One to watch: Gabourey Sidibe

Evidently, a new independent film, "Push" is making some noise at Sundance this week. For the record, this is NOT the store-brand superhero movie that's being advertised right now of under the same title. Rather, this is an adapatation of the novel of the same telling the story of a fat teenaged girl named Precious in Harlem in the 1980's. By all accounts, the book handles some difficult material, but generally with a great deal of respect to its lead character. I have not read it, so I hope it was not using fat as visual shorthand for all sorts of negative meanings. Fat is often used as a shorthand metaphor for hostile associations, both when characterizing someone as a villian and as a sympathetic character. Hopefully, someone who has read the book can offer some incite to how the book treats the characters size.

Anyhow, for the movie, the producers made the daring choice of casting an actual fat person in the role rather than padding or feeding a thin actress. Not only does that demean fat people, there is a more insidious aspect to it. Studios usually use such trickier as a necessity because a script demands that we see a character both as fat and as thin. The simple truth is that Hollywood spends very little time telling stories about actual fat people. Just people who are fat for a narrative gimmick. So, its encouraging to see any film tell a fat person's story. I'm especially encouraged by a New York Times interview with the lead actress in the film, Gabourey Sidibe.

"Gabbie" is the daughter of legendary NYC busker and R&B singer Alice Tan Ridley and is the prototypical unknown. Kinda have to be for a role like this as its not like the media has put in much effort in making "known" young talented fat black actresses. Its hard to be known when there is little work for you because you don't look like someone Hollywood tells stories about. The risk of being an unknown in a film like this is that you will disappear into the role. People assume it must be YOU on the screen. She's an "outsider" by virtue of her appearance, so for some critics its not hard to leap to the conclusion that she isn't acting that much. Reading the Times interview, though, its exceptionally clear that she is not her character and is also acting the heck out of this film. A very nice passage closes the interview...

Desk-job ambitions or not, Gabourey Sidibe is not Precious; she is a natural performer. But we all have our insecurities. She used to see Mo’Nique, the plus-size actress and comedian, on television and pray to be like her. Now Mo’Nique is her co-star, playing her mother. What she wanted about Mo’Nique’s life was not necessarily the fame.

“I always thought she was really funny, but also she’s very confident in the way she looks,” Ms. Sidibe said. “She’s very happy in the way she looks, and that’s what I prayed about. At that time in my life, I wanted to be everybody else, but I wanted to want to be Gabbie.”She was speaking in the past tense.

“At this point,” she laughed, “I don’t think there’s anyone better than Gabbie.”

Sounds like a pretty good outlook to me. Keep a look out for this film coming out of the festival. It would be interesting to see if it can get wide distribution and whether anyone else can write a good story for a fat character.

Hungry is my friend and yours!

I accidentally watched a Weight Watchers commercial after noticing an adorable orange monster in a TiVo blur. I went to investigate only to discover that the poor fellow is being called "Hungry" and as an anti-mascot of sorts for Weight Watchers.

I guess Hungry is the bad guy in the spots, but it strikes me as a bit of a miscue by Weight Watchers' ad team as they made the personification of Hungry awfully adorable. I seriously want this as a doll. Me and Hungry would be best friends! And why not?

See, Hungry is totally awesome in the ads. He's always your hook-up for good food. Why would I complain about that? If I had a friendly orange monster who was offering me pizza, cake, pie, etc, I'd be pleased. I'd hug the fellow.

He could sure use the love after watching the commercial. See Weight Watchers, in their continuing effort to totally not be a diet (they pinky swear and everything! For reals this time) keeps being mean to our Orange buddy. The pull out a book he's standing on to make it fall. The trip him when he's trying to hook you up with a hot dog. They crush him a copier machine. He's awfully sympathetic for a supposed villain.

I feel bad for him. I mean, hungry isn't bad. Its natural and healthy. People get hungry for a reason. There is no more pride in "conquering" hunger than in conquering breathing by holding your breath. Hungry is just looking out for us, and I appreciate that.

I hearby suggest the fatosphere adopt Hungry as a mascot. He's being terribly mistreated over at "Stop Dieting. Start Dieting but pretending you're not" Central and he deserves a good and loving home.

Anti-fat Surgeon General?

Well, okay, ANY Surgeon General likely to be nominated in the current political climate from either party is going to be anti-fat acceptance. Still, I hardly see that as a reason to not draw attention to some of the attitudes presented by rumored leading candidate to be the next Surgeon General, Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN.

