Body Image in Bridget Jones

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Monday, December 17, 2007

When Bridget Jones' Diary came into the theatres, I saw it twice. I liked its lighthearted humor, and particularly the loveable loser as a lead, which is not all that common for a female protagonist (but is almost always the case for a male protagonist). When I read the books, however, I realized how much better it could have been. What disappointed me the most was probably the choice of Renee Zellweger for the lead, or more generally, the choice of a leading lady who was otherwise skinny and was "fattened up" for the part.

In the novels, Bridget Jones is normalweight - around 130 lbs - and loses and gains the same few pounds all the time, like people do in real life. She's much more intelligent than she comes off in the movies: she's a feminist of sorts, self-ironic and analytical. Her biggest problem is that she's self-absorbed and neurotic, much like in the movie. However, unlike in the movie, her fight against fat is shown as her own private struggle, endless and futile, and in the end, others like her better when she's not skinny. In other words, a surprisingly realistic take on a chubbyish normalweight woman. I wouldn't give the books a size acceptance trophy, but they aren't completely fatphobic either.

In the movies, we see a different reality. They ditched a lot of the body-positive elements from the novels and replaced them with cheap fat jokes. The scene where Bridget realizes 2000 calories is a daily recommendation? Not in the movie. The scene where her friends think she's a bore and less attractive when she finally loses weight? Not in the movie. Instead, they spend most of the first and especially the second movie stuffing her into unfitting and unflattering clothes to purposefully make her look fatter. They have her fall ass first onto a camera to emphasize the size of the ass. Classy.

The books depict Bridget as a vain, neurotic woman made that way by an ambivalent environment, one which - through the media - tells her she's too fat, yet doesn't reward her if she loses weight. The movies depict her as a fat, sloppy girl who, despite her self esteem issues, is pretty oblivious about how she looks in tight clothing.

Is she that much fatter in the movies then? Well, not really. In the first movie, Zellweger does look the size I imagine Bridget to be. Yet it becomes obvious that this size, in the universe of the movie, is a BIG size. In the second movie, Zellweger gained even more weight and looks slightly overweight, bigger than Bridget in the book; cue more fat jokes and tight clothing. She still catches the eye of two handsome suitors - and some lewd older guys -, but somehow this seems to be *despite* her weight, because she's imperfect and clumsy and loveable because of that (and we all know that lewd older guys like a girl with flesh on her bones!)

Renee Zellweger isn't big enough for the role and therefore attracted way too much attention with her weight gain/loss. She talked negatively about her Bridget body in the media, which is a pretty natural reaction, especially if you're used to being so skinny. However, it came off as "OMG 130 lbs is HUGE!". I think this alone made the movie's message of "normal women are OK too" - which was pretty hypocritical to begin with, given how they made fun of Bridget - completely useless. By reacting in this way, she also gave viewers a free pass to laugh at her "fat" size in the film. The same people who would have shrugged to see a woman that size in real life howled with laughter to see skinny Renee Zellweger "blown up" that way. Some of those who laughed were themselves the same size. It's the same effect as the fat suit - it's "funny" to see a skinny star (Courteney Cox, Gwyneth Paltrow, "Weird Al" Yankovic) in a fat suit, because it makes them look unnatural and strange all of a sudden. The problem is that it also makes fatness look unnatural and strange and laughable.

So, Zellweger watches Super Size Me and gets panicky about how dangerous a fast weight gain can be. Have I mentioned recently how much I hate Super Size Me? But yeah, that part of it probably does hold true - gaining 20 pounds in one month eating nothing but junk food is not good for you. So she is now health conscious and says she'll wear a fat suit instead, if they make a third movie (which I hope they won't, as even the first sequel was pretty washed-out). Like I said above, her weight gain and loss created a fat suit effect anyway, so it's not so different if she opts for the fat suit this time. I'm not pro-extreme weight gain for the purposes of a movie, at all. If anything, that sort of thing reinforces the stereotype that anyone can gain weight if they just "eat a lot".

