Remember how on Friends, chubby teenaged Monica was always the butt of jokes?
Many of us laughed along when Chandler gave her the once-over and then actually chuckled at meeting her in one flashback episode — but why weren’t we asking ourselves why, exactly, poking fun at a particular body shape was in any way okay?
That’s one of the questions raised by upcoming documentary Fattitude, which aims to educate about fat discrimination and encourage a cultural shift in how we value fat bodies.
“After decades of consuming what popular culture has to offer, we got tired of the absence of bodily diversity and the all-out hatred of larger bodies,” co-creaters Lindsey Averill and Viridiana Lieberman said of their project.
Ms Averill told The Huffington Post that she was sick of fat people being only portrayed as “monsters or goofy best friends” in the media. “This rolls over into a culture where if you’re a fat person and good at your job, you may never get a promotion or a raise,” she said. “People look at you and think you’re lazy.”
Ms Averill has also revealed that she has been horrifically “terrorised” on social media since the release of this trailer. She wrote on Jezebel that some twitter users had caller her a “fat bitch”, made death threats and even ordered pizza to her house — as a way of announcing they had her address — since the trailer went public.
“All I’m trying to do is make a movie that exposes the reality of the fourth most prevalent form of discrimination in the United States. How did it come to this?” she said.
We think this sort of repugnant behaviour only serves to prove why it’s high time to put an end to fat discrimination once and for all.
Brava, Lindsey and Viridiana, for making this much-needed film. We can’t wait to see it.
Watch the trailer of the documentary, which is slated for released in 2015, here:
While we’re on the topic of changing our attitudes to body shape, we’d also like to see some more plus-size models in the media – like these lovely ladies:
If you’d like to donate to this kickstarter, you can do so here.
Top Comments
The word "fat" is way too vague. It's used when describing healthy-weight women compared to the fashion industry ideal; it's used when describing someone with a bit of extra weight; it's used when describing someone massively overweight. I think there needs to be a distinction between people who are carrying a bit of extra weight and those who are obese.
We are critical of allowing overly skinny models to appear in fashion shoots because that sends a dangerous message to women that could impact their health. Equally we should be critical of encouraging acceptance of obesity because it simply isn't healthy. I fail to see how, short of a particular disorder, someone who eats healthily can become obese even absent exercise.
Oh, I can't wait for this movie to come out! Like the movie MissRepresentation, it seems to point out the very narrow boxes available to categorise women in the media. This needs to become an issue that people become aware of - we have so much brainwashing on the other side, that anything pointing out the massive imbalances is going to be important.
I work in the health industry as a naturopath and I specialise in fatigue and metabolic disorders - a lot of weight gain is nothing to do with eating to much and exercising too little, as one lady in the movie commented, it is much more complex than that. Of course I believe that a healthy body is one that is not obese, but there is a big difference that healthy issue and carrying a bit of healthy weight. You cannot tell a person's health status from their weight alone.
This is also a gender issue, we just don't see men judged for carrying extra weight the way we do women. This whole thing is tied up in women being valued for their body and looks as the predominant factor. I look forward to this movie as in that short clip it did seem to target some very pertinent issues in this whole debate.