5 Things We May Want To Talk About
I’ve been alternately sick, or busy, or sick and busy. In the meantime, here are some things that have been going on lately… In Case You Missed Them! Even though you most likely didn’t.
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!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Art, Celebrities, Fatism, Gabby Sidibe, Kids, Links, Meta, Movies, Race & Ethnicity
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2. That college crap is bullcrap, if they want to encourage better eating habits and lifetime fitness, then classes should be required for everyone, not just the fatties.
3. My mom obsessed about my weight from the day I was born. Her efforts to make sure I didn’t get fat backfired completely, though I’m sure she tells herself she did everything she could to keep me thin.
4.Push was an amazing book, and I look forward to the movie, though I wish the movie goer had said she’d never look at an overweight woman again with the same judgement, leaving off the black part.
5. I defended Glee and having the big girl fall in love with Kurt hoping that we’d see her character develop, but they are letting me down. More story for Mercedes, she’s more than a gospel voice and sass. As for Shirley, I never even thought about the fact she was black or plus sized, just that she seemed like any middle aged woman going back to school. I like her character a lot. Hooray for diversity that not stunt casting or for ratings boosts, hooray.
Finally, I’m thankful for this website. I still hate myself for being fat, but a little less so.
Kate Harding was more than happy to be part of the Fatosphere when she was able to schill her book to all and sundry and if it hadn’t been for the Fatosphere, she would have been able to sell more than a handful of the book and wouldn’t have been able to promote herself in the way she has. I feel like Kate has used the Fatosphere for to her own ends and now that she has achieved what she set out to, she has ditched the very community that helped (actually enabled) her to achieve her goals at this point in time. So SP cops some flack, some of it is deserved and some of it isn’t. That’s life. To flake out on the Fatosphere is just pathetic. Not to mention SP remains on the alternate fat feed, Fat Chat, which has practically the same blogs as Notes from the Fatosphere but isn’t as well known as Notes. So what’s the deal there?
Annoyed, considering that people were freaking out about Kate Harding/Shapely Prose dictating the entire fat acceptance movement, I don’t think it’s so bad. And it was bound to happen, because the non-feminists on the Fatosphere really didn’t like being called on it, and blamed Kate Harding for setting her fans on them (as opposed to owning the fact that their views might not be popular among the overlap that exists between feminists and fat acceptance advocates).
It kinds of bugs me that people confuse the feed Notes from the Fatosphere with the fatosphere (as in blogs that talk about fat acceptance) and with the movement in general. Removing themselves from one feed because the blog is no longer appropriate for it (as they noted, they are no where the 75% FA content required to join the feed), and because they were making other bloggers uncomfortable doesn’t mean they’re abandoning anyone. They’re still in the movement, they’re still blogging about FA.
I think it’s for the best they’ve removed themselves. I wish there were different standards for NftF (as a hardcore feminist), but it’s not my feed. Shapely Prose has evolved as a blog, and the NftF has evolved as a feed.
I signed the petition regarding the new mandatory course.
As a general rule, I think it’s ridiculous when a school adds a requirement before graduation – people should be able to graduate with whatever requirements were in place when they started the school. It’s like changing the terms of a contract!
Also, I gained a lot of weight in college; this coincided with my recovery from eating disorders. I suppose it would be better if I had graduated as a full out bulimic than overweight?
Annoyed said:
Agreed.
The Shapely Prose team allege that they didn’t sign up to be fatosphere leaders. Bullshit. They – or should I say Kate – actively sought to drown out all other fatosphere blogs and build an audience of
sycophantsfollowers.Not to mention that they were responsible for pushing a number of dissenting bloggers and blogs out of the fatosphere either through direct attack or just plain ostracism.
I believe Kate’s motivation for participation in the fatosphere (newly rebranded as fat-o-sphere) as totally self-interested – and now she has achieved her goal of a book deal, plenty of press coverage to launch her writing career and paid writing gigs, she is not interested in giving back to the community who gave to her.
To actively seek to dominate the fatosphere and then drop out because the goals of media coverage and self-aggrandisation have been achieved is disingenuous at the best and deceptive at worst.
