2. Levi’s has come out with new “Curve ID” jeans, with different cuts similar to the Lane Bryant Right Fit concept. They go up to a size 24.

3. Making space for all kinds of bodies when we talk about body image, from Disabled Feminists. The post also addresses the idea of making space for those who don’t love their bodies at all. A thought-provoking read.

4. 500-pound teen dies in a fire when fire crews are unable to lift her. Heather, who sent in the article, pointed out how hateful the comments are in response to this tragedy, with references to her “eating herself to death.” Ugh.

5. Shapely Prose officially shuts its doors, and Kate Harding talks about her plans for the future. The end of an era!

Want to talk about any of this stuff? I know I do! Let’s take it to the comments!

Women have been caught in a pointless feedback loop as we debate what does and doesn’t constitute ”real women”. That the bulk of it is a marketing strategy – Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty, which sold a lot of fake-tanner, is a case in point – appears to have flown over most people’s heads….

In the majority of cases, ”real” is code for ”average” or ”normal”, but perhaps more insidiously, ”anything but skinny”. As Dye’s response has demonstrated, women who – whether by luck or long hours in the gym – more closely resemble media ideals of beauty are not considered ”real”. Slim women such as [model Jennifer] Hawkins are not allowed to be positive body image role models because their bodies don’t look like most women’s.

Thin women are often in a position of privilege, particularly thin white women, and we can’t ignore that. However, the whole “eat a sandwich, I’m a real woman!” dialogue is damaging in its own way. It keeps women running after and policing each other in a little circle of body obsession, while men get to go off and run the world. And that’s why it has to stop.

Thanks to Jenfu for the link!

Amy says her favorite part is this:

So how do Jose and Susan feel about being representatives of the state of British health? ‘I’m not ideal, but if this is what the average man in the UK looks like, then people can draw their own conclusions,’ says Jose. ‘Most of my mates look more like me than David Beckham.’
Susan says: ‘I hope women will look at me and realise that the stick-thin models they see in magazines aren’t the norm. I am average and proud of that.’

My least favorite part is that the article devolves into OMG OBESITY CRISIS and OMG AVERAGE IS SO FAT NOW!!11!! Shock horror! Except that they look, you know. Perfectly average.

*I did question the fact that they selected two white people. It seems problematic to default to white = average. Wouldn’t a truly “average” person be mixed race?

A popular (white) misconception is that fat is more acceptable in the black community. This is patently untrue. Hip-hop culture is often pointed to when one is making this argument. If you watch any hip-hop music videos at all, it’s clear to see that the fat on the women featured is in specific places. Booty, hips, tits. As the inimitable Sir Mix-A-Lot stated, “When a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing [booty] in your face, you get sprung.” (emphasis supplied) There is definitely a line between acceptable fat and unacceptable fat. Those fat women who are fortunate enough to be considered “thick” are subject to an even more extreme hypersexualization of their bodies than average sized or thin black women are. As the features considered sexually desirable not only by black men but also white men are exaggerated on a fat female body, these women are often portrayed as more sexually available, yet can also be portrayed as ghetto princess or hoochie — “Jezebel” and “Sapphire”. But cross that line dividing “thick fat” and “just fat” and you quickly enter the territory of the desexualized fat black woman: the Precious, the mammy. Let’s take the recent example of Gabourey Sidibe, who portrayed Precious, and who basically served as a dumping ground for all the issues people have with fat, specifically, black female fat. This is the type of fat black woman continually mocked by black men in drag. Namely, characters like Eddie Murphy’s Rasputia in Norbit, Tyler Perry’s Madea in any number of his movies, Martin Lawrence’s Shanaynay and Big Mama, and Jamie Foxx’s Wanda on In Living Color. These characters are either considered too old to be sexual and are subject to the mammy stereotype, or their sexuality is portrayed as a joke, something disgusting to be avoided. Clearly the black community is not the utopia of body acceptance white America often believes it to be.

I think it was a post by Snarky’s Machine that first got me to think about this issue (I can’t remember when, though; maybe she’ll drop by with a link) and realize that I’d had this misconception, and probably verbalized it back in the early days of this blog. But I think it’s good to be able to stand up and say, you know what? I was wrong. And I’m glad there are great blogs out there like Racialicious that make me stop and think and, as they say, check my privilege.

Thoughts?

Oprah once ordered two pecan pies from room service and *shudder* ATE THEM BOTH!! And what, Kitty Kelley? The earth tilted on its axis from Oprah’s subsequent weight gain? As I’ve mentioned many times before in this blog, I’m a food addict, and if indeed Oprah suffers from the same problem (which I personally think she does) eating two pies in a sitting ain’t no thang. I have, after a particularly bad day, personally inhaled a whole pizza and chased it with a cheesecake.

