Kevin Smith Kicked Off Southwest Flight For Being Fat
I just caught wind of this on Kate Harding’s Twitter feed (asking how many followers the average fat person would need to have in order to garner the same, apparently apologetic, response). Then I went over to Kevin Smith’s feed and saw his Tweets, some of which were in multiple parts, outlining the situation:
Dear @SouthwestAir – I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?
Dear @SouthwestAir, I flew out in one seat, but right after issuing me a standby ticket, Oakland Southwest attendant Suzanne (wouldn’t give last name) told me Captain Leysath deemed me a “safety risk”. Again: I’m way fat… But I’m not THERE just yet. But if I am, why wait til my bag is up, and I’m seated WITH ARM RESTS DOWN. In front of a packed plane with a bunch of folks who’d already I.d.ed me as “Silent Bob.”
So, @SouthwestAir, go fuck yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no “safety risk” (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I was wrongly ejected from the flight (even Suzanne eventually agreed). And fuck your apologetic $100 voucher, @SouthwestAir. Thank God I don’t embarrass easily (bless you, JERSEY GIRL training). But I don’t sulk off either: so everyday, some new fuck-you Tweets for @SouthwestAir.
Wanna tell me I’m too wide for the sky? Totally cool. But fair warning, folks: IF YOU LOOK LIKE ME, YOU MAY BE EJECTED FROM @SOUTHWESTAIR.
@pigz “I know several people bigger then u who have flown on other airlines” I saw someone bigger than me on THAT flight! But I wasn’t about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like “Please don’t tell…”
And, hey? @SouthwestAir? I didn’t even need a seat belt extender to buckle up. Somehow, that shit fit over my “safety concern”-creating gut.
Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off! http://twitpic.com/1340gw
(This is a picture of Smith on a later Southwest flight.)
The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!
At least he hasn’t lost his sense of humor! I’ll be interested to see what happens next, especially since I had been a loyal Southwest Airlines customer. Keep watching Twitter for updates.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Fatism, Kevin Smith
Hey, but his luggage was free!
Southwest can eat a bag of dicks. They’ve been pulling this arbitrary crap with non-famous fat people for years now. And, issues of fair accessibility aside, it’s the arbitrariness that needs to be dealt with first.
*whistles* Wow. They wont hear the last of this! Kevin is right that he broke no rule: “What is the definitive gauge for a Customer of size?
The armrest is the definitive gauge for a Customer of size. It serves as the boundary between seats and measures 17 inches in width. Customers who are unable to lower both armrests and/or who compromise any portion of adjacent seating should proactively book the number of seats needed prior to travel.”
That’s right from Southwests’ own Customer of Size Q&A.
If this is true, I hope he roasts their asses. This policy has been so arbitrary and so hostile for years and has gone virtually unchallenged in the general public. I wrote a polite letter of protest over their policy several years ago and got the most INCREDIBLY rude reply back. They really have been jerks over and over again about the whole issue.
Maybe now that a zaftig celebrity who takes no prisoners has been targeted, it can garner enough bad publicity that it will put them in the hot seat and give them a little discomfort.
I doubt they will change their policy….their fat-phobic execs seem very strongly entrenched in this policy….but I hope it will bring some uncomfortable scrutiny and heat on them and the other airlines will note that and back away from the trend towards randomly scapegoating fat folk.
Since I’m flying tomorrow, this is a particularly interesting story to me now. At least it won’t be on Southwest Airlines…..they lost my business forever with their rudeness and from never knowing when they might decide to randomly target me. Good riddance to them.
Reason no. 3564 why I would rather drive or take the train.
Funny thing is, my fatty fat fatness simply impinges upon the delicate eyeballs of people who cannot bear the horrible fact that I _exist._ _In public._ The discomfort of being wedged into a seat that barely fits a so-called normal behind is entirely mine. My husband, OTOH, has shoulders so broad that _he cannot help impinging upon the personal space of others in coach._ This is bone and muscle we’re talking about, not another fatty fat fatty daring to exist. Or more precisely, he is a big burly man with prominent bones, so his technical fatness is not as easy to see.
Anybody want to bet me that he will ever be called out for shouldering other people simply by existing?
*crickets*
Forgot the last paragraph. I will bet an entire plate of the dessert of your choice that if Kevin Smith looked like my husband, he would not have been the target du jour. Because he wouldn’t have “looked fat.”
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You know, fat people have to fly too. I really hope Southwest’s attitude might show other airlines that they’re doing no favors by taking our money and treating us like crap. I’ve never flown because I’m a train and bus person, but if I ever have to one day, it sure won’t be with Southwest.