What bugs me is that Zellweger seems to have no qualms about extreme dieting, which she engaged in after the movies. Her weight gain was "unhealthy" and the subsequent weight loss was "necessary" and "healthy", even if it made her underweight. She seems to think that rapidly gaining weight is bad, but rapidly losing it is OK; that being underweight contains no risks whatsoever, while being overweight is an immense risk. It's an understandable attitude, since we get far more "watch out for obesity!" stuff in the media. The experts and journalists seem to assume that we don't run a risk of becoming too skinny.

It must be confusing - or rather, reinforcing the wrong beliefs about weight - to hear an underweight actress talk about the health hazards of being normalweight. Because I do worry that this is what some people will take home from all this. Not that forcing your body to gain or lose a lot of weight is always bad, but that looking like Bridget Jones is dangerous and OMGPANIC Super Size Me.

Here's hoping that for the next movie about a normalweight woman, they actually hire a normalweight actress who's proud of who she is.

Anti-Gay vs. Anti-Fat Arguments

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Monday, December 10, 2007. I've slightly modified this post, but I might modify it more later as I look into it more. My goal was never to say that being gay=being fat; there are overlapping areas, but two oppressions are never the exact same, and there's no point in having a shouting match between the two.

The funny thing about being a fat lesbian is that you see counterarguments from two different sides, and they're the exact same arguments. Seriously, there is virtually no difference between anti-fat and anti-gay arguments; it's the same ignorant generalizing bullshit. Yet, anti-gay people are usually seen as ignorant and homophobic, while anti-fat people are seen as rational and moderate in our culture. What's the real difference? Here are just some examples of the strikingly similar arguments.

It's not in your genes. It's a lifestyle choice.

Sure it is. If you're different, and we don't like you, it's not because we're bigoted; it's because you chose to be different from the rest of us. Who do you think you are? It doesn't matter if there's mounting evidence in both camps that it is in your genes, because that's just gay/fat people looking for excuses, surely they've bribed some scientists to be on their side.

I don't necessarily see it as a "lifestyle" that I feel something for my own sex, or that I have a certain amount of fat in my body. People are individuals, regardless what they represent to you. For every fat person who eats nothing but junk food, there's a slim person with the same lifestyle. Ditto every gay person who has casual sex. You can argue that some fat and gay people do these things, but you can't prove that we all do. I've had less sex, and less food, than some of my slim heterosexual friends.

Sure you can choose to change. I mean, technically, any homosexual can start a relationship with someone of the opposite sex - but that doesn't guarantee there'd be love or erotic attraction involved. Any fat person can eat low-cal stuff and exercise, but it doesn't guarantee s/he'll become thin. Even if you make the choice to change, some people will still assume you have the "wrong" lifestyle, and discriminate against you. You really can't win there.

And the most important question of all - why is it OK to discriminate against choices? Don't we have freedom of choice in a democracy? Isn't it always the person discriminating who needs to change their attitude, because you can't change others anyway? Isn't it a choice to refuse to accept someone who's different from you?

If we tolerate this, what's next? Animal lovers? Incest? Pedophilia? Or in case of fat: a) any weight, even if you weigh !OMG500POUNDS!
b) any lifestyle, no matter how unhealthy - completely sedentary, alcoholic, smoker, etc.

Just because "homosexuality" is filed under "perversions" in your head, and "obesity" is filed under "addictions" or "ultimate unhealthy lifestyles", it doesn't follow that if we accept one item, we must accept everything else on the list. It's one of the weirdest logical fallacies, when you think about it. We don't have to accept everything - we could just accept, say, consenting adults who aren't harming anyone else. Because in the end, there's nothing we can do about them anyway. You're free to despise the lifestyles of others, but what are you gonna do? Move into someone else's bedroom/kitchen to watch that they live right? What happens to freedom of choice then? Does judgement go a longer way than helping people who are clearly hurting themselves and others?

