Now Jane Pratt has started a website, xoJane.com, and I am really digging it. Marianne Kirby (from The Rotund) and Lesley Kinzel (from Two Whole Cakes) are both writers there, and I think at least one of their other regular writers is plus-sized. That’s not just one token size ten contributor, that’s multiple people who are straight-up fat. (Back in the magazine days, there was one vaguely curvy girl named, I think, Katy (?), and I always felt like I could relate just a little bit more to her pieces.) The best thing about this is that THEY WRITE ABOUT ALL SORTS OF THINGS THAT DO NOT INVOLVE FATNESS.

Don’t get me wrong, they write great stuff about size issues. Lesley just wrote a piece called What’s Wrong With Fat-Shaming?, addressing those horrible billboards featuring sad-looking fat kids (I saw them in Atlanta last year, too, and I always wonder how the poor “models” feel, being plastered on a billboard, children, and being held up as some sort of example of what’s wrong with the world.) I also enjoyed her recent piece about Tim Gunn:

His comments are ultimately the same old body-loathing crap we hear all the time, wrapped up in faux sympathy, and therefore I must take issue with Gunn’s self-applied title of “advocate for larger women” as I believe his words do those women more harm than good. Especially when Gunn says of one woman on the new show, “…she’d been overweight her entire life and never known a normal, slim and sexy body.” (Emphasis mine.)

Check out the body politics tab for more (not just from Lesley, but from other contributors as well). But Lesley has also written about Downton Abbey and collecting things and tampons, and Marianne has written about eloping and fan fiction and Anne of Green Gables. I have no idea how the site works, but it doesn’t seem like “you’re our Fat Contributor, so please write about fat,” more like “you’re a contributor, please write about what interests you.”

I have to say tha I would love to see some more contributors of color, but the site is really doing something right by us plus-sized readers. So thank you to xoJane for having some real size diversity among your staff.

Until now, that is: one of the creators and stars of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Rob McElhenney, has gained 50 pounds for season seven of the show, which premiered last week. McElhenney, who plays Mac, says:

I never wondered what it would be like to have a fat character. That’s just mean and it’s not funny. Ultimately, what was funny to me was the abuse on one’s body. Mac was always talking about putting on mass, so he decided to put on mass. His vision was that when David was sculpted, they started with a big slab of marble and then he was whittled down. So Mac created himself a big slab of marble, but it turned out he was just a big slab of beef and never trimmed himself down. That to me is the funnier aspect of it. It stemmed from watching a really popular sitcom where the actors were better looking than five or six years before and I was like they’re better looking because they have more money, they are more famous, they have better makeup and wardrobe people. Our show has always been about deconstructing the sitcom and not creating likeable or attractive characters. It wasn’t just about weight gain, but about making myself look as self-abused as possible. I tried to look as ugly as possible.

(Two things about this quote that jump out at me: first, Danny DeVito is in the cast, and he’s not a thin guy, so they do have a “fat character,” although I can’t off the top of my head think about any weight-based jokes at his expense. I’m also not sure why having a fat character would be “mean,” but I’m guessing McElhenney’s referring to the type of character who exists for the sole purpose of having weight-based jokes made about them–a character trope with which we are all familiar.)

We started watching Sunny a couple of seasons ago (the gang’s musical, “The Nightman Cometh,” is endlessly hilarious to me), and the characters do and say wildly offensive things, making jokes about everything from crack addiction to rape. I do appreciate the fact that the woman in the group, Dee, is allowed to be just as offensive and horrible as the men, which makes it a rich comedic part for Kaitlin Olsen (who is married to McElhenney in real life). The question each episode seems to ask of the characters is “how low can they go?”

Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day, the co-creators of Sunny, were on one of the podcasts I occasionally listen to, WTF with Marc Maron. According to them, the characters–in their racism, sexism, and selfishness–are always the butt of the jokes, which is the source of the comedy. Howerton says:

Even with this year’s premise of Mac gaining weight, we are not making fun of fat people. We are making fun of Mac, because he thinks that he’s this muscle-bound person, and he’s done absolutely nothing in order to actually achieve that goal… this is not a person who is naturally fat, this is a person who is destroying his body under the delusion that he’s actually creating muscle… and that’s the joke, not fat people in general.

I’m glad Howerton makes this distinction, because I feel a lot of comedians don’t see a problem with making fun of fat people, and I appreciate (having seen the premiere and as a viewer of the show) that there’s more going on here. However, the “fat = funny” equation still strikes me as problematic. Alan Sepinwall, in his review of the premiere, calls Fat Mac a “sight gag,” and says:

Okay, first things first: major, major, major props are due Mr. Rob McElhenny for having the random but brilliant (if not necessarily wise from a personal standpoint) idea to put on 50 pounds in the off-season. Fat Mac is just a marvelous sight gag – in a way, it reminds me of that “30 Rock” episode where Jenna ate too much pizza over the summer, only, you know, real – that makes me laugh every single time I see him, while also standing in nicely as a commentary on the state of the gang. They’re getting older, and dumber, and sloppier – and in Mac’s case, fatter – and while another show might take this as an opportunity for personal growth, “Always Sunny” mainly just observes that they’re all getting too old for this shit, then has them keep doing it anyway, cuz it’s really really funny.

