The audacity of fatness
I really don’t have an opinion about Rosie O’Donnell most days. I think she says some unfortunate things (who doesn’t?) but I also love that she says them. I hate that some of her message is missed because people focus on some of her more outlandish behavior, but at the same time, the President has said some ridiculously stupid things yet he does not seem to generate the utter hatred that is inspired by Rosie (see: Donald, The). Last I checked, Rosie never killed anyone, directly or as a result of her actions, but what the hell do I know? However, I think she nails it right here:
“Do I look thinner?” she asked last week. “Because I started a diet this morning.” A diet she began, she explained, because when people e-mail her to tell her how much they hate her, they always call her fat, lesbian and anti-American, “and fat is always first. Like they don’t have a problem with gay or a communist or whatever but that I’m fat gets them. “
Wow…I think we need to gather this data and analyze it. Can you imagine what we would learn and prove about America’s fat bigotry? I volunteer to use my analytical expertise on this data and the Dr. Wade can contribute her scientific credentials to the venture and it will be ground-breaking work! It’s ok to volunteer her because she’s on vacation. (Hi Wade! Welcome back! We’re co-authoring a paper!)
I am trying to figure out the logic behind this rationale and I am stumbling but here goes: A fat woman is already asking for a lot of patience from society just by virtue of being fat, so you’d better be happy and perky and have lots of fun personality to make up for it. You certainly can’t expect a person to tolerate you if you’re fat AND you disagree with them or challenge their beliefs. Please comment and expand on this, because I really can’t figure it out and I really hope this logic is not sound.
Even more interesting is the next statement from Rosie:
“Not that I’m trying to get thin,” she added. “I just want my size 18 pants to fit better. Size 18, that’s a real-woman size, am I right, ladies?” she asked the studio audience.
“Size 16 is a real-woman size,” said Behar. “You go for a size 16.”
“Yeah, OK, 16.”
If my hypothesis above is true, then there must be a sliding scale of behavior tolerance related to weight. But what is the size at which you can safely have an opinion and not offend the populace with your fatness? Is it size 18? Can you have a mild opinion at size 18 but if you have a radical opinion, you need to be smaller? And is that why women call very thin women “skinny bitches”, because they are in the free and clear and can say whatever they want?
Help me, BFDivas, you’re my only hope.
Posted by Weetabix
Filed under: Celebrities, Fatism, Media, Rosie O'Donnell, TV
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In my experience, it’s a lose-lose situation if you’re fat.
If a fat person is having a bad day, or has a bit of an attitude, people automatically assume that she’s miserable because of being fat.
If a fat person has a bubbly and upbeat attitude, people assume that they are overcompansating for the fact that they are fat.
The fact is, fatism is probably one of the last “socially acceptable” prejudices out there. There is little or no tolerance (at least publicly) for calling someone a “darkie” (or nappy headed ho), or a fag (as Don Imus and Isiah Washington will testify). Companies can be sued if they don’t hire enough women or immigrants. But call someone a porker or fat, and the chances are you’ll get away with it. In fact, as per The Donald, most of the nation will back you up!!!
The thing with Rosie is that she is an outspoken, opinionated woman. There are people in this society who don’t like that. Sure, you can attack someone by calling them a commie-pinko or a big ol’ bull dagger, but that is unlikely to hurt in the same way that attacking someone’s appearance usually does, and a woman’s nothing without her flawless, dude and patriarchy-approved appearance (otherwise, you know, what good is she).
This is why people go after the fat with her. She could weigh, say 130 lbs and wear a size 8 and you would still get people calling her fat.
With someone like Ann Coulter (whose views I find repellent), they can’t possibly call her fat, but they still go after her appearance, don’t they, with the criticism. It always starts out with something like “anorexic” or “tranny” or makes some mention of her adam’s apple or man hands.
So ultimately, there is fat hatred and bigotry, most certainly, otherwise that wouldn’t be thrown around as the insult it is intended to be when it’s lobbed at Rosie.
But ultimately, what’s driving the particular criticism in her case, is good ol’ fashioned misogyny.
In my humble opinion.
