Andrea on The Big C

The Big C is a Showtime show, like Weeds. It has the same brand of humor and essentially the same premise: suburbia is shaken by one ordinary woman's bold attitude. In this case, it's because Cathy Jameson (Laura Linney) has cancer, and is trying to live life to the fullest. (That's the Finnish translated title. "Living Life to the Fullest". Yeah, I dunno either.) The show is frank about cancer, sex, and any other possible issues. There's farting, and doctors telling patients they have "an awesome rack". There's a teenage boy who just wants to get away from his Mom, and a homeless eco warrior brother.

I have a relatively low tolerance for this type of humor. I can't really stomach Weeds at all, and even my Six Feet Under rewatch was lacklustre. I'm not sure why that is; at age 20 or so, I thought this was the shit:  honest and rude and open about sex. Maybe I'm so used to it by now that it no longer works on me; the rude brand of honesty has been in for quite a while now. It may be getting old. On the other hand, kindness is very imprortant for me personally, and I try to avoid confrontation, so maybe I feel a certain anxiety watching people be rude to each other. Maybe it reminds me of being bullied.

Either way, The Big C has somewhat sucked me in. I really care about Cathy and her family; I think there's a certain emotional honesty here, which isn't always achieved by shows like this. Cathy may be rude and crude some of the time, but she's essentially a kind soul who wants to help people. Maybe that's why the show works for me.

One of the people Cathy wants to help is her student Andrea, played by Gabourey Sibide of Precious fame. I was hoping her weight wouldn't be an issue on a show like this. Could she just be a fat character with no diet story? Apparently, that's a little too much to hope for.

In episode 1, Andrea comes into class late, and instead of being sorry, she makes fun of Cathy's haphzard way of teaching. Cathy calls her up to get her exam and whispers to her:

"You can't be fat and mean, Andrea. Fat people are jolly for a reason. Fat repels people but joy attracts them. I know they're laughing at your cruel jokes but nobody's asking you to the prom. So you can be a skinny bitch or fat and jolly, it's up to you." 

Cathy shows herself to be a class-A fatist here. She means well, but that doesn't make it okay to basically tell Andrea that fat people are repulsive, as if no one thinks otherwise. She doesn't know, she just assumes that no one's asking Andrea to the prom. (I know teenage boys are often scared of dating bigger girls, for fear of ridicule, but still.) It's ironic that she closes with "It's up to you", because her point is that it really isn't. She's saying that being fat puts you in a certain mold where you have to make amends by being jolly. She assumes you can choose to be fat or thin, and thus choose your role. Skinny girls can be kind or mean, but fat girls can only be kind. Instead of giving Cathy hell about this bullshit, Andrea just sighs and goes back to her seat.

Later, Cathy catches her having a cigarette. Perhaps genuinely and perhaps to mock Cathy, Andrea says that she'd rather be skinny and dead than fat forever: "Fat camp didn't work for me." She lists all the diets she's been on and how they didn't work. This I liked, because that's how it is for most fat girls. Of course, the show gets minus points for the idea that she just wants to lose the weight and would rather smoke than be fat, but it's realistic at least. At this point, Cathy makes her big offer: she'll give Andrea 100 bucks for each pound lost. "Well I guess this skinny bitch is up for it," says Andrea happily. Oh, groan.

I realize what's going on here: Cathy wants to save Andrea. She says as much in another episode: "I just don't want you to drop dead before you graduate." Andrea responds gleefully: "Way to dream small, Mrs J!" It bugs me that this idea is never questioned. Andrea has to lose weight or she will die. She accepts this, as does everyone else. Yet we're not looking at a person literally lying on her deathbed, unable to move. She can walk, jog, ride a bike, go to school normally, and there's no indication that she has any health problems at the moment.

So what's wrong with helping her lose weight? Well, for one thing, Cathy cannot guarantee that the weight stays off. She doesn't know why all the other diets failed; she doesn't know if Andrea is eating disordered. What will happen if Andrea doesn't lose weight permanently? Will Cathy be super disappointed in her and blame her for not working hard enough? Won't that just harm Andrea's self esteem? There are all kinds of things Cathy isn't considering. Motivating someone to diet is a huge responsibility, and Cathy's too focused on her own life changes to really be there for Andrea. Majorly bad idea.



Slim white teacher tries to help fat black student. I'm not going into the racism discussion here, but this seems quite familiar.



What's worse is that Andrea starts off badly - she has gained two pounds.

Andrea: "Fuck that shit, I've been starving myself."
Cathy: "Don't say fuck. And don't starve yourself, that always backfires." 

(This show tries to cram as many "fuck"s as possible into each episode.)
So we have here a slim woman who knows about dieting. She must, or she wouldn't be so slim, right? Andrea, who's been on all those diets, doesn't even know that you mustn't starve yourself. But really, can you blame her, when she's being PAID to lose weight? Of course she'd like to lose as much as possible right away. She probably needs the money. Cathy tells her to walk, "to school or whatever, just WALK!" Andrea says, "I think another bikini season will pass me by." Cathy claims, "The bikini is harsh on us all." Yeah, easy for you to say, slim. You can walk down the beach in a bikini without people laughing.

The most aggravating scene follows: Cathy spots Andrea - eating chips. "What are you doing?" she exclaims. Andrea gleefully explains that she walked all the way home and got hungry, "you told me not to starve myself." EXACTLY. Cathy basically just told her to eat. But of course, the fat girl will combine walking with eating "junk food", thus ruining the effect of the walk. That's what us fatties do!

Cathy's brother Sean jumps in and tells Andrea that she's a product of a "gluttonous society". It's not a personal judgement, I'll give him that, but. Fat=gluttony, even if you're saying it's the whole culture and not just the fat person, is still "low thinking" in my book. There's worse to come: "Our excess is killing you!" She's not dying, people. At least Andrea takes it calmly, with amusement, although I wouldn't have minded a little anger here.

Cathy grabs the chips and tells Andrea it's not nourishing, "you should be eating something your body knows how to burn off, like a fruit or a vegetable". Oh dear. Chips may be fattening, but they're not completely without nutrition, and isn't potato a vegetable or something of the ilk? It's not like she's eating candy with nothing but sugar and chemicals. More importantly, even if she did choose to eat pure sugar and chemicals, that would still be OK. She should be able to choose her own food. This "save the fat girl from herself" bullshit needs to stop.

Of course, when we next see Andrea, she's walking and drinking a slushie or soda. "What are you doing?" "Excercising!" This time, Cathy throws her drink down on the ground, in the street, in front of everyone. Way to humiliate the fat girl. Andrea demands to know why. "Because I like you, Andrea." So because you like her, you limit her choices and bribe her to diet? Cathy's a buttinski of the worst kind, but of course no one calls her on it because diets help fat people.