I don’t watch 30 Rock, so didn’t see the “Jenna ate too much pizza” plotline (which sounds like a dumb plotline, if I can judge merely based on the description) but I will be watching Sunny this season and am curious to see what others think. Here’s a preview of the show featuring “Fat Mac.” So what do you think? Do you watch Sunny, and do you think Fat Mac is funny? Can fat ever be funny?

I hadn’t seen the show, so I went and checked out some clips to get a feel for what it is like. There seems to be a range of fat experience here: some women have lost weight, some are dieting, some are very accepting of themselves. Many of them are matter-of-fact about their bodies, and have seemingly learned to blame the clothes, not themselves, if something doesn’t work. And of course, some are less confident, or apprehensive about the whole experience. Some hate trying clothes on; one woman admitted she hadn’t worn a dress in 20 years. The people helping them seem to be pretty positive and encouraging. (Although after watching a bunch of these videos, I still haven’t seem them find one dress that isn’t strapless, what is up with that.) (I also suddenly feel like getting married all over again in a giant white poofy strapless dress. Maybe I’ve watched too many clips in a row.)

So, have you ever seen the show? Do you have any advice for Laurie? Check out the clips below and let us know in the comments what you think. And good luck, Laurie! Let us know when the episode airs!

Character: Megan, played by Melissa McCarthy

Credits: Before Bridesmaids, probably best known for Gilmore Girls and Mike & Molly, though she started off in the Groundlings. As far as her reputation among comics goes, this interview is worth reading.

Plot points: Megan is one of the eponymous bridesmaids in this female-centric, Kristin Wiig-centric comedy. At first you might think she’s the obligatory token fat bridesmaid that is going to be the butt of a lot of fat jokes, but she is really an astonishing character who basically steals the movie. (Or she would, if Kristin Wiig weren’t also so good in it.)

Stereotypes: The trailer had me worried. She’s the one most excited about the food at the Brazilian restaurant, and the first one to have gastrointestinal distress (though it eventually strikes everyone, her “I’m not confident which end that came out of” line is the one in the trailer). But ultimately, the character defies stereotypes: she’s smart, she’s independent, she’s rich, she’s brave, and she’s sensible. She is the character who (literally and figuratively) knocks some sense into our mopey heroine, Kristin Wiig, in one of the movie’s best scenes. She is honestly a joy to watch.

Sex/Romance/Attractiveness: In the sequence on the plane, she’s shown aggressively hitting on her seatmate (played by her real-life husband) and this sexual aggressiveness is played for laughs. There’s also a joke in which sex involves a sandwich, although by the time this joke comes up, my sense is that the audience is totally on Team Megan, and you’re laughing with her, not at her.

Fat jokes: There are a few (like “I naturally just don’t bloat” at the restaurant, which is meant to be ironic). Again, the reason I found them forgivable is because fat is not the be-all and end-all of this character, and most of the jokes involving her (and there are a lot) don’t involve fat at all. (My favorite one is probably her driving past Annie after the bridal shower, which I won’t spoil.) Admittedly it’s been a while since I saw the movie, so if I’m forgetting anything, hit me up in the comments.

The bottom line: McCarthy is basically playing the Zach Galafinakis part in this movie, and she does it brilliantly. There are a few jokes involving size or food, but Megan never, ever feels like a generic “fat girl” character. She feels like a real comedic creation. In that same interview, Rose Byrne says, “Melissa is nothing at all like Megan. That’s not hiring someone to do what they do; that’s a real performance. Melissa’s beautiful and feminine, but Megan’s tone—it’s almost like she’s a coach. There’s no doubt in her voice. For me a lot of the comedy comes from the tension between the wildness of her ideas and the way she would say them with such authority and confidence and speed.”

Rating on the offense-o-meter (10 being Norbit): 2

But how’s the movie?: You can probably already tell that I enjoyed it. In fact, I laughed so hard my water broke! (Okay, that’s probably not true, but my water did break in the parking lot right after we saw the movie. I was really glad we’d made it all the way through; it would have sucked to miss it.) Really hilarious, and a terrific rejoinder to the “women aren’t funny” trope. I can’t wait to see Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids 2. And congratulations to her on her Emmy nomination! Now that I know what McCarthy can do, I almost want to watch Mike & Molly.