I think our best bet to solve this thing is to lose weight or grow dicks. what da ya think?
I hope my logic stand to scientific testing but I’m almost sure it will.
I happen to like Rosie because she says what she thinks and does not let any percieved rules stop her.. Bad or good.. she says it.. I may not agree with all she says but I admire that she just does it. As far as weight goes.. this makes me sad.. I hate the way our society is… I hate walking down the street feeling good about myself because I think I look good after dropping nearly 20 pounds.. yes I have 59 more pounds to go.. but damn I am proud of myself.. and when some man walks by me and OINKS>> GEEZ.. you talk about the cloud of self doubt rolling in.. it has not happened this time.. but it has happened before…I wish I had had the courage to have a comback.. but my comebacks have always been a day late. When I look at seriously obese people now.. I am sad.. I feel badly for them.. especially if they are trying to change.. and I pray for them that they have the fortitude to stick with it. If they are happy being that big.. then so be it.. thats their choice.. Fat is not an easy issue.. it is a complicated sometimes painful issue.. Fat bigotry is pathetic. People will always look for what they consider imperfect and not right .. they will gladly label and judge whatever it is.. be it Fat, Gay, or handicap.. as long as it is not them being judged its easy for others to wag a finger.
I find that the more concerned we are about losing weight and being “acceptable,” the less time we have to think and say anything important or meaningful. When you’re thinking about carb or calorie counts constantly, it’s pretty hard to contemplate how to make the world better, how to be a better person, or even about your own needs (sexual, emotional, etc.).
People just want Rosie to be “put in her place.”
I have to agree with Ime…and drive the point home. For the most part, this current obsession with fat and weight loss is about women. Yes, more focus is going to men and boys, but eating related disorders are most prevalent in women and women seem to take the brunt of fat jokes and comments. I have to admit that I find Rosie much more attractive than DT, and yet, the insults don’t fly at him in that way.
Annabell…..I couldn’t have said it better myself!!! LOL
I love rosie, I love that she speaks her mind and voices her opinion. Yet, I hate to admit it, but if she was thinner I can guarantee people wouldn’t be so hard on her, and it is a shame and it makes me sad and sickened. She is a beautiful, outspoken, intelligent woman who is knowledgeable and aware of how our government is slowly and surely becoming less trustworthy. I still watch the view though, just about every day if I can, because she definetely makes that show tolerable.
lme: “She could weigh, say 130 lbs and wear a size 8 and you would still get people calling her fat.”
Well said! People who don’t fight fair will always go for the thing they know, on a visceral level, will hurt the most. The things people will pull out when they’re angry and threatened are the most amazing gauge of a culture’s real values and beliefs.
I think Mary Garden hit it. There is just no way to win as a woman. There are so many perfectly awesome reasons to hate Anne Coulter, for instance, that I don’t understand why comments about her so often reference her skinny ass and horse face.
There aren’t many women in the public eye who are as outspoken and abrasive as Rosie is, so it’s hard to find comparisons … but I think that if she were thin and acting the same way, she’d get a different type of vitriol, but it would be there, and I am sure her appearance would come in somehow. It always does when you are talking about a woman.
(Personally I think it’s her voice that makes people vault straight from irritation to hate with her. I don’t always disagree with her but I confess to a nearly irrational amount of dislike just because the voice grates so badly.)
To echo everyone else, I think that on some level a fat woman is a disobedient woman: she is seen as refusing to comply with deeply internalized beauty standards–regardless of the other ways she may participate in them, by wearing makeup or or having white skin or long hair or whatever the hell they involve. It doesn’t matter if she wants to comply with (some or all of) those standards or if she doesn’t personally give a shit: she’s seen, I think, as failing on purpose to toe the line about what is acceptable behavior for women’s bodies. And of course it’s our bodies, not our brains or our hearts or our contributions to the world, that define us. Audacious indeed to be out of step with the expectations for the most important thing about you.
Maybe from there it’s not too far to go to challenging other types of beliefs, as Mo says–which can be seen as refusing to comply with other expectations about women’s behavior. It’s like “You’re already walking a thin (ha! see what I did there?) line with us, lady, by not looking the way we want you to look. Don’t make us come over there by opening your mouth to issue an unpopular opinion as well as to stuff in a jelly donut.”
