Hollywoods Fatphobia Problem

[Music]

once upon a time

i used to love amusement parks

the funnel cake the gravitron the smell

of grease and the sound of delighted

screams whooshing past me at 70 miles an

hour

as a young actress there was no better

job that i could imagine

than being cast as a princess at disney

world

can you imagine being covered in tulle

and rhinestones while screaming your

face off on space mountain during your

lunch break

that was my ultimate fantasy so

when i learned that my college was doing

sponsored internships to disney world

i leapt at the opportunity to finally

audition

for cinderella but

as it probably won’t surprise you i

never even made it past the admission

paperwork

after all to be a princess

you had to look like a princess

i was too fat to ride this ride

my name is jen ponton and honestly

i’m always a little nervous to tell

people that i’m an actress

i am acutely aware of how the world

perceives

my body and for a long time

how i perceived it i had eating

disorders my entire young life

i was on diets and punitive exercise

regimens

but no matter what i did my body

stubbornly insisted

on staying plus size the teen thrill

of shopping for a prom dress ended in

tears on the macy’s dressing room floor

boys would make bets over who would

dance with me at middle school socials

and as a die-hard muppet enthusiast i

was always torn between love

and revulsion over my nickname

miss piggy so as a theater major and

soon to be unemployed actress

in an unwanted body i wanted something

seemingly impossible

to be a leading lady to see

stories that we’ve never seen to see fat

women striving for something other than

weight loss

to see fat women succeeding to see fat

women

romanced and deliciously sexually owning

their bodies

i want to see fat women in politics in

medicine

in outer space because such profound

visibility is important when we see our

bodies so

insidiously ignored on screen we see fat

bodies

unprotected by legislation we see fat

bodies

medically abused we see a world

reflected back at us that says

you don’t even deserve basic care

who are you to wish for love

fat women are sometimes lovingly called

rubenesque

as a nod to the baroque artists who

painted fuller feminine bodies as divine

sensual and worthy of being gazed upon

well into the 1700s fat bodies were held

in high esteem

so what happened much as it has ruined

literally every other good thing in the

world

blame the transatlantic slave trade dr

sabrina strings examines this critical

connection

in her book fearing the black body the

racial origins

of fat phobia as protestant colonizers

poured

into africa so did their infamous

protestant ethic

hard work self-denial the mortification

of the flesh

all ideas to kill off bodily sins

by abstaining from pleasure by contrast

these colonizers noticed that african

culture was full of the divinity of

pleasure

food sex and earthly delights

for a while skin color alone was enough

for the colonizers to distinguish

between who was enslaved

and who was free but as interracial

babies were born

there was a need to redefine those

racial categories

and the colonizers looked to the

africans perceived

love of sensuality and lack of

self-control

if black women were having more sex

eating more food

they must inherently weigh more and

carry more venereal disease

thereby ensuring that they did not

deserve to be free

such grotesque objectification and

dehumanization of black female bodies

led to the horrific story of the hot and

taut venus

sarki bartman was a woman enslaved as a

sideshow

somehow both prized and reviled for her

lush

thick figure race science used her body

as

proof that blackness and by proxy

fatness was innately savage and

unevolved

fast forward to now slenderness became a

way for white

christians to separate themselves as

much as possible

from the instincts of black people

the racial religious roots of fatphobia

predated

any medical concern by over a hundred

years

flash forward and those same colonizers

founded

a deeply racially inequitable country

where fatness

has been pathologized dehumanized and

punished

at every turn especially in the media

turn on your televisions and you will

find unscripted shows like

the biggest loser or my 600 pound life

televised masochistic freak shows that

demean

and monstrify fat bodies fat suits take

the monstrosity even further

allowing thin bodies to play fatness for

a laugh

fat monica on friends the massage and

noir of norbit

austin powers is fat bastard and the

gut-punchiest of all

shallow hal a movie where a misogynistic

fat guy gets his karmic comeuppance by

falling in love

with renowned fat actress

gwyneth paltrow

but seriously when actual fat white

women are on screen

their plots center almost exclusively

around their weight

while the thin characters get to live

full nuanced lives

when fat black women are on tv they’re

cast in supporting roles

only to serve as caretaker to the thin

white heroine

fat white women are relegated to desexed

pathetic cat ladies who are perpetually

dieting

fat black women to dr strings’s point

are either painted as decadently sexual

inappropriate and impulsive

or desexed and dehumanized boxed into

magical negro

and mammy tropes more troubling still

are the abysmal statistics according to

refinery 29’s oft

cited 67 project 67 percent of american

women are plus size

however we only account for one to two

percent of the imagery

reflected in media of 30 television

shows that starred women

only three of them were shown to be plus

size

of 33 female leads in film

only two of them were plus size

female characters in film are three

times as likely to be thin

as their male counterparts

so how damaging is this erasure really

well an arizona state university study

found fat stigma in the media to be so

damaging to mental health that even a

supportive

affirming social structure could not

protect fat viewers from its effects

some participants even stated that they

would rather die prematurely or go

totally blind

than to be fat when we are not reflected

we are implicitly not valued

because of that colonial umbilicus to

white protestant christianity

fatness represents a profound moral

failure

one that implies laziness over

indulgence and repulsiveness

but the punishment for such a

transgression is not simply being denied