She had been given free tickets to attend the filming of American Idol and was understandably excited. But 19-year-old Ashley Kauffman’s joy soon turned to upset on being told she was ‘too big’ to sit in the front row

There were two [female ushers] and one said: “Oh, I don’t want shorts in front,” about my friend,’…Then [the usher] looked at me and said: “Oh no, you’re too big, too heavy to be in front!” To make matters worse Miss Kauffman and the two other girls were then seated in the back of the theatre rather than directly behind their other friends…

She added that staff had seated two girls who were ‘super skinny and wearing little dresses’ in the front row where [she] and her friends would have been sitting.

Ashley says she is still going to support the contestants on the show, but is speaking out to “make sure it’s known how they treated me.” Good for you, Ashley, and I hope you get an apology–and front-row seats to the finale.

Via Rickey.org.

And here’s the thing: I got really really really really really really sick. I wish I could convey to you how incapacitated I was. I was so sick that I could barely function. Just to get to work and home again was all I could do, for many weeks. Looking at a computer screen made me nauseous, so I didn’t reply to emails (my inbox is still stuffed) or moderate comments or post to the blog. Other things that made me throw up included eating, not eating, thinking about eating, moving around, looking at things, and talking (which made lecturing fun, let me tell you). At one point I was driving to campus and in the middle of the faculty parking lot I had to slam on the brakes, open the door, and puke on the concrete. Then I had to go brush my teeth and give a lecture. That was a fun day.

I got so sick, in fact, that I’m actually still a little sick. (It’s supposed to go away at 16 weeks. This in my case was a terrible lie.) It’s just that when I got to the point where I couldn’t leave my bed and was in fact doing nothing but curling up in the fetal position while occasionally projectile vomiting, I finally got some Zofran, an anti-emetic that I probably should have asked for weeks before I did. But in the meantime I was busy trying every remedy under the sun, from Vitamin B6 and Unisom to special Sri Lankan ginger cookies procured by a friend. And I was busy puking! Let’s not forget the puking.

In the meantime, and in addition, we bought a house! (I know. Lots of news from these here parts.) It’s a fixer-upper, and we’ve been working on fixing it up. That’s also been taking a lot of time. Add in teaching and traveling for the holidays, and there you have it. Where I’ve been.

The thing is, I have a lot of stuff I want to post about. We never talked about important things like Huge being cancelled (nooooooo!!!) (still sad) or the Harry Potter Theme Park adding fat-people seats to their ride just in time for me not to be able to ride roller coasters. Plus, now there’s all this fat and pregnant stuff to talk about, such as the fact that I still don’t really look pregnant and what that means (in fact, so far I’ve lost 15 pounds, even though none of my pants fit), or the fact that Wigburg is a girl, and that I need advice from all of you about how to help her grow up feminist and confident and awesome. And also, the fact that none of my bras fit, because apparently no matter how big your boobs are, they can still get bigger. Scientific fact.

I’m not going to commit to posting every day quite yet, but I will commit to at least one post per week, and see how that goes. I will also try not to turn into a mommyblog. But you know. There might be more mommyblog-esque content here and there. Once again: it’s Wigburg’s fault.

I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

Oh, before you get upset about this, you should know that Kelly insists that she doesn’t hate fat people, and in fact, has some friends who are pudgy, so really, it’s because she cares so much about our health. Oh, ok then! She also offers the advice that if we exercised more and ate whole foods, we’d lose weight in a jiffy.  Fat people never do any of those things! Maura Kelly saves the day! As usual, my hardcore crush Lesley nails it:

…you’re not required to find all fat people attractive, certainly, but Kelly’s comments above are dehumanizing and offensive and really have no place associated with a widely-read publication such as Marie Claire. This is not simply because their candor subverts the standard feel-good ladymag message of “Love yourself! (But not too much!)” but because sentiments like those expressed in Kelly’s post are bad for everyone: they make fat people feel terrible about themselves, and they make thin people terrified of becoming one of those disgusting fatties they so revile.

After reading Ms. Kelly’s blurb on her alumni website, I was most struck by this paragraph:

She struggled with anorexia growing up and credits the psychologists who worked with her for helping her to overcome the disorder. She was so thankful to her psychologists that she decided to major in psychology at Dartmouth so she could one day help others in the same way. Upon graduation, Kelly reread Catcher in the Rye and decided that being a psychologist no longer appealed to her and what she really wanted to do was write a book that would “make people feel less alone in the world.”

After reading the comments on the Marie Claire blog (seriously, go read them and cheer), I feel bad for Kelly. Her sizist screed against fat has obviously more to do with her own eating disorder (which she wrote about and examined in depth in this NYTimes article) and body dysmorphia than any actual concern for the health and welfare of her common man.  Check out her anecdote where  man told her that she looked “athletic” and she mentally twisted it into being called fat. Also, I’m absolutely betting that the next time she bumps into Marie Claire’s pet plus-sized columnist Ashley Falcon in the elevator, it’s going to be awwwwkward!