Also infuriating: Cathy invites Andrea for a dinner party and offers her pigs in a blanket. "You can have one," she says, "just don't have three." In front of the other guests, she says that. How nice, so you offer her food but tells her how much she's allowed to eat.

Cathy's husband Paul (Oliver Platt), who is fat but not as big as Andrea, keeps making remarks about his weight in the same vein. E.g. "I'm a big guy, my heart could explode at any moment". When they see Cathy's doctor, he tells him first thing: "What's going on in here, you've got a heart attack in there with your name on it."

I'm not necessarily mad that this type of behavior is shown. It's realistic. People assume all the time that fat people are going to die, and they treat fat people in a humiliating way, but do it with a smile. What I'd like to see is one of the writers to realize that there's a thing called fat acceptance; that some fat people live long healthy lives; that fat people can also be happy with their size, etc. Is this too much to ask?

In the spirit of the show, Andrea is not meek and gentle but tells Cathy some truths as well, but they're never about this. So while Andrea's eating habits are under constant scrutiny, Cathy's meddling and concern trolling are just seen as "caring".

An issue glossed over on the show is that Cathy is rich, and rich people have an easier time eating wholesome foods. Despite what Sean says about a "rich and gluttonous society", fat is the "problem" of the poor more so than the rich. There was one episode where I got hopeful; Andrea is jealous of Cathy's affair with a black man, so she tells her she has it easy. "Try growing up in the ghetto and having to go to drive-thru for breakfast because your Mom used your grocery money on her morning fix." This was a step in the right direction, but then it was botched, because turns out Andrea is lying! She's the youngest of six children, her parents have a house almost as big as Cathy's, they're obviously loving, etc. So much for any social criticism re: food distribution in the ghetto.

Andrea is at least expanded (pun intended) beyond this point and becomes a friend of Cathy's, but it's hard for me to overlook this aspect. Every time she comes on, I start cringing: no more diet talk! This is a good show, and Gabourey Sibide is awesome, and I'm glad she's getting roles. I just think that with her talent, she deserves a role where her weight is NOT an issue. I find myself asking: why can't the protagonist be fat? Why can't the woman with cancer, the everywoman suburbian mother who's been nice too long, be fat and learn to be proud of it? You could take this who-cares attitude, this spiky type of humor, and bring in fat acceptance. Or you could have a female character for whom weight is not an issue. I'd like to see them battle that taboo.

EDIT: I'm adding this, because I just thought of his scene. Andrea goes jogging and sees Cathy's son Adam. "Stop staring at my titties, I'm trying to jog!" she says, completely confidently. Adam claims he's seen bigger. "Bet you haven't touched them though," says Andrea. "No, so?" says Adam. Andrea asks him to touch hers, and when he doesn't do it, she takes his hand and lays it on her boobs. Adam's face shows that he's turned on.

I did like this scene, because Andrea is being openly sexual and unphased by a boy, who might or might not like fat girls. She isn't diminishing her sexuality because of her weight. Of course, it's slightly ruined by the fact that she's motivated to work harder because of a cute black guy. Also, one might make the case that this scene presents fat (and black?) women as sexually intimidating. So we've got mixed signals here, but I liked Andrea's spunkiness. She doesn't go around assuming people couldn't find her attractive. More of this, please.

In Which I Can't Let Go of Ian McEwan's "Solar"

Mr McEwan, your book is bad and you should feel bad.

Apparently, some people found Solar hi-la-ri-ous because of all the "fatty eats a lot" stuff. It's so ironic, you see. Michael Wood from the Huffington Post writes:

We can't miss the relish in the writing here, the pileup of horrible detail; but it's worth pausing over the relish's double focus: Beard is wallowing in his own gluttony and recklessness, while McEwan's narrator is writing with the mesmerized horror of a much thinner person. This sort of disjunction is essential to the novel's irony, allows us our complex laughter, and means that McEwan, or his narrator, can treat Beard without sympathy and without condemnation. 

(It's actually a very nice, complex review, if you're interested in reading more about the novel. But I must take opposition with this bit. I'm obviously not part of the "us".) 

First of all, there's nothing complex about laughter at fat people. Fat jokes have been skinned to the bone; there is nothing left but "fatty like to eat haha". It's really elementary school humor dressed up as intellectual fiction with some clever word choices. Secondly, this is exactly why I felt so alienated while reading it. Looking at the first chapter, I was hoping to see a realistically depicted, self-aware fat person, but then all the gluttony comes in and ruins it. It's just not very realistic, and we're obviously meant to see the fat person as an Other. While I may make excuses - he's a man, he's older than me, he drinks so much, etc. - I can't escape the fact that Beard has the same amount of "excess weight" that I have. So McEwan might actually be writing about me, among other people. And he imagines that his intellectual readers are going to be slim.

I did come to realize, though, that the mesmerized horror might actually not be so far off from a fat person's inner dialogue. Most of us have that voice inside of us, even those who are fat acceptant. The voice says, "OMG you're getting so HUGE! Will you stop eating so much!" or perhaps "Oh, eating a chocolate bar, are we? No wonder you're so fat." If you're a fat person and you eat anything, but especially specific "fatty foods" like bacon, chocolate, chips, etc. (which Beard also indulges in), you're bound to hear a voice inside you that says you really shouldn't. That's what this culture does to us. Exploring that voice might have been interesting, but McEwan doesn't bother to do that.

The problem with Solar is that it seems to suggest this is the voice of reason, not internalized fat hatred talking. This is, of course, what most people already think. Should I expect McEwan to rise above such cultural norms? Well, I'll say yes - he wrote Atonement, On Chesil Beach and many other beautiful novels where he really went into the characters' heads, even if these characters are women from another time. But apparently he can't afford such empathy and humanity with fat people.

I also disagree that the book is without condemnation. Bearing in mind that Beard drives an SUV (because he can't fit into other cars),  flies planes constantly, and eats primarily meat, McEwan might even be suggesting that fat people are particularly guilty of ecological "crimes" that cause CO2 emissions. Beard never once contemplates on this. When it comes to his body, even if Beard is aware of the fatness, he is also in deep denial about how bad things are. When the doctor gives his list of predictions, we're meant to think it's time for Beard to wake up - and yet he lapses into a blissful feeling of freedom as soon as he leaves the doctor's office. The ending of the book is left open, but most likely he has a heart attack and dies. It's alluded to in no uncertain terms. It may also be seen as a final judgement or punishment for his indulgence. 

