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The past year has been pretty good for increased representation of body positivity in the media. Like many women, it means enough to me that I cataloged them in a series of mental pictures that I can access quickly.
There is Adie Bryant, smiling boring half-hair Fat Babe Pool Party in "Shrill" just before declaring, "I honestly think of buying a short top, which, I must say, was not in the cards before." There has a moment of intoxicating silence in the Netflix movie "Dumplin & # 39;" right after Bo tells Willowdean exactly what he feels for her. Lizzo is emblematic Yellow bodysuit unveil at 2019 VMA.
This is the outfit she wore when she stood on a pedestal and declared, as a pulpit preacher: "It's so hard to try to love yourself in a world that does not love you back , am I not right? So, I want to take this opportunity to feel good.
We all know that the media is important and that seeing yourself on the screen in a world where all types of bodies are not valued equally can feel subversive and joyful, as if stubbornly a flower in a concrete sidewalk crack.
But inevitably, someone wants to pick this flower, in the same way that Bill Maher has built a segment of his HBO show "Real Time" around his claim that "there is no need to put end to shame. he must make a comeback. "
"Being fat is not a congenital malformation," Maher said. "Nobody comes out of the womb without needing to buy two seats on the plane. We went to this strange place where the fat is good. This means that fat is bad for your health – that's what's bad … some shame is good. "
It's a lazy catch, but a deflation all the same. But shortly thereafter, I found another snapshot to add to my mental collection: James Corden sitting behind his desk in "The Late Late Show" after putting Maher deeply in his place.
"I was looking at it and I thought," Oh man, somebody has to say something about it, "Corden said last Thursday." If only there was someone with a platform, who really knew what it was to be overweight, so I thought, "Oh, it's going to be me."
He went on to say that he did not really know where Maher had had the idea that it was necessary to shame the shame. For many people, the guilt surrounding their weight has been and will continue to be reinforced at every turn – from family and peer reviews, to commercials for weight loss pills, to The new weight watchers diet app for kids.
"There is a common and insulting misconception that fat people are stupid and lazy and we are not," Corden said. "We get it, we know it. We know that overweight is not good for us and I have spent my whole life trying to manage my weight and I am really bad. "
He continued, "Basically, I remember my diet and that's how it happens."
Corden then launches into a brief explanation that shaming fat does not help people manage their weight (as well as self-deprecating jokes, because he's still a comedian) . Not surprisingly, this leads to feelings of guilt and embarrassment that can fuel depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behaviors. And, as Corden said, let's be honest, "shame on fat" is just a neat term for bullying.
And while obesity is a systemic health problem that contributes to many factors, including poverty and the lack of accessible health care, Corden summed up: "We are not all as lucky as Bill Maher. We do not all have a sense of superiority that burns 35,000 calories a day. "
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