Good luck with that making “people feel less alone in the world” thing, Maura! You certainly have bonded the fatosphere in outrage and disbelief.

Cooks require heft, to prove they eat their own creations….It’s not just the skinny women chefs. I don’t trust skinny male chefs either, especially if they’re dressed like teenage vampires in “Twilight” with their skinny black jeans and tight T-shirts and ample hair product. When I think of a chef I can trust, I think of cooks with gravitas, some weight on their bones, women who clearly are no strangers to the knife and fork.

Before you start thinking about this being a win for fat acceptance, think again: I don’t care if it’s disregarding Beth Ditto on the runway because she’s over size 12 or disregarding Padma Lakshmi because she’s under size 12, it’s still sizism no matter how you slice it.  Sure, fats are getting the positive assumption that they are more competent when it comes to food, but it’s just as damaging as assuming an athlete is stupid or a gay person is good with fashion. And the assumption that you’re such a good chef that you can’t stop eating your own creations is insulting at best, not to mention the bad reasoning that fat OR thin chefs are only eating their own food. Certainly, we can point to some anecdotal evidence to support the stereotype of a great chef at a higher BMI but we can just as easily point out situations to the opposite. For every Mario Batali, there’s a Grant Achatz who is amazing in the kitchen (trust me, the man’s food is perfection)!

What do you guys think? Do you distrust thin chefs? The comments are dying for some juicy morsels!

[Alley] recently bragged on her Twitter site that she’s lost 50 pounds with exercise and her Organic Liaison weight-loss program. But those close to her say she’s lost barely half that weight and that there’s no way she’s down to 180 pounds!

What’s more, a photo taken on Sept. 29…shows that the plus-size actress hasn’t lost nearly as much as she claims… The struggling star “has been goosing her weight-loss numbers” – insisting she’s dropped 50 pounds, when it’s more like 25…

In September, while in Italy, she tweeted that she had lost 50 pounds, posting a photo of herself surrounded by handsome men. But the picture appeared to be air-brushed to make Kirstie look thin, and she hid her lower body behind one of the hunky men.

As if weight-loss programs aren’t enough of a scam, hers doesn’t even temporarily work! I hunted down that picture so you can see for yourself. She does look pretty airbrushed, no?

2. Ricky Gervais has lost weight recently, and now feels like jokes about fat people are off-limits.

“Now I’ve got to stop making jokes about fat people, which is annoying. When I was fat, it was okay,” the creator of ‘The Office’ tells People. Gervais, 49, lost “20 or 22 pounds,” he says. “It wasn’t so much about the weight. It was more that I was a fat, lazy, out of shape slob, to be honest.”

Ricky Gervais shutting up about fat people is probably for the best, then, isn’t it? Oh, Ricky.

3. Kim Kardashian posed nude for W Magazine (photos at this link are NSFW) and the pictures are everywhere. There have been a lot of ugly comments that I’m sure you can find if you search for about ten seconds, but I liked this one:

I’m 5’1 and I love the way I look, and it’s nice to see more women with hourglass figures in the media lately, being unafraid to [bare] it all, like Christina Hendricks and Ms. Kardashian here. I’m not going to stop loving myself just because I have the figure of a cartoon character.

Stop the hate, people! There’s so much hate in the world, do we really have to tear each other down over how we perceive each others’ bodies?

4. Crystal Renn is a size 10, and Manolo for the Big Girl is over it.

There’s nothing wrong with being a size 10. She’s had a tough row to hoe body-image wise and if that’s where her body is happy then far be it from me to complain.

But she’s a size 10.

That’s not plus-sized, that’s not close to plus-sized and even though I am the biggest fashion industry apologist on the planet, I just can’t pretend that she counts as a plus-sized model in any meaningful sense and therefore she deserves no more and no less press or attention than any other model who doesn’t wear plus-size clothes.

I’m a big proponent for variety and I’d rather see a size 10 model as a staple than a size 20 as a gimmick every few years, but the days of breathlessly reporting on her every move as a victory for fat girl kind –inasmuch as I ever have– are over.

5. Via The F Word, celebrities who have struggled with eating disorders include Felicity Huffman, Elton John, Kate Winslet, Victoria Beckham, and Snooki.

For years she denied the rumors that she had an eating disorder, but Calista Flockhart finally admitted to her problem with anorexia. “I started under-eating, over-exercising, pushing myself too hard and brutalizing my immune system. I guess I just didn’t find time to eat.” Even though the actress hasn’t gained much noticeable weight she ensures, “I am much more healthy these days.”

I recently read Kathy Griffin’s Official Book Club Selection, where she talked frankly about her binge eating, her husband’s binge eating, and going to Overeaters Anonymous—as well as the botched liposuction that nearly killed her.