Of course, people are reading this to reinforce “Gross! fat people and their fat eating!” instead of thinking about binge eating as an actual disorder, along the lines of the comparatively (and incorrectly) glamorized anorexia and bulimia. No, it’s just, let’s lash out at Oprah, a powerful woman of color, and target something foolproof: her weight.

2. This article about reframing the war on obesity makes a few good points, but there’s also quite a bit of fat shaming.

Instead of having a discussion about obesity, I wish it could be framed in the language of “nutrition” or “nourishment.” Because I’d like to include all the kids, fat and thin, big and small, in a larger discussion of food.

I see lots of thin kids at school and they are eating the same foods as the obese kids. Are they eating the right calories and fats to nourish their bodies? Somehow I don’t think so… [it's just that] in our thin world it’s easy to say “let’s fight fat!”

Apparently originally, the blogger wrote “…being obese is a big problem and if you are overweight, you did something to get there.” People took issue in the comments, but I saw a lot of “don’t blame kids, blame their fat, lazy parents!” The full comment has been edited out, but the “being obese is a big problem” is still there.

3. And speaking of kids, PETA strikes again!

The advertisement? “Tot Teetering on Childhood Obesity? Go Vegan!” You know the fools at PETA were all, “OMG HILARIOUS PLAY ON TEETER-TOTTER OMG HIGH FIVE!!!”

Ugh, this kills me. I know getting upset about PETA’s press releases is completely futile* but still I rise. Can you imagine a little fat kid (who, btw, is already teased mercilessly because kids are the motherflipping MEANEST) coming to the playground and seeing those teeter-totters? Stunts like this don’t turn kids vegan but I bet they could turn them suicidal. Further, how many fat kids do you know who venture near a teeter-totter anyway, it’s already ground for public humiliation. Way to know your audience, PETA!

And what of all the thin kids with malnutrition and fast food diets? There are tons of them, believe it. Just because they’re skinny, they get a free pass? Thin does not healthy make. What a crappy lesson all the way around.

4. An interesting article about classism in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution:

Food Revolution highlights how much of the war on obesity is rooted in classism. One scene shows Oliver reacting to a newspaper article that suggests he thinks the people of Huntington are cola-swilling rubes who think an apple is just a character in the Bible. So most of his time isn’t spent cooking, it’s spent convincing residents he doesn’t look down on them. It’ll be an uphill battle. Advice on better eating isn’t evaluated on the quality of the advice as much as on its source. The lower-middle class doesn’t want to be lectured by a more well-off person about how easy and worthwhile upgrading one’s diet is, because the immediate thought is, sure, easy for you, perhaps. When Oliver arrives in Huntington with his British accent and his crates of radicchio, he’s dooming himself from the start. He’s not only a rich guy, he’s a rich British guy, thumbing his nose at our good, old-fashioned American preservatives.

5. The Curvy Fashionista came to Igigi with a group of us last week, and she is awesome. Maybe now that I’ve decided to follow her around like a baby duckling in search of fashion advice, I’ll be plugged in more to events like these.

Thanks to Michelle, Rebecca, Aych, Ian, and Jess for the links!

1. Celebrity gossip and internet drama, two of my favorite things! But seriously, an interesting discussion going on about Sandra Bullock and Jesse James at Jezebel and at Shapely Prose. The comments (at SP, anyway) make for some fascinating reading and contain plenty of thoughtful debate. (Also, Jesse James is gross. But you knew that.)

Look, I truly don’t have an opinion on what’s in Sandra Bullock’s heart. But I have an opinion on that photo: Appalling and inexcusable. And an opinion on Jesse James: Racist fuckwit. And an opinion on attempts to somehow justify that photo and steer the conversation away from words like “racism” and “anti-Semitism” and “white supremacy” at all costs: Bullshit. And all of that brought me to the opinion that if Bullock wants to keep the stink off her, she’d best issue a statement denouncing her husband’s racist behavior in no uncertain terms. As fast as possible. Which means, basically, yesterday.

2. If you follow the @bigfatdeal Twitter feed and you aren’t a spammer, I’ll follow you back! Which means you can message me if you have a link or a suggestion for a post. The next two links come via Twitter.

First, @pastaqueen sends a link to the Mad Men Barbie dolls, in which the “Betty Draper” doll and the “Joan Holloway” doll have the same Barbie bodies. From the comments:

How do the Betty and Joan dolls have the exact same body? FAIL, Mattel, this was your chance to make a Barbie who could walk upright (were she human).

Yeah, those identical proportions on the Betty and Joan dolls are disappointing, and actually disgraceful in light of what the show is meant to celebrate.