In my view, the book would be a lot more powerful if Beard went on his big diet, lost all the weight, and became physically fit but was still a really disgusting human being. That might actually be a lot more current and deep-thought: poking fun at the fitness culture and people's obsession with their bodies; showing that someone who has "will power" over their body is not always a good person in other ways.

After writing the previous post, I've also thought of Battlestar Galactica and my favorite character, Gaius Baltar. Baltar is loathsome in many ways: cowardly, selfish, weak, arrogant, often rude. He has a lot in common with Beard in these ways. Interestingly, however, he is not fat. He is short, like Beard, and this might be an instance of lookism (or heightism?) in both stories. But Baltar was, throughout most of the seasons, quite thin. He indulged in smoking, drinking, women, and arrogance, but not in food. I never really thought of this before, but I like that. What if he had been fat? Would he have been even more irredeemable in some people's eyes? He is already loathed by many fans, but I love him. It might be because the writer Ron D. Moore and the actor James Callis decided to give him some humanity. Some empathy, a lot of guilt, a position as a pawn. There's a lot of humanity to his weakness.

Well, now I digress into my fandoms. My point was going to be this: if you have anti-hero character, and you wish people to care about it, you need to give him something we can relate to. Nobody is completely evil, and if you draw your protagonist that way, you're making a caricature, not a character. Beard is indulgent, selfish, despises most people, and doesn't even care about his own child. As he is the most central character, that soon begins to grate. On topic: Jason Cowley with The Guardian finds the protagonist one-dimensional. Tell me about it. 

It was always going to be high risk, wagering so much on having as your central character a comic grotesque so loathsome and self-pitying, with thoughts mostly so banal, and then leaving the reader trapped, unrelieved, in his company for nearly 300 pages.

I must say, this description is much closer to my feelings than the "complex laughter" quote above.

McEwan won a humor literature prize for Solar. He bought a pig and named it after the protagonist. How deliciously ironic.

This whole has angered me so much that I have decided to make an art project out of it. I decided to cut up the book and place some of the words on my fat body. I'm not sure if McEwan cares - in fact, I'm quite sure he doesn't - but the blubber wants to talk back. And it will.

Some preliminary ideas (my camera doesn't handle small text very well, sadly):

(These are not meant to be erotic pictures, more like feminist art. So I hope you don't mind the nudity.)

Mike & Molly - Where It Fails

I haven't done this in a while, but I feel like blogging about this show. So you know, I will. Here we go. *plunges*

I wanted to like the new CBS comedy Mike & Molly. It's about fat people, and it has two actors I really like, the adorable Melissa McCarthy and Swoozie Kurtz. Here, however, they have nothing to work with. The premise is that a fat cop and fat school teacher who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting - start dating. Well, it has "fat people" and "dating" in the same show. That's a plus. On the other hand, the show also takes for granted that fat people=overeaters. Almost all of the jokes are based on fat, so it seems to assume fat = hilarious too. Sigh. 

This is not a hateful show. It's well meaning and tries to be kind, and it didn't trigger any of my issues. But if you're going to make a show specifically about fat people, it would be nice to see something a little more... well, revolutionary? This is the kind of show that scratches on the very shallow surface of fat acceptance, but falls short because so many things should be addressed, and most of them went completely undiscussed here.

The first episode circles around fat jokes, sassy Black friends, brainless sisters who get high. It's not very ambitious as far as sitcoms go. Mike meets Molly, Mike tries to ask her out, but then he breaks a table and injures his pinky, and there's commotion. And then they meet again and he chickens out again. And then, as he comes to investigate a robbery at Molly's house, he finally asks her out. End of episode 1. In episode two, we have Mike and Molly's first date. Mike shops at the Big&Tall store, cue more fat jokes. Molly tries on some clothes, fat jokes again. Then Molly, who's sneezing constantly, takes too much cough syrup and is completely high for their date. Her mother makes fun of Mike's new sweater, about twenty times. Molly yells at the waiter that they may be fat but don't make any assumptions that they're "dessert people". Then she orders a creme brulee. At the end of the date, it's a bit sweeter and they obviously like each other. But really, after a long episode of fat jokes, who's still watching? 

So in the end, it is just a sitcom, and it commits the gravest crime of sitcoms: it's not funny. At all. I didn't laugh once, and I laugh easily.The laugh track, of course, couldn't stop cracking up. Most of the jokes are puns - about being fat, at that - and this kind of humor rarely works. I'm a little confused; if they can't write a funny joke, why not make it a drama? Or a dramedy like Gilmore Girls - no laugh track, witty banter, warm moments, ordinary people?

The good thing is, they have obviously tried to dust up some of the clichés. The Black sidekick is the slim one. (Albeit still sassy and talkative.) The fat people are aware of their weight and talk openly about it. There's no scene with a fat girl overeating as her thin friends look on with disgust. In fact, there's a scene where the fat girl watches her thin mother and sister eat, and they tell her to indulge.

Let's stop there. They. Tell her. To indulge. And her mother says she's not fat, just big-boned, it's in the genes.

This was the point where I realized I'm not in the target group. I would have killed to have that mother. My mother made me feel bad for my weight throughout my childhood. (And I wasn't even overweight, let alone fat.) Even if she's chubby and my father's fat, she wouldn't admit it's in the genes. Even if a doctor once told her it is. It's all about eating and/or exercise, and it's my fault. 

Now, I'm trying very hard to not make this about my own Mommy issues. But Molly's Mom on the show is made to look like an old-fashioned idiot who knows nothing about fat. Molly shoots her down with "Bones don't jiggle, Ma", and gripes about not getting enough support. It's obvious that we're supposed to think Molly's the enlightened one, realizing it's all about her own effort. Meanwhile, her pothead sister and carefree Mom eating the cake are being ignorant and irresponsible.

Suddenly, this sounds familiar: women eating and being scolded for being bad examples. The eating one is oblivious/ignorant, the one on the treadmill is the smart one. It's just that they have the fat girl on the treadmill this time. Therein lies one problem with the show: a simple role reversal isn't enough. You need to question the underlying values. Maybe I'm asking too much of a sitcom, but still.

There isn't even enough role reversal going on. It's like they looked at a list of fat clichés - Black fat sidekick - and turned it into a slightly turned-around version - Black THIN sidekick. Fat woman can't be desirable - fat woman is the object of attraction. The fat guy, however, is still shy and socially awkward. And it's up to him to ask her out because he's the man. Of course, there's a flurry of issues here - why doesn't the thin sidekick get interested in the fat girl too, why are Mike and Molly both single to begin with, why is Molly living with her mother and sister, why does she dress in incredibly drab clothes..? All of these things scream "fat cliché" to me. 

