon.

On Thursday I caught the last NYC show of Erica Watson's Fat Bitch. I wish I'd seen it in the beginning so I can recommend it to everyone. However Erica will be taking it on tour, so check her website and join her mailing list for future shows. Her show is not only very funny, but pushes on social commentary on fat, race, sex, gender. A particular part I enjoyed was the roles Hollywood gives to people, the white girl must be skinny, the big black girl must be sassy (A character Erica creates called "Super Mammy") and most important that even black men are pushed into the super mammy role (i.e. Tyler Perry, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence). So if her show comes to your town, go see it, it is worth more than the price of admissions.  The show was inspiring, funny, and realistic.

Something that is not inspiring, funny or realistic is the Biggest Loser. Instead it is stupid, vapid, and demeaning to fat folks, making the actors seem less than human unless they get thin. Oh, and health experts, even those who think being obesity is the worse thing ever, believe he show to be unhealthy.

"The show, which takes obese Americans and pits them against each other in a battle to lose the most weight and win $250,000, thrives on extreme numbers. But physicians and nutritionists worry the show's focus on competitive weight loss is, at best, counterproductive and, at worst, dangerous." 

I mention many times on my blog that diets (even "sensible" plans) don't work for most people in the long run.  However if you must lose weight, a "Healthy" weight loss would be 1-2 pounds a week which is significant less than the 34 pound loss one of the contestant managed to do in a week.  This show encourages dangerous rapid weight loss.

"Losing weight rapidly can be risky, according to Virginia Tech professor of human nutrition, foods and exercise Janet Walberg Rankin. Patients who lose weight quickly run the risk of gallstones, mineral deficiencies, loss of muscle tissue and reduced bone density."

Words can't describe how much I hate this show. But in order for it to end, we have to stop watching.