Fat Scene Investigation

So, I finally got around to seeing the much discussed CSI featuring scenes at Fat convention of some sort. Count me as just as unimpressed as I was when I first heard about it.

The biggest problem is still the most obvious one. Its just unrealistic. A man could not be pined down like that and die. Just not gonna happen. At least they didn't rip off Picket Fences' roll over death, but it still just ain't gonna happen. A woman that size would be easy to push off of you, or wiggle out from under.

Beyond that, however, there still is nothing redeeming about the show. I see a lot of people in the "fat acceptance" movement seem to be in a hurry to praise the show for not being as bad as it could have been. Is that really all the movement even pretends to be after now? Not getting insulted quite so cruelly?

The show was negative stereotype after negative stereotype with nothing to redeem it. Were they steretypes with a background in reality? Sure. Stereotypes usually do have a basis in reality, even the ugly and offensive ones. They becoming damaging not because they are completely divorced from reality, but because they are elevated to "representative" status and are seen dispraportionately often so as to reinforce prejudice and bigotry. Yeah, I know there are fat women who go to conventions and dances just to have sex. And I know that there men who do the same thing but who'd never want to be seen with a fat woman. And maybe this story wouldn't be so bad if we ever got to see the fat woman who makes no apologies for her size and is secure and happy as a fat woman. Maybe it'd be okay if we ever saw the FA who is proud and uncompramising and well adjusted.

But we don't. So having one toe in the reality pool just isn't enough. If popular culture is only going to allow one FA and or fat woman to be seen a year, it matters how they choose to portray them. And that's the situation we are looking at.