The scene I found the most offensive: in episode one, Mike starts to overeat because he's so depressed! Oh, dear! Of course, he does this in a public place where everyone can see him. The thin sidekick shows up to take away his food - "a suicide with meatball bullets" - because he already lost three and a half pounds and has to keep it down. Mike says, "Big deal, my farts weigh three and a half pounds." Which is so self-loathing that it doesn't register as funny to me. It's true though, three and a half pounds is not much, you can gain and lose that much from eating/digesting one heavy meal. And if he has overeating issues, it shouldn't be about how many pounds he loses; it should be about dealing with the underlying issues. This isn't The Biggest Loser. 

So the show has, at the very least, a problematic attitude on fat. It's your own fault, it's something you have to work on, it makes you depressed, it means you have food issues. You can still have a decent job and a love life, but you can't forget for a second that you are fat. It's not very funny to me. In fact, it's kind of depressing. I think I'll stick to Roseanne. 

DJ on Full House

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Wednesday, June 11, 2008

As usual, I have to start by saying that she wasn't really fat. Even if it's tagged Fictional Fatties - actually, Fat in Fiction might have been better - it's more an example of an average-sized girl going on a diet and how a family show handled that. It'll be more like a recap of one specific episode.

Donna Jo "DJ" Tanner was the oldest daughter on the sappy family show Full House, aired in 1987-1995. She was played by Candace Cameron, the one of the young actors on the show who I think could act, so maybe she was picked for her acting ability rather than her looks. The writers couldn't write small children - they were precocious and irritating, while DJ mostly got pretty realistic (well, compared to the rest of the show) dialogue that required a bit of acting.

So, DJ was chubby. Her best friend Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber) was lanky. I like how they looked like real teenagers, because they were really teenagers, not some 21-year-old actors hired to look flawless on camera. Yet the chubbiness somehow became a problem. The Behind the Scenes documentary notes that the TV industry was becoming more aware of anorexia. So it illogically follows that "everyone was worried that the more heavy-set Candace would go too far in the other direction". Wow. Who is "everyone"? What is the "other direction" as opposed to anorexia? Going too far in self-acceptance? Maybe it's binge eating disorder? But no, apparently it's "getting too chubby", because her parents hired her a personal trainer. To stop her from becoming anorexic, or something. This was when she was 17. I think it's ridiculous that people couldn't see a contradiction between telling a slightly chubby 17-year-old to diet and wanting to save her from anorexia. How is a professional trainer going to save you from developing an eating disorder - especially if s/he was hired only to make the girl thinner?

That's not my actual topic, even if it is pretty angering. Some years before this, in the fourth season, there was a whole episode about DJ's weight. It was called Shape Up. It's a really typical example of how dieting and teen body image issues are often dealt with on family shows. At this point, DJ is about 13-14 years old (Candace Cameron was the same age as her character).

The episode begins with DJ snacking on cookies in her room, because chubby girls eat cookies for breakfast (and by chubby I mean average build and round cheeks). A pretty bad start. She's planning her birthday party and it's going to be a pool party, so she has to get "in shape" for it. She ditches the cookies. Kimmy's there and DJ expresses envy over her figure. Kimmy says she looks that way because "I watch what I eat" - and then she picks up a cookie and says, "That looks good," and eats it. I actually liked this bit - sure, it's just a throaway joke, but I think the "I watch what I eat" of most slim people is based on pretty much that. "I'm slim, and I sometimes skip a snack, so I watch what I eat." I would have preferred if Kimmy also expressed anxiety about her figure and wanted to go on a diet together, because skinny girls feel it too.

DJ goes on a crash diet where she basically doesn't eat at all. Later in the episode, she bumps into Becky in the kitchen (the relationships of the Tanner household are too complex to go into, but suffice it to say that Becky is the only adult female in the house). Apparently DJ has pinned pictures of skinny models on the fridge door - warning sign nr 1 - and Becky asks her if she's trying to lose weight. DJ says she has a pool party coming up, and "I have two weeks to look like you." Warning sign nr 2 that this isn't going anywhere good. Becky, played by ex-model Lori Loughlin, is thin and pretty.

This is what DJ needs to hear: "What? No! You're good enough the way you are! You're too young to go on a diet anyway. You don't have to look like me, because I'm me and you're you. Come on, let's have ice cream together." But what does Becky say? She starts listing foods that you can totally eat when you're on a diet: "lean meat, steamed vegetables..." and acts blissful about it. I'm not saying yay for burgers and yuck for anything light, but it seems like Becky's done a fair bit of dieting in her life. DJ says she's supposed to not eat, and now Becky's got her thinking about food. She storms out. Warning sign nr 3. So, a teenager acts like she should be eating nothing, so she can get skinny. What would you do if you were in Becky's shoes? I know what I'd do - go talk her out of her diet, and if she's not persuaded, go tell her Dad about it. Sure, it might not work, but try at least. If a young girl with low self-esteem wants to diet, you tell her she doesn't need to. That's pretty basic stuff.

Later on, Becky and Jesse (John Stamos) get their wedding cake samples for testing. They're all chocolate, and before anyone else has a chance to try them, Michelle (Mary-Kate and/or Ashley Olsen) jumps in and starts scarfing them down with both hands. Everyone laughs like this is the cutest thing ever. She just ruined the wedding cake samples for everyone else. If I had done that at age three, I would have gotten a huge sermon, but okay. I guess we need a scene about gluttony vs. control, and I'm actually surprised they didn't give it to the "resident fatty", Joey (Dave Coulier), who for a long time was only a bit chubby, but still got relentless teasing from the muscular Jesse especially. And who, of course, was shown eating nothing but junk food all the time. The others ask Michelle which piece of cake she likes the very best, but of course she's had no time to take it in. If you stuff your face, you won't enjoy it! But is that the true lesson of this scene, or is it: the cute youngest child gets away with anything? DJ retires to her room with an icicle, claiming that she likes it better than chocolate cake, even if you can tell she finds it dreadfully dull. Warning sign nr 4. Everyone in the family seems to think this is perfectly normal.

In the evening, DJ weighs herself. Finding out she has only lost a pound, she gets depressed. Jesse randomly shows up. DJ says she's done with the diet, since it doesn't work. "Good for you!" Jesse says. Finally a voice of reason? "Tell you what, we could all use some shaping up - let's go to the gym tomorrow!" Wait, what?! I'm not sure how an insecure teenager is supposed to read that message. Also, Jesse has huge muscles, and Becky is model thin, and yet they need "shaping up"? The family exercising together, for instance by walking, playing games outdoors or swimming, would be something I'd consider positive, but going to the gym to "shape up" comes dangerously close to "fitness vs. fatness for the whole family".