Back in 2007, he participated in the "Big Fat Blame Game", making a pitch to blame working mothers for fat children. Feministe rightly noted that his approach seems to absolve fathers of any blame, but there is another problem here. There was no good reason for the theory to begin with. Its just another, "gosh, there are more fat people than in 1970/1980/1960/etc. What has changed in our culture that we can glibly blame?" FatFu listed some of the many supposed vilains subjecting the world to fat people.

Though he has spoken out agains the "Thin Ideal" in Time Magazine, his approach is typical of the mainstream medical establishment. Its trying to thread a needle, as it were, in treating "thin ideal" eating disorders without addressing the fat panic that contributes to them. I regard it as the "Oh, but you're not fat" approach to self-esteem. Its not really about addressing the fears, but rather its about trying to contradict them in specific instances. I should stress that I think a lot of the examples he cites in the article aren't doing that, but I definitely feel that this is the approach Gupta is taking. Barbie is bad, sure, but he doesn't want to actually encourage everyone to feel that their bodies are okay. "Body Acceptance for Acceptable Bodies" is not okay, and it usually just works to subvert Size Acceptance in the same way Weight Watchers does with their "Diets Don't Work" ad campaigns.

This point is driven home in a different article: "Sizing Up Your Body", which puts on equal footing a problem of people thinking they are fat when they aren't, with people who aren't fat when they are. He makes the silly case that the problem with fat people is that they don't know they are fat or that they think this okay. This drives me crazy. Its so divorced from the real world. I'm sorry, but fat people KNOW they are fat. They are reminded constantly. The idea that the problem in our culture is that we're too easy on fat people is simply not credible, so it concerns me that Gupta is explicitly endorsing such a position. He revisits it in an even more absurd article taking doctors to task for not pressuing fat people to lose weight. He doesn't even base this criticism on any study showing that doctors aren't pressuring fat people to lose weight. Just that they don't always note it in their medical charts. He's assuming from this that it wasn't brought up. Again, from the shared experiences of countless fat people, I simply don't find it to be a credible position to suggest that doctors are going easy on fat patients.

Most frightening is Gupta advocacy for a "Fat Tax" proposal in San Francisco. Though most proposals that have gotten a serious airing to date (include the SF proposal) have focused on taxing products presumed to be at fault for the existance of fat people, many in the anti-fat movement have been agitating for even worse suggestions that would institute a direct financial penalty on people because of their weight. Note that Gupta essentially buries the fact that there is no proof that products with corn syrup cause fatness in his report. Isn't that a pretty important point to the matter? He still concludes that the idea is fine and that we should avoid corn syrup without offering any evidence of its faults. He just asserts it. The increasing talk of "Fat Taxes" scare the hell out of me, and I don't want someone who approves of them in any fashion as Surgeon General.

Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman has expressed his dissatisfaction with Gupta on different grounds, but ones which I think have some relevance to a fat acceptance appraisal of Gupta. His complaint is with Gupta's criticism of Michael Moore's film Sicko. Specifically that Gupta accused Moore of getting his facts wrong, but Gupta repeatedly fudged his own facts in doing so. Krugman notes that Gupta seemed to be dismissing Moore simply because he was an outsider. How could his facts be right? He's just a shock-doc director? That strikes me as much of the way the medical establishment treats fat acceptance and especially those scientist who question fat stigmatization. Its usually refutation through assertion. We aren't right because we aren't right. We can't be right, so we aren't right.

Fat Acceptance is not likely to get what they want, though. Even if Gupta is not picked, any likely alternative will surely tow the medical establishments line on fatness. Like I said, though, that's not a reason not to call them out for it.

I resolve nothing.

I was almost going to do some New Year's Resolutions this year until I remembered that I defiantly rejected the concept last year. Which was a good point, so I'm resolving nothing this year again. I may use the New Year as a reason to start doing some things I want to start doing, but screw "resolutions" and their self-guilt inducing BS. Our culture still regards it as little more than an excuse for a month-long diet commercial, so screw that.

Just like last year, this year I resolve nothing.

Yes means Yes: New Book

This may be tangentally related to Fat Acceptance, but I was reminded this evening of the forthcoming book activist Jaclyn Friedman co-edited, "Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape". Edited with Feministing's Jessica Valenti, the book is an anthology of contemporary feminist commentary on female sexuality and ending rape. I've been hearing nothing but good things about the collection and am sure its going a must-read and I wanted to let people know about it.

I was actually reminded because I was at Jaclyn's birthday party, so I suppose you can count me as a biased source. Jaclyn is friends with my girlfriend through Big Moves, where I've been fortunate enough to be exposed to some of Jaclyn's amazing poetry in recent years. I know she and Jessica Valenti have been very hard at work on this volume. In addition to a foreword by Margaret Cho, the book features contributions from feminists such as Jill Filipovic from Feministe, Lisa Jervis of Bitch Magazine, and, well, lots of others. Of particular interest to the fat-o-sphere, though, is an on-point contribution from Kate Harding entitled "How Do You Fuck a Fat Woman?"