My counter-question: what happens if we outlaw this? What goes next? Your right to choose your spouse? Your right to eat unhealthy foods, ever? The privacy of your sex life? Don't assume it's only the most "extreme" cases that will be banned; it's much more likely that the next one to be limited is you and your "moderate" lifestyle.

If we tolerate this, everyone will soon get fat/gay.

Homosexuals make up about 6 % of the population (at least in Finland). As for fat people, if we're talking about the fat people you see in documentaries, I mean the supersized ones, it's about the same, or lower. I dont' see any sudden surge in either group, and I don't see a reason to suspect an oncoming surge, because most people are still pretty homo/fatphobic. More importantly, though, you can't just make yourself gay or supersized. Some people might experiment with homosexuality, but it just doesn't come naturally to everyone. Some might eat lots of fattening foods, but everyone doesn't have the same tendency to gain weight.

It's a matter of control: if we don't control people's eating and/or sex life, it will become totally uncontrollable and scary and there will be no boundaries anymore and the Earth will be flinged from its axis and we'll all die. Because being fat and gay is so lucrative - look at how much fun they have, having all the sex and eating all the food!

Homosexuality/obesity is so accepted nowadays. Gays and fat people can indulge in their lifestyle openly and we can't do anything. And they want more rights?

Most gays and fat people face lots of discrimination and hate. We also go through a phase of self-hatred and internalized fat/homophobia. Some never get over it. There are people who kill themselves because of all this internalized hate. But hey, we have it so easy, and we're so oblivious that we bug certain people. You can probably tell that this type of entitlement makes me mad. There's no denying that the privileged group in our society consist of white, middle-class, right-wing Christian, heterosexual slim people. Yet those same people often complain that they don't have a place in today's world of homosexuality and obesity. I don't even know what to say without getting really fumed up.

To some people, it's enough that gays and fat people exist, that's already pretty impudent, so how dare they ask for rights. Once in a forum, someone suggested a "fat pride parade", and someone else responded with "I see fat people parading around every day." Yeah, well, every day is fat pride day, right?

Homosexuality/obesity is simply a mental/eating disorder caused by
-a distant relationship with your same-sex parent;
-childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse;
-basically anything else that you can pinpoint in a person's life story

I'm not saying something like this can't happen. Sure, there could be someone who was originally straight but was raped and became gay through some complex mental trauma. There could be someone who was abused and started overeating to make themselves unattractive to the opposite sex, or to deal with their emotions. The latter sounds a lot more likely, but I'm sure both could be psychologically possible.

However, if this were true, it would also work the other way around. You don't see straight people second-guessing whether a trauma in their childhood caused them to be attracted to the opposite sex, and you don't see normalweight people asking if they should in fact be fat, if only they hadn't been so distant from their mother. This, to me, is what shows it to be discriminatory. You can't explain away unwanted variation like this. And even if it were true with some people, doesn't prove it's true with everyone who's fat/gay/bi/whatever else you don't accept.

What's more, the scientific validity of theories like this is problematic. My biggest issue is with the basic question "why do people overeat" or "why do people become attracted to their own sex". What if it's not something you do or become, just something you are and have always been? If there's a strong ideal that everyone should eat healthy foods only, we will perceive the unhealthy-eating people as people who have a problem. The same goes for valuing heterosexuality as the only "healthy" orientation. The truth is, there are traumatizing things in anyone's childhood. My sexuality has been explained away with "you were bullied at school" and "your Dad was absent throughout your teenage years", but my same-sex feelings date back to when I was seven, before either of those things began. Does it prove anything? Maybe, maybe not. It just feels unlikely that there is a simple explanation.