See, I'm not sure what the writers are saying here. This is a family show of a not-so-intellectual variety, and they usually aren't too subtle about stuff. I know DJ's downward spiral of dieting is supposed to continue until the middle or end of the episode, so the grownups can't make her eat before that. I'm just wondering if they're making some kind of commentary on parents and diets/eating disorders. Are they blaming the parents and guardians for not being observant enough? Do they think Becky and Jesse's attitude on DJ's body image problem - which screams for acceptance, not diet foods/gym advice - is the ideal, or do they think these two are being blind to the real problem and accentuating it? It's hard to tell. I'd hate to give the writers of this show too much credit, so I'm guessing they think Jesse and Becky are being responsible and trying to help. Which would make them as misguided as Jesse and Becky.

Before they hit the gym, we learn that DJ gives all of her food to Kimmy somehow. I know she lives next door and is always visiting, but I'm not sure if I buy that she's around that much. Kimmy refuses to eat it, because she's tired of the way Tanners make sandwiches. Specifically, there's too much ham, but I'm not sure if that's really relevant in any way. DJ feeds her sandwich to their dog instead. As he eats, she tells him he's lucky, because dogs don't have to be thin. Awww, neither do you, DJ! Little sister Stephanie sees this and is worried. The first time someone worries about DJ, and it's not one of the adults. DJ is able to make Stephanie promise to keep this a secret, because Stephanie is just a child and doesn't understand how dangerous it is to go without eating.

At the gym, we get some confusing gender politics. Becky takes Stephanie with her to an aerobics class, while DJ works out on her own and Michelle is taken to a children's gym. Stephanie, who is about ten, works out with the grown women and has no problem doing this. I'm not sure if I buy that. I'm also not sure I buy that the guys all go to a women's aerobics class so they can oogle the hot chicks, and then of course fail miserably because they're so out of shape. Har har! Out of shape women = tragic, out of shape men = hilarious. If you take nothing else away from this episode, let it be this.

Meanwhile, DJ is struggling to get in shape at the gym where, apparently, you have to be either a very slim woman or a very buff man to join. As "ideal" bodies walk past her, DJ weighs herself and finds she hasn't lost any weight in the ten or so minutes she's been there. Well, duh, but I can understand that a child would expect to have lost weight. DJ gets on the stairmaster and pedals for her life. Predictably, she soon faints. On any TV show where a girl goes on a crash diet, she will soon faint and alert everyone of the problem.

At home, Stephanie can no longer keep a lid on things, and the family gets to hear about DJ's diet. At this point, the grown ups are suitably worried and tell her to eat something right away. Well, about damn time. DJ gets mad and runs upstairs to her room so that the lesson portion of the show may now begin.

Each Full House episode had a lesson that was given by the girls' father Danny. It's really pretty tedious. I have very few positive things to say about either the lessons themselves or Bob Saget's acting skills. This time, though, DJ's plight seems very real. Danny compassionately tells her about his childhood and how he looked funny to others, but DJ isn't won over. She shows her Dad a fashion magazine - fashion! The great culprit in eating disorders and body image issues! She says no one there looks like her, with her "Charlie Brown cheeks". Somehow I found that line heartbreaking. Charlie Brown is cute, but if you feel you look like him, that can't be a nice feeling. It's probably a nod to Charlie Brown's self esteem issues too, coming to think of it. Danny finally finds the right words as he asks if anyone else DJ knows looks like that, and if she only hangs out with people who look like models. He tells her that people like her for who she is, and they don't care if she's chubby. She should eat healthy, exercise and just be herself. DJ agrees to stop dieting. After this, her weight isn't mentioned again.

I must admit that as a teenager, this episode would have touched me and perhaps made me feel a little better about my body. I would have liked how DJ is accepted as a chubby girl and how I could be too. So I do think this episode, all in all, sends a pretty positive message to young viewers.

However, as an adult, I must cringe at the hypocrisy of it all, especially in light of the later events. The message, as such, is true (although it has its limitations; some people will judge you for not being thin). However, the show writers/producers obviously don't really believe in it, if slightly chubby Candace Cameron had to go on a diet. The constant berating of Joey for his "weight problem" is another instance of hypocrisy, which interestingly wasn't touched upon in this episode at all. I also wonder if chubbiness would be OK for the show's only adult female, Lori Loughlin. And if they had known when casting Cameron that she would get a bit chubby in her teen years, would they have cast someone else?

The show could have redeemed itself by revisiting the topic from time to time, making Kimmy as insecure of her thin body as DJ is of her chubby one, and having Stephanie and Michelle also develop weight-related self esteem issues even if they have a slighter build. Using one episode to focus on something that touches most young girls' lives is a bit of a cop-out, because 20 minutes is simply not long enough to really deal with the issue. You can't fix someone's self esteem with one pep talk, and the pressure DJ feels at 13 might only be a fraction of what she feels later on as she realizes she isn't going to grow up to be skinny like models. That, at least, was my story.

Isabelle on Weeds

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Tuesday, June 3, 2008

(sorry, couldn't find any decent-sized, saveable images of Allie Grant. You can check her imdb page.)

Weeds is one of those shows I watch periodically, trying to "get into it". It's not really my brand of humor - everyone's so sarcastic all the time and people seem much more confident than they would be in real life. Then there's the constant need to shock viewers, as if the premise of a housewife selling weed wasn't shocking enough on its own. It all leaves a sort of artificial taste in my mouth.

But there's something I think they depicted pretty well: the character of Isabelle (Allie Grant), a chubby girl of about 11-13, and her relationship with her mother. It's so far from the "fat families" cliché that I found it very refreshing.

Isabelle's mother Celia (Elizabeth Perkins) is one of those acid middle-aged lady characters who sees the whole world with a mixture of contempt and opportunism. Some people adore this kind of character for comedy fodder, while I always come to despise them. I'm not sure how realistic the depiction is; maybe intelligent women who have nothing to do but be rich housewives grow bitter and manipulative, because their brains are being wasted. Either way, Celia doesn't act like she has any warmth in her whatsoever, and on a show like Weeds, redeeming qualities are not needed. She is, as one might guess, not the most loving of mothers as it is (she even regrets not aborting Isabelle's older sister), but her way of dealing with a chubby daughter is interesting.

In the first episode, we see Celia in the audience of Isabelle's soccer practice. During the break, Isabelle comes to her mother, proud of herself and hoping for some support, but instead she gets, "I'd like to see more running, Isa-belly! That's what burns the fat." Isabelle's face falls and she goes away to get something to drink. "Water or sugar-free soda only!" Celia calls after her. All of this in a loud voice in front of Isabelle's team mates.