The book can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com right now. You know what's more awesome than ordering it from Amazon, though? Going to your local book store and asking if they have it. And if they don't, asking them why not and to order you a copy.

Political Fa(c)t

So long as I'm railing against my usual targets, with election season upon us I'm especially puzzled by those who try to paint fat acceptance as some kind of suppressive force. That some FA is suppressing an anti-FA message. Seriously, I keep seeing people go after FA on such terms.

One group are the people deeply removed from things and have just imagined FA as some kind of fat promoting bogeyman to blame the epidemic of having to see fat people on. This would include stuff like John McCain's bizarre assertion that political correctness is hamstringing nutrition education, presumably in support of fat people. This group has never come close to FA so they at least have an excuse for being so badly misinformed, though its still their own fault for being so off the mark.

But you see the same line from people at fat blogs. There always seems to be someone at the ready to whine about how Fat Acceptance is keeping them down. I'm sorry, but what world are these people living in and how do I move there? I'd like the problems of fat acceptance to be too MUCH power. Here in the real world, though, this isn't remotely true. Fat Acceptance remains a profoundly marginalized political viewpoint and its simply not suppressing any oppositional views. Its hard for me not to see those complaints as really just railing against the fact that someone, somewhere is speaking differently than our weight loss culture. That their ideal is a world with no opposition to weight loss, so any differing viewpoint is thus farcically characterized as suppressing the unanimity they seek.

Because FA isn't keeping anyone's voice quiet in opposition to FA. Opposition to Fat Acceptance needs no support or leg-up from within FA. It is the status quo. It is indeed the extend of acceptable beliefs in our culture. Just look at the political facts on display in this election. There is no candidate for fat acceptance. Both candidates, both political parties have aggressively pandered to fat hatred in their platforms. As a fat activist, I have no luxury of considering the candidate who best represents my views, because neither do.

Fat acceptance is not marginalizing anyone. If you think for a second they are, you aren't seeing the forrest through the trees.

Totally fat positive weight loss!

I'm eternally puzzled at the drive to carve out some kind of fat positive weight loss niche. The explicitly contradictory nature of that never seems to really dissuade people from trying to insist on its possibility. I think it says a lot about how fat acceptance has not exactly been suppressed in our culture, so much as co-opted. Years of diet companies and professional fat baiters mimicking fat acceptance in an effort to disenfranchise it has evidently convinced a lot of people that weight-loss culture and fat acceptance aren't mutually exclusive.

Well, they are. Get used to it.

At which point we always here the righteous cries of inclusivity. Its always a curiously one-sided inclusivity, though. "Weight Loss Culture compromised by redefining FA to be fat negative, so the least FA can do is compromise by redefining fat acceptance to be fat negative."

Or some othr Weight Loss Culture talking point will take sway. "I don't hate my fat! I'm totally accepting of my body. Its just that the way it is right now is unacceptable so I need to change it. In a totally accepting way, though."

Nope, sorry. Doesn't work that way. If you're trying to lose weight, you're not being fat accepting. End of story.

Now, I'm not talking about having moments where you wished you weighed less. Given how overwhelming weight loss culture is, its impossible to avoid having moments of doubt, self-loathing, etc. Believe me, no one is that perfect. Myself included. The key point though is that perfection is only the goal in so far as its the theoretically ideal to progress towards. We don't have to expect to get there to not try to get there. Yet, that remains a top point raised to encourage people to give up fat acceptance. This notion that FA will not tolerate any lapses in positivity. Its just not the case.

Fat Acceptance will continue to be about, ya know, accepting fat. And that which is not accepting of fat will continue not being Fat Acceptance. Efforts to reconcile mutually exclusive ideals not withstanding, since, well, they won't withstand the fact that you can't reconcile mutually exclusive ideals.

A helpful reminder to politicians.

Just a helpful little reminder to any politicians looking to score points off fat bodies this election season. The world still really, really hates fat people. Tells them so every day. Reminds us in magazines, TV, newspapers. Reminds in ads and "news" alike. Reminds in fiction, too. Also has been known to seek us out on the street and in our home and even on our blogs. This world is not friendly to fat people. It is not even hands-off with fat people. Its decidedly hands-on in expressing its condemnation and intolerance for our bodies and expressing how we are a representation about countless things that are wrong in this world.