Kev promised to podcast the full story sometime today, so keep checking http://www.smodcast.com
I’m really torn about this freakin southwest situation. being as how I have no money and have a partner that lives across the country, I appreciate the affordability of their flights and have used them for many years. I’m ONE flight away from a free one. i feel like I should really stop flying them at all now, but already have a flight with them planned for next month, and then will have to use the free one sometime……i guess I need to choose a different airline from here on out and just pay the extra. :( damn you southwest!
This would also be a good place for a photoshop of Samuel L. Jackson shouting “WE GOTTA GET THESE MUTHAFUCKIN FATS OFF THIS MUTHAFUCKIN PLANE!”
He’s going to talk about it on the SModcast. Guess I’ll give it a listen…
Let’s hope that it will inspire outrage and change in stupid policies now that it’s a celebrity that’s been discriminated against. Also, Southwest, will all of your victims be getting personal apology phone calls, or just the ones with 1 million Twitter followers?
@Emily I might get run out of BFD on a rail for this, but if you are that close to a free flight on Southwest then get that free flight out of them! You can always dump them afterward. The sad fact is that other airlines are being anti-fat as well, and often no less arbitrary.
I took my first flight in ages last year and was unbelievably tense at boarding, both going to and coming from my destination. I was on Continental and I understand that they can be pretty fat-unfriendly as well. I am able to sit with the armrest down and I don’t need a seatbelt extender, and I chose a window seat so I could get up close and personal with the side of the plane rather than whoever was next to me, but that wouldn’t mean jack if the person next to me decided to complain. I spent so much time stressing about the “what ifs” that I finally decided to buy a second seat just to ease my mind, but by that time the seat next to mine had been sold and the only others left were singles. So I basically quit eating until my departing flight. Just the bare minimum to get me through the day so I could crash diet off whatever weight I could to try. Please understand that I am in *NO WAY* endorsing this, just presenting it as an example of effect that selective enforcement of rules can have on people.
I had no trouble on my either my flight out or my flight home, but I don’t know that I will take that chance again. I’m not in a financial position to buy a plane ticket anywhere right now, but when I am it will be well worth my peace of mind to buy the middle seat next to me. That will also mean I won’t spend four hours next to a guy with the worst gas in the history of confined spaces.
I’m loving the smodcast. Kevin Smith is so amazing in his recitation of events.
Emily I agree, if you are that close to a free ticket go for it. But you could always complain or make a negative remark (in a very calm way so you don’t get arrested) expressing your feelings. Then you can use another carrier after the free ticket! Times are hard these days!
Mary, I have bought a second seat a couple times and flown first class 6 times. If you are seated near someone with really bad gas, you will still know it. Sorry!
Southwest Air sucks!!!! They were the ones who kicked off a mom with a crying baby, as well as a woman whose clothes (a tank and shorts) were deemed “too provocative,” and many, MANY other ridiculous incidents.
Kevin Smith ROCKS!!!! I hope A LOT of people stop flying Southwest.
I am really glad that he is giving them a hard time about it but I really thought this quote from Kate harding’s post on Shapely Prose was telling: “But there are still probably millions of fat people who dread getting on flights — and not just on Southwest — because they don’t know if they’ll actually be allowed to use the tickets they paid for, or if they’ll be removed from the plane like criminals, forced to fly standby and in some cases, forced to fly standby and pay twice as much for it.”
I don’t just dread going on flights- I refuse to go on them. This makes it hard, because my fiance is in Montana and it basically means he must visit me, because the train ride is 2 days and a bus ride is 3. But we can’t afford to buy two plane tickets for me and I’m just too afraid to go and be humiliated because I’ll be deemed “Too large”
Thanks Mary, that’s my plan actually, I just really can’t afford to give up a free ticket that can take me anywhere in the us.
the really weird/hard thing for me here is that although I do require an extender on some flights (this is my main beef with that whole policy about exit rows btw, there is NO standardaztion in seat widths/seatbelt lengths so every plane is different) I have never had a problem on a southwest flight. staff are almost always extremely nice to me about extenders and the like, it’s usually only fellow passengers that shoot me shitty looks. But like anything, I just can’t support a crazy arbitrary policy, even when it hasn’t punished me.
plus to be honest, I feel like i’ve just been lucky so far and any day now i’ll be ripped off a plane for being me. *le sigh*
Emily you might want to check out seatguru.com. They’ve got seating diagrams of each airline’s planes with descriptions and comments about the seats. I found it helpful exactly for the reason you mentioned – no standardization at all. There can even be a difference of a couple of inches seat width within the same plane. With the airlines trying to cram as many people as possible into every plane, I’ll take every fraction of an inch I can get – no matter what I weigh at any given time!
