“It is no more acceptable to make a fat joke than it is to make a gay joke… People need to learn to take everyone as they are.”

What comedians can joke about is an increasingly treacherous minefield. Rowan Atkinson campaigned against proposed laws targeting “incitement to religious hatred” because he feared that they would prevent jokes about religion.

What do you think–race, size, genocide, aristocrats, 9/11… are there some things we just should never joke about? Or is all fair when it comes to comedy?

Thanks Amaxfield for the link!

The Daily Mail wanted to know what it was like to send a “fattie” to fashion week. So, did they hire an overweight reporter to go to fashion week and write an article? Of course not! They put a thin reporter in a very weird fat suit and horrible clothes. And guess what? She learned some stuff. In slightly patronizing style. (Bracketed text mine.)

The effect, though, is very soft and sexy. There are no rolls of wobbly flesh: [God forbid!] my stomach is gently rounded and my magnificent bosom [Thank god for those of us with nice breasts; at least we have that to fall back on.] looks like something you’d want to rest your head on and fall asleep in for 100 years. [Yeah, I feel so sexy when people take naps on me.]

My bottom is big but pert, and, beneath my clothes, looks like two puppies fighting under a blanket. [How is this a compliment? I mean, I've heard this before. But don't get it.] As someone who has been a size 10-12 most of my adult life, being a size 22 is a shock. I practise smiling at my reflection. The big girl beams back.

I feel like a completely different person — one who says, ‘Yeah, I’m big, so what? Accept me as I am.’ [Don fat suit! Find your inner fat acceptance advocate!] I want to streak up and down the street shouting, ‘Look at me!’

I satisfy my exhibitionist urge by taking ‘naked’ pictures of myself and sending them to my friends. The girls mostly think it’s a hoot, [Ha ha! She's fat!] while the boys are rather taken with my newfound curves. [In a fake fat suit? I seriously doubt that.]

Jezebel tears the article apart nicely.

She donned a strange, ill-fitting fat suit which leads one to wonder whether some of the looks she got from fashionistas might have arisen from the fact that she had a tiny head and neck emerging from a completely different body. Then too, as one of the Mail’s commenters indignantly remarked, “I am not convinced she was being stared at not because she was fat but because she was so hideously dressed!!! Just because she was fat did not mean she could not have chosen something more stylish. Even fat people try to dress nicely and co-ordinated when they go out.”

Well, the method reporter apparently felt the need to swathe herself in raspberry, lime and leopard. (And it should be mentioned that when Faithfull notices the similarly full-figured comedienne Dawn French at the shows, she’s not facing the same kind of ostracism- celebrity can’t hurt, but neither does a to-scale head.)

This reporter seems to mean well, but comes across as condescending and misguided. Why not just send a real fat chick and see what happens? Is there someone out there who is fat and not tacky and has been to fashion week and can tell us the real story… anyone?

Thanks to Nonk for the link!

Weetabix’s recent post about fat characters on television made me go Google Dawn French to see what she’s up to these days. I found this hilarious promo shot from the new French & Saunders, with Dawn French as Amy Winehouse and Jennifer Saunders as Britney Spears. According to Team Sugar:

Dawn French channels her inner Winehouse complete with overdone bee hive in a skit where we will see her pushing a shopping trolley filled with empty booze bottles around along side Jennifer Saunders as Spears, in fake blonde extensions and a spotty face. Both will appear complaining about their troublesome lives, that has got the real life starlets into the international media. This, unfortunately, is rumoured to be the last French and Saunders series.

I also found something not quite so hilarious, but too strange not to share: Dawn French is convinced she’s going to die.

The Vicar of Dibley star said she was “resigned” to the idea, and revealed she intends to move to Cornwall next month because she wants to spend the rest of her life there… French said she was not ill and there was no history of early death in her family…But French revealed she had a long-held belief that it would not be the same for her. She said: “I don’t feel gloomy about it. I’m resigned to it. I don’t know why I feel so sure. I said it to my brother when I was about six.”

The star, who said she is not scared of death, added she had told her husband, comedian and actor Lenny Henry, that she doesn’t think she’ll be around for a long time. And while French said she was a logical person, and there was “not much logic” to her belief, there were just “certain things” she knew.

Of course, the Telegraph agrees with her…because she’s fat.

Unfortunately, in Dawn’s case, there is a logic plain for all to see. The article at the weekend in which she confided her thoughts on early mortality was accompanied by a happy picture of Dawn, mountainous in black, seated at a table with a plate of chips in front her.

Gorgeous, gorging, death-defying, death-embracing Dawn.

Once she was the voluptuous, self-confident beacon for big women the world over, the role model who gave them permission to enjoy their comfortable, unfashionable bodies. Now she is something else altogether.

Doesn’t she have just the tiniest inkling that allowing herself to become fat could have some bearing on her life expectancy? It would be insulting, surely, to imagine that she hasn’t acknowledged the proven link between obesity and heart disease. She must know that, statistically, she has a serious chance of dying early…

This isn’t unkind. It is simply the raw truth that confronts anyone who sees her, precariously happy in her own ballooning skin.

Obviously, heart disease is a possibility; but she says she’s in good health and I have no reason not to believe her. A staged photo of her with some french fries proves absolutely nothing. Hopefully Dawn French will live for another 50 years and prove everybody wrong.