I say this, because John McCain, my friends, seems to not realize this. In discussing health care in an editorial this month, he explained how parent's need to teach their children "a sense of personal responsibility for their health, nutrition, and exercise" because such information has been "expelled from our schools". By what, you might ask? Political correctness, of course. Oh, political correctness. Is there nothing you can't be blamed for.

Evidently, fat acceptance (which I remind you, is still largely loathed and hated by progressives and conservatives alike) has been so successful it has now cowed our educators into supporting our point of view. Schools are not havens of fat tolerance and our childrens are suffering. Gone are the days of fat kids being berated by teaches and classmates alike. Gone are the gym class humiliations and public weighings. Gone are the days when children would be fat baited on their report cards. Except, of course, not.

This is a common theme among fat haters. So frustrated that the drum beat of their fat hatred has not made everyone skinny, that they decide the problem is that they aren't yelling loud enough. So they each think they are the first person telling us to hate our fat bodies. They must be, after all. If we had heard it before, we wouldn't be fat. Why haven't we heard it before? Well, obvious fat acceptance has come to dominant our life and society to such an insidious degree that we're keeping this information from the public to advance our political will.

So, just a reminder, fat acceptance does not control our educational system or anything else. Fat acceptance struggles at even holding sway in the FAT ACCEPTANCE. The suggestion that we are some sort of monolith of a political advocacy, imposing fatness on the American public is not a reality-based viewpoint. Its just an effort by fat hatred to disclaim responsibility for the fact that after decades of advancing their fat prejudice in every corner of our society, it simply has no productive results to show for it. Rather than acknowledge that their purpose has failed, they'd rather claim a loosely unorganized band of a few hundred activists are actually the most powerful force in matters of health in the nation.

So, just as a helpful reminder, we're not. You guys are still controlling the show. Fat people are still hated.

Princess Bashing

So, let's see. A week ago, I posted my apprehension about the newly announced "Fat Princess" video game. Then a few days later, Feminst Gamers (great site) picks up on the story as well its propeitor Mighty Ponygirl posts critically. A day later, it shows up on Big Fat Blog, where Paul McAleer also posts negatively about the game. And yesterday, Melissa McEwen of Shakesville discusses the game.

Now a predictable backlash has been brewing from defensive gamers. All very classy stuff I'm not going to bother quoting to save your sanity. Rest assured that a whole lot of fat hatred and woman hatred got spewed which justified the collective apprehension. Here's the thing, though. While Melissa and Mighty Ponygirl have gotten targeted by all this gamer backlash, Paul and I have not. Yeah, I know I don't have comments, but trust me I haven't seen a single email about the subject nor do Paul or I show up in any of the "ATTACK!" calls at gamer sites. Just Melissa and Mighty Ponygirl.

Now, I'd recognize that Shakesville is miles above in popularity and Feminist Gamers is at least a mile above. But Big Fat Blog is a fairly recognized site. So what else separates the blogs that have gotten backlash and those whose complaints have been ignored. See if you can figure it out and then ponder what this might tell us about those making the attacks.

Fat Princess? WTF?

I had been planning a post on video games and fat character creation, but then Sony goes and makes me post on a different video game subject. They've just announced a new game for the Playstation Network (essentially, you buy it online to download to a PS3 gaming console) called "Fat Princess". Which sounds like an awesome name, but you just know there is going to be a catch.

Yep, there is a catch.

Essentially, its a game of "Capture the Flag" where two teams fight to infiltrate the other's base, take their flag and bring it back to their own home base. Only instead of a flag, its a fat woman. Only, its not a fat woman so much as a feederist fantasy turned into a video game. See, the princess has been kept in a dungeon and has been fed until she is extremely fat. Ya know, to make it harder to rescue her and return her to her castle.

WTF?

The artwork of the game is weird in the first place. The characters are all designed in a very cutesy Nintendo-esque style, but there seems to be copious amounts of blood resulting from their battles to rescue their respective fat princesses. I'm sure the notion of "Capture the Fat Lady" was just another way to be quirky like that.

I'm trying to figure out a way to make this subversively positive, but I'm not seeing it. You could look at it as a game where the teams are fighting to protect a fat female ruler. I mean, that sorta sounds good. But, since this is team versus team, you are also a kidnapper and feeder. I could ignore the kidnapping thing since its riffing on fantasy archetypes, but the whole feederist thing is disturbing. And much like feederism tends to be, the purpose is really the degradation of fat people as the real consequence of this variation on capture the flag is that the flag is difficult to carry back to your home base. Cuz she's fat and stuff.

Sadly, the game seems to be actually executed well in terms of its game play so it might be popular. Well, as popular as a Playstation Network game can be, anyway. Maybe it won't be as bad as it seems like it might, but I'm definitely uneasy with what I'm seeing.