The great thing about fatness, though, is that you can get pretty inured to terrible comments (Honi, seriously, someone fucking OINKED at you?), so maybe you’re in a better position to deal with awful people insulting you about your inappropriate thoughts and feelings too; your body might not be thin but maybe your skin isn’t either.
I have to tell you that there is NO weight at which a woman is free to speak her mind and give an opinon without her size or looks being attacked. I’ve done it at size 32 and I’ve done it at size 4. When I was fat, I was a fat bitch and when I was skinny, I was a skinny bitch. And the sad thing? Women are just as likely to hate and fear an outspoken woman as men are.
If Rosie weren’t fat, people would go after the lesbian first because, of course, being a lesbian means that you’re too ugly to get a man, right?
I love Rosie because she speaks her mind. I just hope she doesn’t end up in the same boat as Roseanne Barr.
I have to agree with some of the others here in that no matter how thin Rosie is, people would still lambast her appearence in response to her outspoken opinion.
Think of the nasty comments and parodies that Chelsea Clinton was victim to just for being Bill Clinton’s daughter in the 90’s …
People always attack how a woman looks first.
If she’s thin she’s not female enough…she’s a skinny bitch that needs a good f-ing to put her in her place.
If she’s fat she’s just plain ugly and stupid and the reason for her big opinions is that no one loves her because she is fat.
Oh..and if your appearence is flawless…You’re just stupid no matter what.
“But what is the size at which you can safely have an opinion …”
No size, if you’re female in U.S. culture. (That tends to be related to fear in men, but that’s another post.) You’re just further excoriated and your opinions tend to be further devalued if you fall outside the Hollywood-dictated digitized norm (which is also literally camera-distorted, but that’s also another post) — for size, skin color, hair length, sexual preference, whatever.
You all have pretty much nailed it — especially lme, Kristen, Anabell, and Rei. (Shockingly) I have Nothing to Add.
Except a gift sneak snark attack for HONI if she would like it — the next time some barbarian oinks at you, you can smile sweetly and say as loudly as you dare, while pointing and laughing at him (for some reason, men hate that – a parse for another day):
“Oh! I see that your self-expression classes have been doing you so much GOOD! Come on, sweetie, say another word.
If you can.”
I’m trying to remember what people picked on appearance-wise in Naomi Wolf and Gloria Steinem when they were at their youngest and hawtest. Does anyone remember? I seem to recall it *did* slow people down a little when they were trying to find a really potent way to hit them below the belt.
I’ve been a size 24 and a size 10. I’ve found that people are vastly more accepting of everything about me when I am thinner. (And I really don’t think I am projecting, or that I am confusing the effect of self esteem on public perception.) People are just quicker to judge a fat person, so it’s easier to “offend” people and harder to be assertive. If your a woman, this dynamic increases exponetially.
Considering the hosts of The View, Elizabeth Hasselbeck generates less controversy than Rosie, but I think that has less to do with her weight than the fact that the way she expresses her opinions is judged to be more “appropriate” for a woman. Granted: there are many other variables that explain the difference in these womens’ images.
“I’m trying to remember what people picked on appearance-wise in Naomi Wolf and Gloria Steinem when they were at their youngest and hawtest.”
Mary — off the top of my head (’cause I don’t remember Ms. Steinem pre-aviators; I’m a touch too young) –
Ms. Wolf – too pretty to be taken seriously
Ms. Steinem – former Bunny, can’t be taken seriously
Yeah….it’s all coming back to me now. Various a-holes waved around that pic of Steinem as a bunny for years in an attempt to discredit her, always failing to disclose that she’d taken the job as an undercover journalist. The point of which was, I guess, that she was a hypocrite? That women liked being bunnies, and Gloria Steinem being one proved it? I dunno.
Also…yeah – I guess Ms. Wolf got the hypocrite thing too. I seem to remember her getting picked on for wearing makeup after The Beauty Myth came out.
Thanks for jogging my memory, littlem!
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