beauty or sexuality

it affects income career opportunities

and medical access

in ways that have needlessly imperiled

and even killed otherwise healthy fat

people

ellen maud bennett was a fat gal in

entertainment

just like me she owned a vintage

clothing shop

and she worked as a costume designer in

theater film and television

for several years ellen just didn’t feel

right

something was wrong and she returned to

her doctors over and over again only to

be turned away

and told to simply lose the weight

for people of color this callousness may

sound familiar

fair and ethical medical access is a

systemic problem that affects black and

brown communities in devastating ways

most of all black women by the time

someone was curious enough

to investigate properly in 2018 they

found ellen

riddled with cancer she died within days

of her diagnosis

her tragically preventable death is only

one example of the problematic obesity

goggles that doctors wear

from the beginning of their training

practitioners are so

focused on weight that they fail in

their only real task

to provide ethical evidence-based care

instead selling and pushing dangerous

weight loss drugs and procedures

but how dangerous could it really be

right it’s a doctor

well the fda issues its approvals based

on a risk

benefit analysis or the higher the

perceived risk

the more dangerous the treatment is

allowed to be

and because our fatphobic culture wildly

overestimates the risks

of being fat companies are allowed to

manufacture

extremely dangerous treatments

the fda to date has approved of

amphetamines

swallowing balloons and the mutilation

or otherwise removal

of healthy organs weight loss surgery

not

uncommonly ends in death

or in lifelong misery my friend health

coach

fitness instructor and marathoner reagan

chastain was prescribed weight loss

surgery

to cure her type 2 diabetes her high

blood pressure and her mobility problems

when she politely informed her doctor

that she had

none of those conditions he was like

lol maybe it’ll just make things easier

dating wise

but the harm doesn’t stop there not only

are doctors all

too willing to prescribe dangerous fat

interventions

they are less willing to prescribe

viable treatments if they have a

possible side effect of weight gain

instead they push poorly researched

weight loss schemes

95 percent of which fail over a

five-year period

the only proven effect time and time

again is that weight cycling

ravages mental health destroys heart

health and increases cortisol

the stress hormone that is actually

linked to diabetes hypertension and

heart disease

but even outside of the doctor’s office

fat phobia is

rampant in everyday life in 2008

waitresses at atlantic city’s borgata

were fired

for losing weight and they were left

with no legal recourse because

weight discrimination is not protected

anywhere in america

except for michigan not only are fat

employees not protected from being

unfairly fired

they also face fewer employment

opportunities and promotions

forbes reports that only 13 of female

ceos

are fat when we take a look at the

fortune 500

there is not a single female fat ceo to

be found

in the rest of the workplace a yale

study found that fat women earned

6.2 percent less than their thin

counterparts

for men that discrepancy is only 2.3

percent

and while a harvard study found that

implicit bias in the workplace

has decreased over time towards people

of color and lgbtq employees

it has unfortunately worsened over time

for their fat counterparts

these are the conditions that

entertainment contributes to

when we don’t allow fat bodies to be

reflected

in positive ways

enter a dark horse

instagram a social media phenomenon with

a twist

instagram offers an exclusively visual

diet and unlike facebook

it is essentially meant for following

people that you don’t know

people from all backgrounds people

with all bodies studies show

that changing our visual diets changes

what we find

aspirational so fun fact

did you know that instagram is actually

full of super aspirational

thriving fat happy sexy fat people

hashtag bobo fat and happy hashtag f

your beauty standards

they have all led to increased awareness

of the body positivity and fat

acceptance movements it’s led to the

year of

lizzo it’s led to savage fenty fashion

shows

it’s led to shrill and diet land on tv

it’s led to nicole byer

becoming america’s favorite television

host

it has even led to shows like orange is

the new black

which is full of fat patriarchy defying

black and brown bodies of all genders

this kind of media exposure benefits

everyone

in the years since laverne cox burst on

the scene we’ve seen a heightened

awareness of the struggles of trans

individuals

especially the unique dangers that face

black trans women

and in addressing the american people

president-elect

joe biden became the first ever to

acknowledge trans citizens in his

victory speech

likewise we can’t ignore the effects of

shows like glee

on lgbtq youth glee set the stage for

the it gets better movement

it created a culture that allowed queer

youth to bravely own their own truth

far sooner than the generations that

came before them

these are not flukes

they’re proof when we see

marginalized people positively reflected

on screen

our capacity for empathy and compassion

deepens our humanity expands to include

their lived experience

with determined representation in

entertainment

legislation and social norms change to

make room at the table for people who

have never before had a seat

so i ask you what might it feel like

to see yourself on screen when you’ve

never before been told you were worthy

of being seen

what would it feel like for the hero to

look like you

to feel like you to have walked a day in

your shoes

because when i see fat women valued in

entertainment

i feel like there is nothing that i

can’t do there is no dream too big there

is no door that i can’t open

when we commit to telling everyone’s

stories

we can create the hollywood that we want

and the hollywood that i want well

it makes abundant room for every fat

black brown queer trans-disabled

princess

or prince x making them feel like they

deserve to be wrapped up

in pearls and ribbons by birds and mice

about to take off in an enchanted

pumpkin for their cinderella moment

thank you