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