And in the end - yes, it could be that you were originally something and became something else. That's how we grow and mature. You're not supposed to be exactly what you were when you were a child; it's OK to change with time, and it's OK to accept who you are now. If you have sexual or eating behaviors that hurt you or others, that's one thing. But behaviors are usually modifiable, and your essential body type/sexual orientation isn't.

Have you heard of this [insert latest ex-gay/diet support group here]? They've worked wonders on some people. You should give it a shot!

The success rates in those groups are minimal. It's unlikely that I would change in any way. I don't need to give something a shot if I know less than ten per cent come out "healed", and most people face pressure within the groups that might do them more damage.

I don't know. Maybe some gays need ex-gay groups if they really can't accept their sexuality for various reasons. Maybe they need a group of likeminded people where they're not expected to feel good about themselves. Maybe some fat people need diet groups too. Maybe fat acceptance deters them because they're not ready to accept themselves. I'm not really worried about the concept of people being in a group where they can voice their negative feelings and work on them.

What I am worried about, however, is that these groups do give you a certain goal, and you probably won't be happy with yourself until you've reached that goal and kept it. It's a goal that, for most people, is unattainable. What's the psychological cost of living your life reaching for an unattainable goal? This is what we should be asking. A handful of "success stories" doesn't eradicate the desperation of those who "fail".

And finally, the most idiotic one of them all:
If you have a tendency to be fat, you just need to eat less than other people. / If you have a tendency to be gay, and you can't change, you just need to live celibate.

People who say this believe they're being fair. They're simply not giving anyone a free pass: everyone has to remain sexually pure/slim, no matter what, and if some people have to work a little harder to achieve it, tough luck for them. How many heterosexuals would agree to live celibate, not just until marriage, but their whole lives? Pretty much no one. This is one case where it's difficult to make the same argument against dieting, because many slim women already live a really limited life of counting calories and call this "normal" and "healthy". Sigh.

Is bigotry always the same, regardless who you direct it at? Obviously it's not as simple as "all attitudes against gays are the same as the attitudes against fat people", and fat people haven't gone through the same exact things gays have. But the underlying attitudes seem to be the same.

We can only hope that in twenty years' time, fat people enjoy the relative mainstream acceptance gays have now, and gays will have become a lot more accepted. Homosexuality was a crime twenty years ago, and it was classified a disease. Gay rights have come a long way, and hopefully fat rights will too.

Is This Fat Acceptance To You?

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Thursday, December 06, 2007.

There's a fat acceptance group here in Tampere called Iloiset syöjättäret (happy eaters - syöjätär has some archaic "temptress" meaning too). I recently heard of it, and I was thinking of joining, but on second thought, nevermind. I much prefer the blogosphere. Apparently there is no strong resistance movement in Finland, because their ideas don't seem to be particularly revolutionary.

In an article in Helsingin Sanomat, February 2007, which can be found here but only in Finnish (but do look at the pictures of fatties with FACES!), psychologist Lea Polso from Iloiset syöjättäret is interviewed about obesity. So it starts by her saying that dieting doesn't work and people gain the weight back. So far, so good. But then...

Polso agrees that obesity is a growing problem. She thinks that too easy solutions and explanations are offered for it.

"A growing problem"? Did she really say that? I mean, at this point, I could believe that the writer added "problem" while Polso just agreed there are more overweight people than before, or something. I also like the part about too easy explanations. But then it goes downhill, when Polso starts trying to explain away obesity. I mean, I'm glad her own solutions and explanations are so complex and in-depth. Her theory:

Partially it is societal issues that make people prone to gaining weight, Polso explains. The food envinronment has become dangerous for health: there is a constant supply of everything, in big packages at that. Less and less daily basic exercise is available. The slim-emphasizing beauty ideal creates pressure. A busy lifestyle also makes one prone to gaining weight.