In a short scene, we've established several unusual, even cliché-breaking, things:
-The mother as a bully
-Slim, weight-conscious mother with a chubby child
-A mother who does all she can to keep the child slim, but clearly doesn't do it out of love for her

This kind of behavior is often restricted to TV mothers of skinny overachievers who turn out to be anorexic. Mothers of fat children are usually depited as fat, clueless and/or junk food addicted. By having a chubby child in the role of Isabelle, the writers of this show might actually be saying that sometimes, even if the child is considered overweight, the mother might in fact be a slim, appearance-obsessed woman who wanted a skinny little princess. In other words, Isabelle's weight isn't shown to be her mother's fault, and the criticism of the mother's behavior is not tied to the child's weight, but rather to her behavior. It could even be read as a criticism of putting children on a diet.

In another episode, Celia finds a chocolate stash from Isabelle's room (cliché, but understandable - I'd hide chocolate too if I were her daughter). Instead of confronting her daughter about it, Celia decides to switch the chocolates with chocolate-flavored laxative bars. This causes an unfortunate incident at school, which leaves Isabelle feeling completely humiliated. Her father Doug is caring and compassionate, while Celia stays distant. She tells Doug in private that Isabelle got diarrhea because "she is a little pig", and admits her deed without any shame whatsoever. Doug is furious and horrified at his wife: "They called her shit girl!" This doesn't faze Celia. "Better shit girl than fat girl," she says. She tells him that, unfortunately, they live in a world where skinny is admired, and she doesn't want her daughter to live her life scorned for being fat. Doug takes his pillow and blanket and goes downstairs to sleep, quipping at her, "I hope our children survive you!" In her room, Isabelle has heard everything. The morning after, she's shown changing her mom's laxatives into something else. At the breakfast table - Isabelle's breakfast: half a grapefruit -, Doug asks her compassionately if she's feeling better. "I am now," Isabelle says meaningfully, a line always used to show that a TV character is up to mischief. When Celia gets constipated, Doug is openly glad to see her suffer and calls it karma. Isabelle is shown grinning in her room that her plot was a success.

While there are some things about this episode that I'd criticize - the focus on defecating, Isabelle's unrealistic confidence in her revenge (or is it just meant to show she's her mother's daughter?) -, it stands out as another, more obvious example of parental cruelty. Celia is not happy with Isabelle's body, and is willing to manipulate her through humiliation. Perhaps she was hoping to wean her daughter of chocolate through this incident. It would be hard for even the most diet-minded person to defend her behavior with a concern for the child's health. It becomes obvious that Celia is concerned with appearances - not necessarily Isabelle's either, but her own. She sees her daughter as a reflection of herself; she does not want to be the mother of a "fat girl", and if Isabelle were bullied for something, she'd rather it be for shitting her pants than for being fat. Obviously, to Celia, there is nothing worse than a fat girl.

While the show itself seems shocking in a forced way, and there's certainly an element of that in these scenes too, I must say it's one of the most real-seeming depictions of a slim domineering Mom. Real life Moms like this might be less obvious, less willing to give their daughters diarrhea as a lesson - but the underlying issue, the need to have a "normal" daughter, is the same.

Isabelle is also apparently a lesbian. Awesome. Maybe I should start watching the show again.

Bridgette on Medium

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Medium has a premise that might be hard to buy: a mother of three who's also a psychic, seesthings and talks to the dead, and helps the local DA with murder cases. It's based on a real person who may or may not really be psychic, Allison DuBois, who is portrayed on the show by Patricia Arquette. The realistic aspect of the show is the family life. In real life and on the show, Allison has three daughters. What interests me the most is the middle child on the show, Bridgette DuBois (Maria Lark). She divides opinions - precious sweetheart, unusually realistic child or irritating and precocious? I personally like her and think she's depicted quite realistically. She seems to have an actual personality, which is rare for child characters (especially ones that aren't the center of the show).

Bridgette is a rarity for many reasons. She's a tomboy. She doesn't comb her hair much. She's a bit of a "freak" - she might decide to camp in the dining room instead of sleeping in her room; she might want to wear a biking helmet to school every day; she sometimes sees dead people or has clairvoyant dreams. She's portrayed as unusually intelligent and aware of what's going on with her parents. And - she's chubby.

I love that she's chubby. I love that there's never been any issue with this on the show. I love that her two sisters are slim; I love that her parents are pretty slim; I love that she's gained weight during the show and her depiction hasn't changed. She's written as a girl with a personality, and her role could be played by a slim girl. This, to me, is always a good sign.

The family's eating habits seem realistic to me. With two working parents, there might be oatmeal or waffles in the morning, but more often than not, it's a quick bowl of cereal and then off to school. In the evening, the family eats a homecooked meal together - if the parents have time to prepare one. Food is a pleasure, but health is also considered. For instance, Allison is notorious for bringing healthy foods to soccer practice, and the parents insist that Bridgette eat her salad as well as the hot dog (note that she isn't expected to eat only salad while others eat hot dogs). Bridgette is only shown eating at meal times, and her diet isn't any different from her slim sister Ariel's. No commentary is ever made of the girls' weight.

What we often see on TV is a division between "fat families" and "slim families". The fat family has fat parents, fat children, fat grandparents, fat uncles and aunts, fat pets, and everyone's eating massive meals of grease and sugar all the time. (The most extreme fat family I've seen was on Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor.) The matronly mother is always telling her children to eat, or wondering if they get any food at all, especially if they've moved away from home. "Food is love" is the motto of such families.

The slim family is the norm. It consists of skinny mother and daughters, slim/muscular dad and skinny sons. The grandma and grandpa are allowed some chub; all family members under 60 are usually slim. They eat TV-normally - i.e., they eat homecooked meals together, but there are quite a few bags of chips and candy in between,which, as we all know, is OK for slim people but not for fat people. Also, they don't eat as much food as the fat family (it's all about eating less and exercising more!) Food isn't discussed much, and it's just a part of everyday life rather than the focus.

If there's a hybrid form, it's the fat men/skinny women family with a fat father and son, skinny mother and daughter. The rule of thumb in both skinny and hybrid families is that no girl over five or so is allowed to be chubby. That's why Bridgette caught my eye. While I wouldn't call her fat, I realized I'm not used to seeing school girls on TV with a body like hers. It's nice to see a realistic spread of children in a TV family. Most real life families I've known have been mixed: chubby child, skinny child, one in between the extremes, another chubby child. Siblings can have very different body types, but you rarely see this on TV. Maybe the idea that all of the girls have blonde hair, like the mother, is a bit annoying, because I haven't seen many totally blonde families either. But I do like the realistic touch in body types.