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I think one of the things that is most important in this situation – and largely overlooked by non-fatties or those who just don’t get it – is that these policies kind of keep people from being able to travel. A few bad experiences with flights (not related to my weight) combined with increasingly anti-fat policies have kept me from flying very often. The last time I flew, I was too sick with food poisoning to worry much about my size with regard to my seats. But if I had been removed from those flights or forced to by a second seat, which isn’t even possible if the flight you’re on is full, I wouldn’t have been able to get to my final destination. Which, incidentally, was my mom and dad’s house. For Christmas.
Smith has had the luxury to, occasionally in the past, purchase two seats. If I had enough money to do that, I’d do it every time. Not because of my size, but because I don’t like sitting next to random people for hours on end.
Uh..idk where I was really going with this. It’s just ridiculous on so many levels, and while I hate that any fellow fattie had to endure this, I’m glad it happened to someone with a voice and no fear of blasting a company who deserves it.
And this is the #1 reason I will NEVER fly Southwest Airlines! And I would really like someone to explain why a fat person is considered a risk. Are they afraid we will go bananas and eat all the peanuts or start snacking on our seat mate because, obviously, all we do is eat??
SHEESH!
Many people take what one say’s and go’s with it. There are two sides to every story. People don’t understand there are FAA regulations as well that SW has to obide by. People think they can do whatever they want to on a plane, there is safety to look at. The airlines and FAA put these regulations together to keep everyone safe in the air and on the ground. Just wish people would understand those rules and why they have those rules put in place!!!
But Kevin Smith asked SW staff multiple times why was he asked to leave the plane and was never given a definitive answer. All he was told was the corporate line of “it’s a safety issue”. Plus when he questioned what that meant exactly, he was never given clarification.
When I listened to the SModcast last night, it sounds like he’s more mad at the fact that the policy exists.
I would like to hear SW’s REAL side of this, and not just some corporate line of BS. Why did they really remove him from the first flight and why did they attempt to remove the woman who ended up sitting next to him on his eventual return flight?
[…]My job here is to remind you that WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, IS PEOPLE. Fat People who are, quite possibly enjoying their flight experience EVEN LESS THAN YOU ARE.[…]
What an insensitive move by the airlines. They really need to recheck their policies or retrain their staff.
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Uhg. I’m 5’6″ and an in-betweeny (size 10-12) and I hardly fit. Stupid airlines.
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Can I ask a question without hate filled responses?
Kevin changed his flight.
He chose not to get the second ticket he already paid for. Why?
He wanted to get on earlier flight.
He was put on standby.
All others boarded and seated.
Then he had an issue.
I wonder if he had the second ticket it would have worked out.
I love Kevin Smith for making such a big (fat, heh) deal out of this! And for the fact that he’s doing it, not because HE got singled out, but because others who don’t have his platform did, and it’s wrong, and people should know about it.
If I had more money, I’d go out and buy copies of all his movies I don’t already have. As it is, I followed him on Twitter because of this.
@Rebecca: He wanted to go earlier, and there was one seat available. The only reason he got two tickets to begin with is because he doesn’t like sitting next to ANYONE. Your question doesn’t make any sense (and actually isn’t in the form of a question at the end, so, yeah, not really a question).
@Rebecca: This site doesn’t deal in “hate filled responses”.
If losing fat were easy, everyone would do it.
Whoops. I meant to say; “if losing weight were that easy, everyone would be thin,” basically. Re-reading my comment, I realized it kinda comes across wrong, sorry! That wasn’t my intent, I just fail at eloquence today.
It’s not especially relevant to this topic, but my point was that, discrimination like the one towards Kevin Smith occurs because most people seem to think that being fat is a ‘choice’, but they fail to realize that most fat people are SO conditioned into feeling bad about themselves– that don’t you think they would ‘decide’ to be thin if it were as simple as everyone makes it out to be?
Again not especially relevant to the topic at hand, but I just had that thought it kicking around in my head today.
Back to the post– What I’m surprised about the most though: why wasn’t anyone else indignant on the flight regarding the ejection of Mr. Smith. Why don’t people speak up when things like this happen? Surely the other passengers around didn’t all agree with what was happening.
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