I still want a Joan doll, though. I can’t help it.

3. Next, @erinty has a question that I thought I’d throw out there for the BFD readership to try and answer:

Hi – do you know an active HAES message board or community? I haven’t found one that’s really active myself. can’t find 1. having hard time with the act of losing weight while on HAES, very conflicting!

So if you know of an active HAES forum or you have any thoughts on Erin’s dilemma, please give a shout in the comments.

4. From Nonk: Jennifer Hudson is shilling for Weight Watchers. But it might not be as bad as it could be? Yet, ugh.

What’s different about Hudson’s new commercials is that she’s removed the fat-shaming element. In her other Weight Watcher’s ad below, we see a silhouette of her slimmer thighs, but for the most part her body is obscured as she emphasizes that losing makes her feel — not look — better, and, “It makes me love myself that much more.”

5. And finally, Bay Area BFDivas who are interested in a trip to Igigi on Monday afternoon to try on some clothes, a group of us are going, including Weetabix, who will be in town. Shoot me an e-mail if you’re interested! We need to coordinate with Igigi within the next couple of days, so don’t delay.

Happy Thursday!

And now, on to the things that are definitely not called “fattie quickies.”

1. Oscar-nominee Gabby Sidibe has an awesome designer.

What Hall is saying is something many women, regardless of the size, already know about fashion (high and otherwise): designers aren’t designing clothes to make women look good, they’re picking women to make their designs look good.

2. And speaking of Gabby Sidibe, she was left off of the cover of Vanity Fair’s “New Hollywood” issue, along with anyone else who isn’t thin, young, and white.

In the accompanying article, Vanity Fair writer Evgenia Peretz calls out the young cover stars by their best attributes: “downy-soft cheeks,” “button nose,” “patrician looks and celebrated pedigree,” “dewy, wide-eyed loveliness,” “Ivory-soap-girl features.” Roles for black, Asian, and Latin actors are scarce in Hollywood, but surely Sidibe, Zoe Saldana of “Avatar” and “Star Trek,” and Freida Pinto of “Slumdog Millionaire” are having their moment.

3. Adipositivity is doing a (NSFW) Valentine’s Day series in February. That’s right, pictures of couples getting it on in which at least one partner is fat.

Every day through Valentine’s Day you’ll see another Adiposer couple gettin’ at least semi for ya. But remember, most of ‘em are in pre-, mid-, or post-canoodle, so some photographs may be even more NSFW than usual. Hope they make you smile as much as they do me. Happy Valentine’s Day!

4. I really enjoyed Snarkysmachine’s post on Shapely Prose about black women and the beauty ideal.

I bought some of the, “Black women can be fat and still be desirable” snakeoil often peddled by white people, never seeing it as a form of subjugation. Not hearing, the rest of the sentence, “…for black women.” Not realizing my existence was still being framed as less than. And then there’s the Black Don’t Crack meme now utilized to sell botox and wrinkle creams to women of other races. Again from an unexamined perspective it feels like progress, but, of course, it’s not. It’s using the cult of youth to force women into obedience.

Also in the comments were links to If Black Women Were White Women and Extremely Flawed Social Experiment, both of which I also read with interest.

5. Thinner Whole Foods employees get higher employee discount. Um, gross. I will not be going to Whole Foods anymore, I guess!

By rewarding a BMI of 24 — a full point below what is considered the benchmark of “overweight” — Whole Foods is not-so-subtly indicating its preference that a lower BMI is better and ideal, thus contributing to an atmosphere in which employees who do not meet this standards are made to feel ostracized and targeted. These blanket standards also ignore genetic, gender, age and ethnic differences across groups, thereby directing this sense of corporate hostility, however passive, toward those employees who may already be among the most vulnerable in the workplace: minorities, women and senior citizens. Would we tolerate this kind of “incentive” if it were directed at other groups of workers?

Talk about any of these in the comments!

I already recommended this on Twitter, but Roger Ebert’s essay about no longer being able to eat or drink is fantastic. The man is a national treasure. (Via.)

When we drive around town I never look at a trendy new restaurant and wish I could eat there. I peer into little storefront places, diners, ethnic places, and then I feel envy. After a movie we’ll drive past a formica restaurant with only two tables occupied, and I’ll wish I could be at one of them, having ordered something familiar and and reading a book. I never felt alone in a situation like that. I was a soloist.

After I saw The Princess and the Frog, which I loved, I of course had to go see what Racialicious had to say about it, especially since I had read this essay, discussing some concerns.