The girls' gender identities on the show are also somewhat interesting. Bridgette is a tomboy who likes to dress in boyish clothes, while her older sister Ariel is a super-feminine slim girl with long golden hair and pink clothes. There isn't rivalry set up between them (at least so far) even if Ariel is the popular girl and Bridgette is the freak at school. When the boys in Ariel's class rank her as a "hottie", Bridgette reacts not with jealousy but with obvious disbelief: "Someone thinks you're a hottie?! I thought you had to be smart to get to junior high!" This comment, to me, shows that she doesn't think about how boys might rank her. She speaks from her usual point of view of sisterly superiority - the same tone Ariel often takes with her.

The parents' attitude is also encouraging. The girls have distinct personalities and are allowed to be themselves. Allison and Joe worry about Bridgette being lonely, but as someone who never really fit in, Allison also sees a value in being a freak. When Bridgette decides to wear her bike helmet to school, Joe is worried and wants to wean her of it, while Allison demands that they let the girl be herself. In the end, she is allowed to keep the helmet on for her school photo.

Bridgette is often shown to be more alert and intelligent than Ariel. When the family go on a camping trip, they stumble across a dead body. Bridgette becomes suspicious about her mother always uncovering dead bodies and solving murder cases, but when she tries to discuss it with Ariel, the older sister just shuts her down. It's an interesting scene - does it mean Ariel is dumber than Bridgette, or less observant, or just in denial about what goes on with her mother, despite the fact that Ariel, too, has had clairvoyant dreams? As the popular one, she faces more pressure of being "normal". Bridgette has perhaps never been too concerned with that and is more interested in finding out the truth about their mother's abilities.

The chubbiness might be a part of Bridgette's "freak" personality. Maybe the implication is that she doesn't care about her appearance - also with the unkempt hair and boyish clothes - and is truly herself, no matter what others think. Maybe they would have written her this way even if she hadn't become chubby, or maybe they picked a chubby girl for the role because of this. Either way, it's part of the reason why I identify with the character. Way too many girl characters are meek, pretty and popular, and almost always thin. There's usually a chubby or fat boy in the "boy shows" - in fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a show that doesn't have any chubby guys. For girls, it's a different story. Even when the character is an outcast of sorts, a thin and pretty girl is usually picked (for instance, the unpopular Sam on Popular).

Interestingly, Patricia Arquette has gained quite a bit of weight since Medium began - not enough to make her fat in my book, but enough to put pressure on her to diet. She has refused to do so, stating that her body looks realistic for a middle-aged mother of three. I was positively surprised by this. A mother of three with a demanding job is likely to gain weight as time goes by, and this probably wouldn't be a big deal in real life. I like that she insists it's not a big deal on the show either.

Time will tell what happens with Maria Lark as she grows up. She might lose the chubbiness as she grows or grow up to be fat. She could be forgotten as a child star of yesteryear, or become a famous actress, in which case there will be more pressure on her to be slim. I wish the industry, like her parents on the show, would let her grow up to be who she truly is, but I have my doubts. At least she has a good example in her TV Mom.

Eating and Body Image on the Gilmore Girls

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Sunday, March 30, 2008


For those who haven't seen it, this show revolves around Lorelei Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her daughter Lorelei "Rory" Gilmore (Alexis Bledel). It's a slightly off-beat, wacky comedy/drama about quirky people in a small town. People who talk really fast and eat a lot of fast food. I'm not as thrilled with it as some others, but there were many good things on this show, and I enjoyed watching it.

The leading ladies are, of course, beautiful and skinny. However, they also break stereotypes in a way. Here we have two thin women who don't count calories, eat whatever they like and never really exercise. Some viewers have been annoyed at this, complaining that it's unrealistic and they'd be fat in real life. I don't think that's a given. In real life, too, some thin women can eat whatever they want, and writers aren't obligated to turn their characters into morality tales of "what happens if you eat unhealthy foods". An unhealthy-eating character who gets diabetes is no more realistic than one who doesn't, it's just a different story. Both endings are possible in real life also.

I feel like fat women are expected to envy women like this, but I don't. I find their eating habits pretty liberating and fun to watch. I don't think eating nothing but junk food is necessarily an enjoyable lifestyle, and for many people, it's dictated by poverty and other such issues, not by their taste in food. Knowing this, I still enjoy seeing two women eating and talking about food with a childlike, happy attitude that doesn't include counting calories or competing at who's eating the least or the healthiest. Lorelei and Rory make eating fun.

Luke, the owner of the diner they frequent, is set up as the counterpoint to their food attitudes. He constantly tells them they shouldn't be eating burgers and drinking coffee, and he tries to sneak in light options. His job, however, negates his message, and the Gilmore girls take his scoldings with a smile. I'm not sure if we're expected to agree with Luke or think he's an ass for telling them what to eat, but this never becomes a very strong conflict between the characters. I don't think I'd take comments like that in stride, but Luke is set up as the grumpy yet loveable hermit character who, despite his angry demeanor, has a heart of gold. I think the writers are saying he's too uptight about food, and that the relaxed joy of living that Lorelei and Rory represent is also manifested in their relationship with food.

Throughout most of the show, Lorelei is single. There are several love interests, and she comes close to marrying some of them, but she's not depicted as the typical "centre of attention" thin lady who all the guys fall for (think Ally McBeal). She has her own business and has had to make it on her own as a single parent. Instead of becoming a tough, no-nonsense kind of woman, she's still pretty chipper and nice to everyone. She has a quirky, likeable personality and a "live and let live" attitude. I think this is a pretty good, well-rounded character.

Rory, on the one hand, is a bookworm who has few friends, not a super popular cheerleader. This is nicely non-stereotypical, because bookwormish characters are often (TV) ugly and miserable. On the other hand, she is the kind of character all the boys fall for. I've always disliked depictions of teenage girls as femme fatales who make all the boys go wild, and this could be seen as an element of idealizing the skinny body. Rory is a little too perfect, and I feel ambivalent about her, but at least she's believably ambitious and insecure at the same time, not just a giggling, shopping stereotype. Her best friends are also pretty refreshing and non-stereotypical characters. Minus points for no fat girls in her high school and college though.




Then there's a fat character called Sookie (Melissa McCarthy). She's the second banana to Lorelei, so she gets minus points for that. Cheerful and always smiling, she does act a bit like a fat "best friend" stereotype - loyal and loveable, but never the star. I don't think she appears in every episode. In addition, she's a chef, so her work and much of her life revolves around food.