Ugh. OK, points for saying the beauty ideals contribute to the "problem", but the rest of that is just your typical "Finnish newspaper article about obesity" bull to my ears. Having everything in a constant supply is dangerous for our health? I thought we need a constant supply of a wide variety of nutrients. Finland the way it was in the 1950's, for example, was a great place to become undernourished. Long winter, short season for cultivating things, poor finances after the last war, et cetera. Now we live in a culture where we can finally eat everything, and as a result, we're taller than before, have less scurvy and such, and yes, we weigh somewhat more. I'll never get used to people complaining about a good food supply. Obviously it's caused more good things than bad.

The big package sizes are a pet peeve of mine, because I live alone and eat alone, and my food comsuption is relatively small. Even with single-serving meals, I tend to have some leftovers, but with a package of five chicken legs, I might only eat two. It doesn't stop me from buying the whole package if it's the only one in store and I really want chicken legs. However, I can't stuff that many of them in me, so I just end up throwing the rest out. I'm not sure if the big package sizes really lead to people eating more or if they just lead to more bio-degradable waste. And as we all know, fat people have no exercise, right?

"People are going at full speed, and there's no time to listen to yourself. Many people lose touch with their inner selves, and it's difficult to deal with one's emotions. Some people eat because they're hungry for life," Polso explains.

I'm not sure about this. I mean, it sounds like a reasonable enough idea, but it also sounds deceptively like armchair psychology. I know she's an actual psychologist, but does she have to throw around phrases like "one's inner self" and "a hunger for life"? It's all very vague, and it's hard to tell what this is based on. Even if this theory were true, it doesn't follow that:
a) all fat people have this problem;
b) everyone who eats "junk food" or eats "too much" is out of touch with their inner self;
c) people who have their eating "under control" are, by default, doing much better mentally (from what I've seen, one of the best ways to stay out of touch with one's emotions seems to be frantic dieting).

So we're dealing with fairly annoying generalizations here, and still trying to explain why people are fat, instead of asking why we think fat is a bad thing. I think this is the biggest problem with this entire article. I mean, it continues with a photographer saying that obesity is like climate change - "you don't do anything about it until you have to". I know he's talking about men, but dude. Come back when you've talked to some fat women. And chubby women. And slim women. The whole article seems to be skating around definitions that are never really discussed. How is obesity being defined? Is it true that we are all getting fatter all of a sudden? Does lifestyle really play a role in everyone's weight? What do the latest studies say? Well, this journalist (whose name I can't find anywhere on the page) obviously didn't think to ask.

Back to our "fat acceptant" psychologist, who apparently has found a way to make people lose weight without making them diet.

Many people lose weight, once they learn to understand the needs and feelings related to dieting. Polso is the leader of the Tampere-based Happy eater-groups where people practice this. It's common that people find a certain phase in their life that their weight gain is related to.

If people need to discuss their relationship with food, and they find a place to do that, then good for them. But there already are groups like this that don't advertise themselves as fat acceptance groups. I'd like to ask what the difference is between a group like this and a group where people diet together. Because what I see in this article is a group where, while discrimination against fat people is discussed, a certain idea of eating is still upheld as "normal". I'd also like to point out that discrimination is also discussed at Weight Watchers meetings.

To be honest, I'm not convinced that all people need a "conscious" relationship with food. My whole life, I've strived to have a relationship with food where I can eat it, enjoy it, and skip thinking too much about it. I think I'm healthier, happier and more productive when I don't think too much about food, and I think most people already have a problem with focusing on food too much. We don't need more of that.

Why is it that every single Finnish person I know, even the ones who are pretty fat acceptant and/or don't believe in dieting, still think fatness is a problem? There really is zero fat acceptance talk in the Finnish media. It's all "Yes, it's a problem but", or "it's a misunderstood problem". This whole article says, "Not enough is being done to help fat people", "Fat people are misunderstood by others", but sadly also "Fat people have a problem with food". Over and over again.

Am I the first Finnish person to say BEING FAT IS NOT A PROBLEM? Well, it isn't.
And I refuse to treat it as such.