Once upon a time, the fatosphere was a community. We linked to each other. We commented on each other’s blogs. We participated.
These days the only participation seems to be the choral comments on a lazy “open thread” on SP.
That story about the little girls scared the crap out of me. My two year old is teeny tiny — under the 3rd percentile for weight — but like every other two year old in the world, she has a round little tummy, and she likes to pose in front of the mirror while sucking in her stomach. I think this is just a normal “hey look what my body can do” toddler thing, but I confess that every time I see her do it I wince.
The hardest thing so far about being a mother to a little girl is trying to banish all comments about my own weight from my vocabulary. I honestly think that mom’s own crappy body image probably has a bigger effect than the princesses do.
okay, I’m curious how Kate Harding attempted to drown out all other fatosphere blogs. I always managed to find others. I’ve always managed to find others who heartily disagreed with her. Have I just not bee around long enough? or what? I’m not saying that dropping out is or isn’t a good idea. But I really don’t understand this whole “shapely prose is the fatosphere” thing. There are other blogs. other good blogs. do they not count?
should be-have I just not been around enough. I can type. really.
5/ I’m not an avid watcher of Glee but of those times I’ve watched it I was impressed by the diversity. I especially loved the scene the other night when a visiting school club had a round woman up front singing and shaking her booty like it was her last day on the planet. She was wonderful and inspiring.
Re #1: When you say that they left the Fatosphere, it imples that they left the entire movement. But really, all they left was one RSS feed.
1. Whoop-dee-doo.
2. Someday people will realize they can’t force other people to look/behave/think a certain way. Not today, though. Probably not anytime soon, either. Sigh.
3. Gosh, and I thought I was bad for hating my fat at age 9…I wonder how fucked up I would’ve been if I’d started at age 3.
4. I so want to see that movie. I can’t wait till this term is over so I have some free time!
5. John Cho IS hot. Especially in that suit. Hot damn!
Also, Glee is currently my favorite show, but I agree, they need to develop some other characters. I like that they poked their toe in the water with Tina and Artie, but they haven’t touched Mercedes yet, and some of the other characters in the club don’t even have names (seriously, “the other asian”?)
1. I second June’s comment. Moving on now.
2. So this is a black college doing this? It’s a bit ridiculous.
3. I don’t know about everyone else, but I have never been affected by Disney Princesses as a kid.
John Cho is cute as hell. I will never understand why he seems to be left out of the pretty boys club.
Some of the things I had been saying (SP was de facto leaders of Fatosphere because of Harding’s exposure) were mentioned in her departing post.
I don’t take issue with her “using” the Fatosphere feed. Her beliefs were sincere and her opinions valuable, so the SP/Fatosphere relationship was beneficial. And Kate using the feed to boost her visibility to sell books… meh, I’d do the same thing too, if I could. Would I leave afterward? Well, I could see how the whole kerfuffle inhibited their ability to write what they wanted to write.
I dunno, I wasn’t around for the Great Purge I keep hearing about (all the FA bloggers who left, apparently due to SP), so I don’t find SP’s presence offensive. I merely found the attitude of their commenters (and *some* of the contributors) to be needlessly spiteful, so if that cuts down on the inter-Fatosphere fighting, then cool.
The way I see it, we know where SP is and they know where we are, now there’s more room for a new King or Queen of the Fatosphere to blaze a new trail. So, let’s get going.
Peace,
Shannon
Yes, John Cho is hot.
But I’m going to have to take a very unpopular stance here. Glee is crap. There are MANY MANY things about it that are IMMENSELY problematic, not least of all the token characters and the crip-drag, but also the poor characterizations of very many types of people and the storylines that encourage disrespect for boundaries, authority figures, and entire groups (like the deaf choir… NO, you do NOT get to sing over them because they fulfilled their role in a Very Special Teaching Moment; and the cheerleading coach’s sister being disabled… no, no, nononono). That’s not diversity, it’s stereotyping masquerading as diversity.
I have watched the show. It literally made me nauseated.
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