However, there are also many positive things about her depiction. Sookie knows her food and cooks it herself. She has a joy of eating that is just as uninhibited as that of Lorelei and Rory, but it's mixed with a knowledge and appreciation of food that they don't have. For example, Sookie and her husband Jackson grow some of their own vegetables, while Lorelei never eats salad. These two attitudes on food can be seen as complimentary, because Sookie also enjoys unhealthy treats. She gets better nutrition, but there's no element of moral virtue in her eating. A fat woman who enjoys eating but is also mindful of nutrition and cooking is a positive rebuttal of stereotypes. Sookie isn't on a constant diet, and she isn't shown as either more gluttonous or more deprived than Lorelei.

Another positive thing about Sookie is that she's not depicted as a lonely single woman with no hope of ever finding a man. During the show, she gets married and has two children. (Note that being a happy single woman who doesn't need a man would be just as positive.) Her marriage doesn't fall into trouble, Jackson doesn't leave her for a pretty young model, and no one acts surprised that Sookie could find someone.

What's more, I don't remember hearing Sookie make any derogatory remarks about her own looks. Her mind isn't occupied with thoughts of dieting, so she's free to be happy and focus on living her life. I see that in Lorelei and Rory too. McCarthy was on a diet during the show, so Sookie became a bit smaller, but this was never referenced to. (The picture is taken after the diet.)

The town of Stars Hollow, where Lorelei and Rory live, isn't made up of young and skinny people either. Most of the inhabitants are middle-aged, and in addition to Sookie, there are several fat women living in the village. They're not clumsy and laughable*, they don't throw themselves at men, and they're not made fun of. People don't wait until they're out of the room and then start whispering, "Did you see how big she was?" In Stars Hollow, fat ladies are a part of the normal life of the village. This is what I see happening in real life too. When I watch many other shows aimed at women - Sex and the City and The L Word and such -, I see nothing but slim and thin women. Seeing fat women on a TV show feels comfortable. It makes me feel like I'm not completely invisible.

Is the show unrealistically non-weight-centric for today's world? Is it a positive depiction or a brushing-the-problem-under-the-rug depiction if a thin girl never once thinks she might be too fat, or if teenage girls only talk about rock music and literature, never about their figures? I'd love to see a show where eating disorders and body image issues are realistically depicted, or what's more, one that is brave enough to have the Sookie character in the main role. But you can't have everything, and I think Gilmore Girls got many things right.

With some comedies, I've had to worry about being offended by the fat characters. This is especially true of popular comedies like Friends. I don't remember once being offended watching Gilmore Girls. The show seemed to carry a soothing undertone of equality: there's room for different body types and lifestyles, because life is not a dieting contest.

*=In the very first episode, Sookie was shown as clumsy, falling over her pots and pans and setting something on fire. Luckily, they dropped this angle soon.

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.

"Palindromes" - Reversing Fat and Skinny Roles?

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Saturday, July 28, 2007

Todd Solondz has made some of the sickest, funniest movies around. Check out Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling, and Happiness. And most of all, check out Palindromes, a movie about twelve-year-old Aviva whose biggest dream is to become a mother. When she gets pregnant, her parents force her to have an abortion, and she runs away from home. This sounds very tragic, but it's humor at its blackest. Probably many viewers don't like this sort of thing - after all, we see a born again pedophile falling into the old habit as Aviva wants to carry his child. But the movie is brilliant, just brilliant.

And why am I bringing it up in this blog? Well, the interesting thing about Aviva is that she's played by four [edited: five] different women. One of them plays Aviva as a child (she's black and fat). One of them is a skinny redhead. Another is a chubby brunette of about 15. The most interesting one is a supersized black woman. I've never seen anything like this. It totally breaks the viewer's expectations of what a woman looking a certain way can and should experience, and I must admit I had trouble forgetting about Aviva's size, while the movie made absolutely no mention of it, and it had no bearing on the plot. Which is really a first. I don't think I've ever seen a more weight-neutral movie.

Palindromes made me question how neutral I can be about a character's weight. I'm used to the skinny girl being the attractive one, or the norm girl with no visible flaws, while the fat girl is usually the pathetic loser who can get no man. Which is offensive to both fat women and men who admire them. How many times have I said that I'd like to see a movie with a fat girl in a role that could have been written for a skinny girl? That's my definition of a good fat role - "could be a skinny girl". I've only seen a handful of those, and never in the main role.

However, this movie made me constantly question how this all could happen to a supersized girl, exposing my underlying expectations. In the movie, Aviva stumbles into a house inhabited by Mama Sunshine and her family - a mishmash of children handicapped in one way or another, all taught into a shiny happy, if slightly disturbing, fanatic Christian faith. Mama Sunshine is quick to adopt Aviva as one of her children. She just happens to have a dress in her size at hand, even if no one else in the family is supersized. We see Aviva sleeping in a children's cot bed. We see the pedophile men craving her, and a little boy - one of Mama Sunshine's many children - falling for her. Her weight is neither the reason nor an obstacle for the men's and boy's feelings. There are no fat jokes, no eating scenes, no references to her size whatsoever. Yet I kept expecting some.

In the sex scenes, the chubby 15-year-old always takes over. Perhaps she was the oldest one and there was some rule about not being able to show a really young girl playing that role. Of course, the chubby one is closer to conventionally pretty than the supersized girl, but she's still "Hollywood fat", and wouldn't be attractive to men in a mainstream flick. In the final sex scene between Aviva and a boy some years older than her, we see Aviva turn into all the different actresses in turn while they have sex. In the very last scene, we see child-Aviva again, saying: "This time I'm sure I will become a mother!"

This type of reversal of skinny and fat roles - or combination of them? - is, of course, quite intentonal and self-conscious. Was it meant to draw attention to the weights of each actress, or take focus away from it? Is Solondz saying that what matters is who you are inside, or is he simply playing with the viewers' expectations of fat and skinny girls? Maybe he's drawing parallels between what is expected of white and black vs. skinny and fat actresses. The movie makes you think, but it doesn't give you any straightforward answers.

Palindromes makes constant references to Aviva's cousin, Dawn Wiener (the protagonist of Welcome to the Dollhouse) who has killed herself. One of the reasons for this is her weight gain. Dawn's brother Mark has a different explanation: he believes that people can't change. "You can lose weight and your skin might clear up, but you're still yourself." This is underlined with Aviva's constant skin color and body type changes. Your weight, age, or even the color of your skin isn't as significant as the person you are.

I enjoyed seeing a supersized girl in the only weight-neutral role I've ever seen. However, I couldn't forget her weight because of the juxtaposition with the other girls. I'd love to see a movie that goes one step further, with a fat female protagonist whose weight is never an issue more than it is in real life. That could really make people think.

A trailer showing all the Avivas - yes, all the girls in the clips are her.