Monday, January 28, 2019
Why Can’t I Be Both?
StateraArts: America hates fat people, specifically fat womxn and femmes. Our rampant diet-crazed culture equates self worth with waist size. Commercials celebrate post-diet bodies like prizes, magazines promise ways to lose 30 lbs in 30 days, and even Instagram touts some secret tea that will flatten your tummy. If you aren’t getting hefty servings of body-shame from the media, chances are you are being force-fed the same rhetoric by friends and family via grandmothers talking about the newest fad diet they are trying, friends asking which dress makes them look less fat, and mothers stressing over getting their “good” figure back. This inherited hate has been passed down for so many generations that we waste no time passing it on and teaching children there is always a better way to have a body. So what happens when your body is your business? Your livelihood?
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3 comments:
It is troubling that an industry which is normally so welcoming to marginalized groups has the issues it does with plus-sized people. This article also does a really great job with addressing exactly what the issues are within and even outside of the industry. It really helped me realize my own problematic behavior. I could not care less what people look like, but I still find myself always replying with "don't say that!" or "you're not fat at all" when someone says that about themselves because it is so ingrained in me that fat is an insult. I think that word really needs to lose the power it has right now. I'm not sure what would make that happen, but I am for sure going to start being more careful about what exactly I say when reacting to those comments.
I also think that it is great that we are recognizing that we need to be more accepting in our industry, but we also need to act on it. I notice that pretty much all of the performance majors at CMU have the same body type. Maybe it is time that those responsible for making those decisions stop talking about diversifying and instead actually do it.
This has been my favorite article to read this year. While I don’t fall into the category of what this article considers “fat,” this article has provided me with insight into a perspective I will never fully understand. I also think the list of example microaggressions within theatre and just in general life are enlightening. I’ve always assumed that costuming is where these aggressions would take place most often, however, I’m not at all shocked that type casting is part of the problem. I personally think that theatre really fails on some level when it comes to acknowledging diversity. To automatically assume someone is white/skinny unless specified otherwise is wrong and a bias that needs to be untrained by many members of society. I also think that the fact that being “fat” is relative is such a hard conversation to have with people. It’s hard to talk about things that are relative, when people who are size zero will call themselves “fat” on a daily basis, and within the framework this article provides, they’re using the word “fat” incorrectly.
This article does a great job of highlighting the issues that society puts on people who are seen as fat and identifying “fatphobic” behaviors that go so commonly unnoticed. We definitely live in a word that puts a strong and hard line between beauty and weight, even those are two things that are in no means exclusionary of one another. I think the theatre industry has been trying to break the type-casting mindset when it comes to race, ethnicity, and gender, but it choses to ignore it when it comes to matters of physical appearance and “fatness”, but ultimately that is just as big of a problem that is being faced, as is the microaggressions a costumer or director says. Talking about matters surrounding weight and body positivity/ body acceptance is very difficult in our society today, because it is seen as taboo or frowned upon, but it is also something that needs to be seen, heard, and talked about. This article definitely starts a conversation that has barely begun.
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