I had been on the fence about our heroine’s role as a southern belle’s maid. Yes, it’s [canon] for fairy tale protagonists to begin their stories having low status, but a black heroine who is a domestic could be legitimately read not as a fairy tale trope but a reinforcement of real world racial denigration. Some may claim that it would be historically accurate for a 1920’s black woman to be a maid, but Disney doesn’t even care about historical accuracy when animating actual history (for example, Pocahontas.) Disney films often include generic European landscapes and eras and anachronistic details and social conventions. Let’s consider Beauty and the Beast. Did French peasants like Belle’s dad really have the time and resources to invent complicated gadgets? Should Belle have had access to so many books or even have been literate?… Deciding to suddenly be historically accurate while telling a fairy tale about a black princess seems a little suspect. Not to mention after decades of singing candlesticks and flying carpets, it’s a little late in the game to start claiming a commitment to realism.

(Another good essay about a recent movie is this one, which articulates some problems with Avatar.)

And finally, while we’re all smartypantsing around thinking about things like feminism and race and privilege and gazes, Linda Holmes at NPR has a great piece up about how transforming Penny from an object of the male gaze to a protagonist in her own right has made The Big Bang Theory a better show.

This is, in maybe the most literal form in which you’ll ever see it, the male gaze. She exists relative to Leonard and Sheldon’s arrival home (just standing there reading a magazine in profile with the door open!), relative to their door, relative to their apartment. It’s a comedy, but it’s still true. This is it; this is the thing. This is the thing people talk about where she’s not really herself, she’s just the lady standing in the doorway.

How about you; read anything good lately?

1. Shapely Prose leaves the Fatosphere!

As we’ve tried saying a gazillion times, [Shapely Prose] is not the movement. It is not the fatosphere. And the fatosphere is not, in fact, a real place or institution that has — or needs, necessarily — an identifiable leader to set standards, referee fights, and generally be all things to all fat people. If the majority of fatosphere bloggers decide it does need such a leader, that’s cool — but none of the Shapely Prose bloggers are running for office.

2. College mandates a “Fitness for Life” class to graduate… but only if you’re fat!

Why stop at fat people? I mean, aren’t thin people just potential future fatties? Why not push the obesity fearmongering and weight-stereotyping onto the entire student body? Frankly, I don’t know what’s worse: the blatant discrimination shown here by the school, or the fact that a historically black college is the body enacting the discrimination.

3. Young girls still worry about being fat, but it isn’t all the princesses’ fault.

The good (sort of) news? The kids weren’t more affected by a film featuring a svelte princess, like the Princess and the Frog, than by anything else. So limiting princesses and Barbies alone isn’t going to do the trick; indeed, they seemed to feel equally bad regardless of what they watched.

4. People have seen Precious (although I haven’t seen it yet) and the word is, it’s amazing. Would love to know what you think!

The host asked why it was important that the character be obese, and I found this question and some wording in Bob Mondello’s movie review (“her face so full it seems incapable of expression”) to be at least irritating and perhaps borderline offensive–I felt that they seemed to view Precious and to some extent Gabourey Sidibe, the actress who plays her, as some sort of strange curiosity. So I loved the author’s straightforward and beautiful response, in the context of an anecdote about a white woman who had approached her to indicate that, after seeing the film, “she would never look at an overweight black woman again with the same judgment.” It made me happy to hear.

5. This is unrelated to fat, but I feel the need to co-sign the sentiment that John Cho is hot. But this reminds me of a point I wanted to make! Which I will put in a blockquote for symmetry’s sake.

I love the fact that so many new shows we’re watching in our house, such as Glee, FlashForward, and Community, have diverse casts. Although in each case there are white characters playing the leads, and the only people of size are black women (Mercedes on Glee and Shirley on Community). I still think it’s great that there are substantive roles on television for people of color and even, in the case of Glee, people with disabilities being portrayed. FlashForward and Glee also have gay characters. Hooray diversity!

As always, if you have any thoughts on 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, please hit the comments! (And I know you may feel one of these should have a post all its own… I can always quote some of your comments and start a dedicated discussion post if need be!)

And for all you Americans out there, happy Thanksgiving!

On the other hand, it does make fun of fat people quite a bit, most often for wearing very tight clothing. (Of course if you are skinny and wearing tight clothing, it is described as “awesome.”) It also has used the term “back titty” more than once. (If there’s a word I can’t stand…) And occasionally there are posts where the entire point is “you are fat and your clothes are riding up“; conversely, there are posts where the fact that the person is fat is seemingly irrelevant.

This is another one of those things where I can’t decide if I’m being oversensitive or not sensitive enough. Is People of Walmart equal-opportunity free-for-all mockery, or are there undercurrents of fatism and classism (or even racism and sexism) that we should be pissed off about? And is it even okay to take pictures of strangers in public and post them online in the first place? Is Look at this Fucking Hipster equally bad? I’d love to know your thoughts.