If we can grasp – deep down inside – that all the things we have been taught about how our bodies are wrong, are lies – then we can beat it. All we need to do is unlearn.
But now, even when I have a self-hating day, I still fundamentally believe that fat bodies are worthy. Even when I wear large shirts to cover my stomach, I know in my heart that I am allowed to take up space. It sometimes feels contradictory, sure, that at the same time as I have words like ‘ugly’ and ‘gross’ in my head I can think, ‘I am as deserving of being here as everyone else,’ and, ‘Fat bodies are as beautiful as other bodies because beauty is subjective and there are no rules.’fn9
But to me, that was the way in. Talking with Andrea allowed me to sidestep my feelings about myself and reach the centre of my brain where I understood that systematic oppression and discrimination can make a person internalise a lot of hatred.
When fat people say to me, ‘Oh, I could never love myself, I don’t have that confidence,’ I tell them this. ‘You don’t have to have confidence, you just have to be able to understand the basic principle of maths. The more we hate our bodies, the richer these companies get. Ergo, they make us feel bad, in order to make money. Ergo, you do not hate your body because your body is wrong. You hate your body because someone lied to you.’
We believe that the objective truth is that it is a bad thing to be fat. When you realise that it is not an objective truth, but rather, someone’s capitalist and very subjective stance, you can begin to let go of the self-hatred.
Your confidence grows from believing this and creating your own subjectivity. If you truly believe that your body is not the enemy, then you can begin to treat it with the love it deserves. I have bad days where I am without confidence. But the good days are incredible – where I look at my stomach and feel nothing but genuine awe. Where I observe my thighs in the mirror and feel absolutely blessed and lucky to have such sexy, plump thighs. Where I think I look amazing in every single photo I take of myself, regardless of the angles. Where I strut down the street in a crop top and tiny shorts with no make-up and enough self-esteem to blow the roof off a straight-sized clothing store.fn10 Where I actually live the life that Instagram claims I do.
I started from the lowest point possible. The confidence came with time – and it all started when I realised that fat people are worthy. Fat people are deserving of happiness and entitled to take up space. Fat people are not lesser humans.
You can be happy and fat, you deserve to be happy and fat, being happy and fat is an option.
All you need to do is believe that and then we can begin.
We need a fat Disney princess, and how to actually ask for one
I like to imagine all art as a house of mirrors. Most people when coming face to face with the way popular culture reflects them might notice that it is more or less distorted. We all know that television, for example, is not an accurate portrayal of reality. Even reality TV has been oxymoronically constructed and edited, with elaborately chosen clips, background music and leading questions from the producers. We know that very few people in real life can walk away in slow motion from an explosion behind them. That if you were to murder someone detrimental to your career in crime, you would not take up valuable time explaining to them your exact plan in great detail, giving them a chance to escape.fn1 Deep down, we know these things. Yet art is often so similar to our lives in many other ways. The hero tied up and beaten in front of the villain is scared, the same way we would be if that happened to us. The woman kissed by Chris Pratt has a big smile on her face – the same way we would probably react in that situation.fn2 How are we meant to be able to fully distinguish between the real world and the artificial reality that’s been manufactured to entertain us?
If art is a house of mirrors in which you see yourself reflected, it can be hard to tell which mirror is you – and which is slightly altered by Photoshop, a TV producer, the ad company or a camera lens. If you are a white, straight, cis-gender male in your thirties, you might see yourself reflected as a ‘strong and manly’ man. This is quite possibly not much different from how you have been brought up. You will often see yourself fight in wars, battle criminals in a big city, climb buildings, jump out of helicopters, save the fair maiden and kiss her passionately. You will see yourself as having a multifaceted personality – you can see yourself as the angry white, straight cis-gender man, as the happy white, straight cis-gender man, you can see yourself as the evil character, the goofy, the geeky, the nerdy, the good character, the intelligent character, the funny character, the sexy, the handsome, the ugly, the hero, the villain, the king, the president, the cab driver, the lawyer, the janitor. You can be thin, muscular, chubby, young and dating a young woman, or old and dating a young woman. (As a white, straight cis-gender man you can even see yourself reflected back as both black, gay and transgender, and Hollywood will even trust you to portray such a character more than people who live in this identity every day.)1
You may not relate to all or any of the images reflected back at you, but at least you will have a choice. There is no stereotypical ‘white, straight cis-gender man’ in art. You can be it all. You are it all. A study has shown that among children, the only group whose self-esteem increases by watching television is white boys.2 The other groups tested, white and black girls and black boys, all showed a decrease of self-esteem.
As soon as there is a segment of your existence that is not seen as mainstream – whether you are a woman, fat, a person of colour, visibly religious (wearing a headscarf, for example), trans, queer, someone with a disability – you find yourself limited by the representation of you. There is a lot to say – and there has been a lot said – about the stereotypes surrounding most of these labels, but I would like to dive into the representation of fat people in particular.
When a fat person walks through the house of mirrors that is art, the mirrors almost exclusively show you as a person who is unattractive, unintentionally funny, evil, lazy, unintelligent or unwanted. Ursula, the evil Sea Witch who grabs Ariel’s voice, Fat Monica in Friends, Hitchcock and Scully in the otherwise inclusive show Brooklyn 99, who are two dum-dums who can’t figure out how to do anything and just spend all day eating, Brad Pitt’s character in Friends who used to be fat and now is ‘hot’ (as it’s apparently impossible to be both), the fat characters in The Simpsons – Homer, who is unintelligent, Barney who is an uncontrollable drunk, Ralph, who is unintelligent and unlovable. And of course, in Family Guy, we have Peter Griffin who is unintelligent – alongside every single fat person that ever shows up in Family Guy only to be mocked horrendously. Like when Peter imagines that his son Chris is dating a fat woman, we see her needing to back into the garage, like a truck, after which Peter says, ‘So do you prefer Fatty or Miss Boombalatty?’ Or when Bryan is forced to hit on a fat girl and he does it by saying, ‘Is that highlights in your hair or potato chips?’ and she answers, slightly dim-wittedly, ‘Highlights!’ Then, in a slow voice, ‘You got me sweating above and below my ass.’ When she leaves his house the following morning, Stewie says that Bettina is way too fancy a name for her: she should be called ‘Thud or Oof’.
In New Girl, there are often flashbacks to the show’s hotty Schmidt being fat (where he is wearing a fat-suit). When he is fat, he is generally a whole other person. He is pathetic and sad all the time. He is clumsy and lazy. It is laughable
